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The Internet Was Built on the Free Labor of Open Source Developers. Is That Sustainable?

posted by chromas on Friday February 15 2019, @10:22PM   Printer-friendly
from the yes dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

Motherboard:

On the surface, the open source software community has never been better. Companies and governments are adopting open source software at rates that would’ve been unfathomable 20 years ago, and a whole new generation of programmers are cutting their teeth on developing software in plain sight and making it freely available for anyone to use. Go a little deeper, however, and the cracks start to show.

The ascendancy of open source has placed a mounting burden on the maintainers of popular software, who now handle more bug reports, feature requests, code reviews, and code commits than ever before. At the same time, open source developers must also deal with an influx of corporate users who are unfamiliar with community norms when it comes to producing and consuming open source software. This leads to developer burnout and a growing feeling of resentment toward the companies that rely on free labor to produce software that is folded into products and sold back to consumers for huge profits.

The Free Rider Problem rears its head again?

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 16 2019, @03:01AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 16 2019, @03:01AM (#801906)

    However, the fact that the E-F's comment above is so highly rated despite its cliche white supremacist rhetoric says really bad things about this community.

    You're free to GTFO. Would be better for your virtue signalling cred too.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 16 2019, @03:28AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 16 2019, @03:28AM (#801913)

    i>You're free to GTFO. Would be better for your virtue signalling cred too.

    I'm also free to stay and comment as long as I am no less civil than those I reply to. As is everyone here.

    Or is ethnic hate a TOS requirement for an account here? If so, just confirm by replying to this and I'll fuck right off, no harm no foul.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 16 2019, @04:45AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 16 2019, @04:45AM (#801933)

      You're also free to stay. I guess you like hanging with us racists then...

      • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 16 2019, @04:57AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 16 2019, @04:57AM (#801935)

        You're also free to stay. I guess you like hanging with us racists then...

        I like the site. I just disagree with some of you. I might come over to your dark side if you had tastier cookies. The SJW dark side cookies are vegan and icky. :-)