Linus’ power doesn’t come from Ownership, but respect. Anyone can fork it and do what they want, but because Linus is respected, everyone else follows suit.
Anarchism would function in a similar manner, it wouldn’t be a bunch of opinionated people doing whatever they want, but people generally listening to experts who don’t actually hold systemic power.
I would disagree and say it’s more akin to a philosopher king hence less anarchy and more monarchy. It’s all good until the king dies and let’s see who succeeds them.
Many times what? Most forks die within a few months. Especially for big and well known projects. For example, io.js was a fork of NodeJs. Didn’t last long and was killed by NodeJs. All the Firefox forks are pretty much dead as well. Linux also had plenty of forks by people who disagreed with Linus and where are they now? I bet you don’t even remember their names.
Forks don’t work unless the original project is dead.
This is incorrect. It’s true that most (in fact, I would say almost all) forks go nowhere but that doesn’t mean forking isn’t incredibly valuable. Even the example you cite, “original project is dead” isn’t just incidentally useful, it’s critical to open source. Other examples include:
project’s core team is part of a for profit org that is moving the project in a bad, profit motivated direction:
project’s leader suddenly and dramatically loses respect (maybe he killed his wife or something);
project’s leader dies without leaving a digital will regarding who controls the core repo;
project continues to direct effort into features while falling to address major security concerns;
project is healthy and useful in every way but there is an important use case not being addressed, and the fork would address it.
Even if 99% of forks fail, that’s irrelevant because 99% of original projects fail in the same ways. Forks are critical to open source.
So mass adoption is your answer, and I’d say you’re misguided. The purpose of FOSS isn’t to make a profit, but to satisfy uses and needs. If a few people have a need for a fork and use it, then it’s a success.
You’re judging FOSS software by popularity, rather than use, as though it’s for profit.
I would say we should just let unjust societies fail so just ones can take their place, but that seems to be the natural course. We’re seeing that right now.
Opnsense is a fork of pfSense. It’s wildly successful. Plex was a fork of XBMC (which itself became Kodi). Plex is also wildly successful. You should probably think before you speak.
Nextcloud is a FOSS fork of OwnCloud. Both projects are great in their own way, hugely successful and serve a lot of people very well. They just moved in different directions.
This is just one example of many. Ability to fork is super important to ensure that projects stay open source, like in this example.
You can fork it, sure Linus is very respected and his decisions are considered very important but you can fork it and change however you want so it’s still compatible with Anarchism.
So I did miss that Linus is in the article, but the reference to him says he was awarded the title, which makes it sound like an honour rather than a hierarchical system. I don’t believe that he’s ever been anything other than the projects owner/founder but I’m happy to learn if I’m wrong.
Yes, that’s just how open source works. Of course they always serve at the pleasure of the community, otherwise forks would happen. Nobody said otherwise. As the “Usage” section of that article implies, the “benevolent” bit comes from the feedback loop of a happy community supporting their dictator-for-life.
I mean how the community refers to him. I’ve never read a thread where someone called Linus a BDFL, I have with python. If they do, they do. Just haven’t seen it myself.
Free software doesn’t have owners. If someone else did a better job of being the “benevolent dictator” of a fork of Linux, everyone would start using that fork. Arguably this is a more free-market system than non-free software.
Isn’t it a benevolent dictatorship with Linus at the head?
Linus’ power doesn’t come from Ownership, but respect. Anyone can fork it and do what they want, but because Linus is respected, everyone else follows suit.
Anarchism would function in a similar manner, it wouldn’t be a bunch of opinionated people doing whatever they want, but people generally listening to experts who don’t actually hold systemic power.
I would disagree and say it’s more akin to a philosopher king hence less anarchy and more monarchy. It’s all good until the king dies and let’s see who succeeds them.
It will be most telling when Linus dies.
No, a king’s power derives from authority, not from the good will of its subjects
See and I see it more as in modern times where it’s a simple figurehead.
But a king must have power and authority, Linus just has influence and labor, thus expertise.
How often does forking actually work in the real world? Pretty much never.
Many times, and it’s always an option for FOSS software. What do you consider “working?” Mass adoption, or satisfying needs and use-cases?
Many times what? Most forks die within a few months. Especially for big and well known projects. For example, io.js was a fork of NodeJs. Didn’t last long and was killed by NodeJs. All the Firefox forks are pretty much dead as well. Linux also had plenty of forks by people who disagreed with Linus and where are they now? I bet you don’t even remember their names.
Forks don’t work unless the original project is dead.
This is incorrect. It’s true that most (in fact, I would say almost all) forks go nowhere but that doesn’t mean forking isn’t incredibly valuable. Even the example you cite, “original project is dead” isn’t just incidentally useful, it’s critical to open source. Other examples include:
Even if 99% of forks fail, that’s irrelevant because 99% of original projects fail in the same ways. Forks are critical to open source.
Your comment doesn’t make any sense, sorry.
Try reading slower. Look up words you don’t understand with a dictionary.
Try getting a brain.
It seems to me that you’ve just made up your mind and as such are not invested in even trying to understand other arguments.
So mass adoption is your answer, and I’d say you’re misguided. The purpose of FOSS isn’t to make a profit, but to satisfy uses and needs. If a few people have a need for a fork and use it, then it’s a success.
You’re judging FOSS software by popularity, rather than use, as though it’s for profit.
There’s no success.
You’re misinformed. It’s okay to admit when you’re wrong.
No, you’re just a delusional zealot.
What is a success?
plenty of Firefox forks are still thriving and getting updates
Firedragon and LibreWolf seem to be pretty healthy. I’ve been using LW daily for over a year and FD daily for 1-2 years before that.
What do you mean by “actually work in the real world”? I can go on GitHub right now and fork a project within 5 minutes. So can you. It works.
And?
I would say we should just let unjust societies fail so just ones can take their place, but that seems to be the natural course. We’re seeing that right now.
Opnsense is a fork of pfSense. It’s wildly successful. Plex was a fork of XBMC (which itself became Kodi). Plex is also wildly successful. You should probably think before you speak.
Plex is a commercial and proprietary product.
Nextcloud is a FOSS fork of OwnCloud. Both projects are great in their own way, hugely successful and serve a lot of people very well. They just moved in different directions.
This is just one example of many. Ability to fork is super important to ensure that projects stay open source, like in this example.
You can fork it, sure Linus is very respected and his decisions are considered very important but you can fork it and change however you want so it’s still compatible with Anarchism.
Youre thinking of python I reckon -link to wikipedia
The article you link literally lists Linus under the referent candidates section.
So I did miss that Linus is in the article, but the reference to him says he was awarded the title, which makes it sound like an honour rather than a hierarchical system. I don’t believe that he’s ever been anything other than the projects owner/founder but I’m happy to learn if I’m wrong.
Yes, that’s just how open source works. Of course they always serve at the pleasure of the community, otherwise forks would happen. Nobody said otherwise. As the “Usage” section of that article implies, the “benevolent” bit comes from the feedback loop of a happy community supporting their dictator-for-life.
I mean how the community refers to him. I’ve never read a thread where someone called Linus a BDFL, I have with python. If they do, they do. Just haven’t seen it myself.
Free software doesn’t have owners. If someone else did a better job of being the “benevolent dictator” of a fork of Linux, everyone would start using that fork. Arguably this is a more free-market system than non-free software.