three suited men in my coffeeshop. one of them just said, "my personal idea of progress is moving things forward," which is actually just the definition. everyone's nodding. guys like this are in charge of every industry and it's clearly why trains explode
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[–] 0 points 7 months ago (7 children)

They aren’t though. Hardly any open source projects are completely unique types of software with no alternatives.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (6 children)

    If that’s the case, why are you going to get free dirt steak when you can go get free not dirt steak? Yes this is still the metaphor. 

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  • [–] -1 points 7 months ago* (5 children)

    It’s free dirt steak or overcooked chicken or one of those delivery meal kits where you have to cook everything yourself.

    But the whole point about the dirt steak is that simply not dropping it in the dirt would be so much less effort than all the arguing that has already gone on in this thread. Everyone arguing against me is trying to justify feeding people dirt because “passion project > building something really nice, clean, and polished that users love”, which is why so much of open source on the desktop remains a niche hobby for 3 decades and counting.

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago (4 children)

    These people are making the steaks for themselves and are generous to offer the scraps to the community. If you go around demanding free steaks all the time, I ask why don’t you start cooking steaks too?

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  • [–] -1 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    You speak as if it’s only generosity that motivates people to contribute to open source. That power, recognition, career advancement, or even salary (which may not be publicly acknowledged) are not factors.

    You can say the same about moderators on forums or hobby wikis. I think a lot of them are motivated by the sense of ownership and power they have over others within a particular area of interest.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (2 children)

    Yes, but you’re still getting free burgers and complaining to the chef. Whatever is motivating the chef is irrelevant.

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  • [–] -1 points 7 months ago* (1 child)

    Complaining that he keeps dropping the burgers in the dirt and then insisting we eat dirt.

    Why don’t you try volunteering at a soup kitchen and trying to serve people food you dropped on the floor? Let me know how that goes for you.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

    When I volunteer at a soup kitchen, I am serving someone else’s soup to people. When I am the burger man changing the way burgers are being made, I am using my own money, time, and ingredients all the way through. There is a difference.

    No one is insisting you eat dirt, btw. You’re willingly choosing to eat dirt and then complaining to the generous burger man after the fact.

    The people being served are not poor homeless people with nowhere else to go. They are middle class, have the tools they need to cook burgers themselves, and still insist on eating someone else’s burgers.

    The Open Source world is not a soup kitchen created to serve you. If that’s how you see it, then we clearly have different opinions. I don’t personally go around complaining for that free thing someone gave me to be better. That’s a weak mindset. If you want something, go build it yourself. You’ll have all the control over it that you want. Complaining about it is childish.

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