I'm unbiased towards the subject. I'm genuinely curious about how long-term FOSS ideology would work.
I'm using FOSS but I'd still consider myself a casual user. It seems like most FOSS I've seen is a free, buggy, alternative to mainstream software, which resolves a problem the user had.
From my perspective, (and do correct me if I'm wrong) FOSS doesnt seem sustainable. Everyone can contribute, but how do they make a living? My guess is they do other things for income. And what about the few contributors who do 90% of the work?
What if every software became FOSS? Who would put in the free labor to write the software to print a page, or show an image on screen, or create something more complex like a machine learning advanced AI software?
Would it simply be that everyone provides for each other? Everyone pitches in? What about people who have bills to pay? Would their bills be covered?
This concludes my right-before-bed psychology inquiry.
I don’t know what kind of sw you use, but usually I find Foss software to be sleek, functional, fast with good support and updates, while commercial software is ridden with ads, trackers, bloat and bugs. Exceptions on both sides but the notion that free software is generally worse is categorically incorrect.
So first not everyone can contribute. Usually people who also use the software and have personal (or monetary) interest in it, contribute.
And why does everything has to be about monetisation? Yes, both people and gigantic corporations make money off foss in various ways, I’m sure others have explained that already. But people also do things for other reasons than just money.
But I’m just baffled how people so often declare that foss can’t work or that it’s qualitatively worse, even though the entire planet has been dependent on foss for decades.
No, just because someone sells something directly, doesn’t mean it’s inherently better.
I mean, I compose music and release it but nobody gives me a dime. I imagine it’s the same with software.
Pretty much. I’m a plugin developer for Decky Loader on Steam Deck and my sole motivation is I enjoy building cool shit. I wanted a feature on my Deck that didn’t exist…so I just made it. Then, since others wanted the feature I created a pull request to the Plugin Store so everyone could use it.
I’ve spoken with quite a few of the other Steam Deck Homebrew developers and they basically all had the same story. It’s also nice because if you get stuck or need help there are hundreds of people you can ask who are very knowledgeable, and more than willing to help.
Agreed. I’ve directly communicated to the developers of FOSS to ask questions or report issues and they’ve responded and provided support. Try getting that from anyone that actually knows anything at Microsoft.
I’m not skilled enough to contribute with coding but I’ve been able to support others using FOSS with help troubleshooting or getting set up. I don’t mind doing that for free as it helps the community to have more people using the software. I also post guides for other things I’ve figured out how to do for free. I’m documenting it anyway for my own reference, I might as well share it to others too.
Often FOSS software has lots of customisation options, some of which can conflict or make it not play nicely. That can be buggy for users. Commercial software is usually simpler but lacks customisation options. Ads, not so. Ich, unless it’s shareware or windows itself. I love foss, but if it was polished and simple, without bugs, there would not be commercial versions.
I find 95% of foss software to be better than the commercial alternatives, and I’m not joking. As for bugs, foss devs are usually faster to respond to bug reports and user requests too, unless it’s some mismanaged behemoth like Mozilla.
Thing is, commercial software can use the money for advertising and marketing. Foss, especially of the free to use kind, usually only spread by word of mouth, and even that only within the foss communities at first.
Let’s not get into examples, because I’m sure we can always find examples for every case and it often comes to specific preferences. My general point is, that people who think free has to be crap, and commercial has to be good, are categorically wrong.
It’s in fact backwards: if you do something only for money, you’re incentivized to do the least amount of work either for maximum effectiveness or to give yourself time to do stuff you actually want to do.
I think you’re right in that there are examples on both sides. I think Foss software is often powerful, but not always as simple to use. It’s designed for functionality. Commercial software is designed to be easiest to use.
As we develop best practices more and more for UX, I think that is fading. I don’t think marketing alone is the issue. Foss users often promote the free software and the price point is good. Take internet explorer. It’s heavily marketed and free (not FOSS) but it’s use is low. Software needs to fulfill a need for the user.
Foss is often filling a small niche. There are only a few large FOSS projects with broad appeal. Even then, it is difficult to not have them fracture and fork, which is better for options but usually poorer for the individual user after they have chosen.
I think for most things that are common, FOSS will end up the default eventually. There are few things that Microsoft can do to word to make it more attractive than librroffice. Excel is still ahead but the gap is closing for most users