Get the latest tech news
Open Source Software and Corporate Influence
Open source software projects are frequently enmeshed with the interests of corporations. We should update mental models of who works on open source accordingly, and build or modify power structures to be more resilient to corporate capture.
As documented in “The New Kingmakers” by Stephen O’Grady, developers saw open source software as an expression of their power as a labor group, an opportunity to build skills and engage socially on topics of shared interest, and a place of freedom from the demands and constraints that exist in commercial engineering which degrade commitment to rigor or quality. Mark Zuckerberg, during a recent interview for the podcast “Acquired,” explicitly stated this reasoning motivated a great deal of Facebook’s open source software releases, specifically undercutting Google. This means that the negative externalities identified in this piece, including ecosystem-wide increases in minimum expectations and the pressure this places on maintainers, greater systemic exposure to relicensing risk, and persistent bias in project priorities toward corporate needs, will continue as well.
Or read this on Hacker News
