From Collaborators to Consumers: Have We Killed the Soul of Open Source?
Posted by dragasit@reddit | linux | View on Reddit | 100 comments
The Open Source community is becoming increasingly polarized. From the "distro wars" to Wayland vs. X11, the spirit of collaboration is fading. Are we shifting from "collaborators" to "consumers", and what can we do to build bridges instead of walls?
daemonpenguin@reddit
I think this is two separate issues. Polarization is one issue and tends to get amplified by online discussion.
The ecosystem shifting from collaborators to consumers is a natural side effect of the ecosystem attracting people from outside the tech community.
gatornatortater@reddit
I feel like we are getting closer to the point where a true for profit distro that would never be something we'd ever use, but would be a closed garden in the way grandma (and many people over at linuxnoobs) would want it with iso images and repositories hiding behind paywalls and high quality personal support... yet the source available to be looked at by those who asked. Basically a consumer distro that is redhat enterprise style.
Or maybe make it so you provide the computers as well. Choose a laptop model that is linux friendly. Kinda like a corporate sysadmin for your own customers.
Anyways... I'm thinking the ecosystem for true consumer grade users is more about something between the ecosystem creator and their customers, and not about any package developers. Kind of like what Steam is doing with their SteamOS is doing. I definitely expect them to be providing utility themed systems for non-gamers using that same model they are using now in a few years.
If that happens, Microsoft could really die within about 10-15 years. Although if things start going in that direction I'd bet money that MS would make their own linux distro using that same model and carry on as normal.
srivasta@reddit
You mean like MacOS but leveraging free software work done by other people? How will it remain a closed garden? Someone will but one copy and then distribute that for a lower cost.
And could this gpl based closed garden complete with apple and windows and still make a profit enough to pay for that quality support?
gatornatortater@reddit
How? In the same way that redhat enterprise is a "walled garden".
Or like the other suggestion I made about renting the laptop as well. You'd be providing the service.
Theoretically I think it can be done easily enough. Can I promise that? Of course not, the future is not written in stone.
But I'd be surprised if someone isn't already doing something similar. Like all new things, the early adopter customer base would have plenty of money to spend on someone else to do the complicated stuff so they don't have to.
srivasta@reddit
Didn't centos and others do a good job of defenestrating the RHEL walled garden?
But sure, a RH like company focused on the container market is conceivable, but I personally doubt that the market exists in have of Windows and Mac already entrenched in.
Good luck.
gatornatortater@reddit
A massive market? No... certainly not. But I think there is one big enough to keep a sys admin person doing it as a comfortable full time job in mostly a local market.
A couple months ago I was reading a reddit post from an older guy who had a linux computer he was trying to figure out how to replace. He knew nothing about linux or windows, but a friend had installed linux on his machine a decade ago and had since moved out of town. He just used his computer for general internet and office type work and he had loved it. Or at least when he thought about it, which wasn't often because it always just worked so smoothly.
I could easily see someone like that being happy to spend $100+ on a subscription that is known to be secure, both from the rest of the public and Microsoft or Apple. There are more than enough non-diy-computer people who distrust Microsoft and Apple and would love to use linux, but they're just worried about it being too complicated for them or having to learn something new.
srivasta@reddit
You optimism about this is endearing. Without the economies of scale this is even less workable. A single person can't create and maintain a walked garden.
A single person might be able to offer a support contract to enough people to support, say, Debian machines, but then you have to get enough people to help pay your mortgage (I tried this in the dot com era. Not easy).
gatornatortater@reddit
Well.. I've no idea if there is enough demand, but I have been seeing more interest from non-technical people with plenty of money to spend on it, so I strongly suspect there presently is. And I've known of people who have done something similar for a couple people or so as a side business.
It would definitely require a good amount of marketing and you'd certainly want to target the retirement crowd.
And no, certainly not easy, but I do think it would definitely be doable. Certainly would be in my area of central NC.
srivasta@reddit
If they have plenty of money why are they not just buying Apple products, since software freedom is not on their radar? Apple just works. It looks modern and sexy.
If there was a market I think red hat, in and canonical would have used their early mover advantage already.
gatornatortater@reddit
I think I touched on that in the earlier comment.
Also, I think a person that people know and talk to in person can have quite an advantage over Ubuntu or Red Hat. Think in the same way that some people have a long term relationship with some local guy for all their computer related repairs and support.
srivasta@reddit
This is mostly a problem for the "ecosystem". The people who actually do the work, who are still mostly unpaid hobbyists (there are 59,000 source packages in Trixie. A couple dozen are probably funded by corporations).
The software community (LKML, @lists.debian.org, etc) are mostly still the same.
_Sgt-Pepper_@reddit
I can tell you what happened in one word (actually two):
Social Media
It’s the cancer of modern society
ausstieglinks@reddit
While I do agree with what the author is saying, I feel like they have missed the core shift in open source, which is the shift from a community based approach to a corporate one
MouseJiggler@reddit
Which is exactly the problem.
MouseJiggler@reddit
The corpo-backed projects that purport to dictate how the "standard" distros should work definitely would like that.
auzy1@reddit
I really don't think so
It's gotten far better in the past 20 years.
These days, mostly everyone is united
bigdaddybigboots@reddit
Lol nah. Nothing's changed, there's just more people which is a good thing. Think of more like how people gripe about android or iOS, same way they gripe about vi and emacs or gnome and kde or Ubuntu and literally any other distro.
liquidpele@reddit
Open source won... I don't think people remember how shitty things were when everything was closed source. It was never about keeping corporate out of open source, it was keeping the source code open so anyone can use it if they have the skill... and that's been fantastic.
srivasta@reddit
You didn't think that it was about the four essential software freedoms?
liquidpele@reddit
No, I’m a little more realist than his highness Stallman.
mina86ng@reddit
Sure, the overal message of ‘let’s be nice to each other’ is comendable, but the examples and reasoning are somewhat lacking.
‘Open source’ is the exact antithesis of this sentiment. The term was coined to attract big funding into free software.
Perhaps because barely anyone uses BSDs? As number of users grow, there will be more users who like to argue about their system being the best. If BSDs you’ve listed had the same number of users as all GNU/Linux distributions, they would have the same kind of ‘distro wars’.
We can still do that.
I can explain some reasons why people may have strong feelings about Wayland: Wayland lacks some X11 features . However, the direction is that Wayland will eliminate X11 so users who need those features will lose them. They won’t have an option to not use Wayland.
Does it? Or is free software just as polarised as it has even been? Before Wayland there was systemd. Before that there was Emacs vs (clearly inferior) Vi(m).
You’re giving an argument for hating Wayland because, as I’ve mentioned, the promise of Wayland is to kill X11.
-Sa-Kage-@reddit
The promise on Wayland is no longer having code designed for a different tech stack and not have any app that wants to be a keylogger.
This comes with downsides obviously aside that they take ages to agree on anything (thx GNOME) and therefore development being slow af
mina86ng@reddit
Average user doesn’t care. Average user cares that xdotool stops working.
InfiniteSheepherder1@reddit
Who is your average user, I have used Linux as my main OS for gaming SNF work since 2007 and I don't even know what xdotool is or heard of it.
mina86ng@reddit
xdotool is just an example. Another is KiCad mentioned here a few days ago.
The point is that many more users care about something breaking than about keyloggers.
FattyDrake@reddit
Thankfully there's alternatives to KiCad like Horizon EDA which also uses KiCad's circuit router and is written in GTK. If KiCad devs don't improve their software, it will slowly fade to irrelevance as others use its tech to make more modern versions. That's part of what makes open source great.
From what I understand, KiCad is just suffering from tech debt, and if they don't pay it back there's not much they can do going forward admittedly. Maybe the KiCad devs will be thankful someone else takes the lead so they don't have to spend time on it anymore. I dunno.
There was a color calibration tool that worked on X11 but the author refused to update it for Wayland. Thankfully it's GPL so I can take parts of it and help get a Wayland version going. Within a couple years, nobody's going to care about the old X11 version.
Things are in a transition period currently, and it makes sens for some to stay on X11. What doesn't make sense is developers sticking fingers in their ears pretending Wayland doesn't exist.
mina86ng@reddit
Again, KiCad users don’t care. All they know is that KiCad used to work on X11, distribution forced them to switch to Wayland and now KiCad doesn’t work. That is the perception for many and the reason for at least some oposition to Wayland.
FattyDrake@reddit
KiCad actually works fine on Wayland. There's some minor annoyances, but it's perfectly usable. If you use it daily, maybe not because those annoyances build up. But I use it occasionally and have not run into any show-stopping problems.
srivasta@reddit
Average use can gird you their loins and fix it or pay someone (MACOS) to do so
mrlinkwii@reddit
if software dosent work , or users cant get work done , who cares
spectraloddity@reddit
this deserves more upvotes
StayAppropriate2433@reddit
If anything, it's a lot nicer now. There used to be very little to no moderation, and people would just swear at each other. Also, rtfm.
dirtycimments@reddit
Increasingly polarised?
Counterproposal - Users have multiplied, it has become easier for each users voice to be heard. Additionally I can imagine that the message boards of yore were pretty filled with vitriol, just like today, but those boards were less in the public eye compared to today.
Vi v Emacs is a pretty old fight.
If open source gains popularity, the community by definition will change, not all changes are for the better, perhaps you are right and something irreversible is happening. In any case, advocating for what you feel to be the right way forward is the best way to act in any case.
AntLive9218@reddit
I'm not sure it's easier, but there are more voices, significantly more, and that's part of the problem.
A lot of people appeared are really just "consumers" with no intention to contribute, but plenty of expectations as if they were just using yet another paid service.
It's really not like today as "toxicity" was mostly killed with exclusivity.
Old message boards were inclusive, there were all kinds of different people there, so of course views differed enough that some discussions got really heated, but people duked it out, and life went on. Usually there was "proper" moderation, not censorship, so important threads weren't allowed to be hijacked (or they were cleaned up after the fact), but there was plenty of space for often productive rants like the ones Torvalds used to slap sense into some people.
New message boards tend to be exclusive in incredibly many ways. "Geofencing" filters out a bunch of people as a start, then there are various deanonymization filters typically using phone number, and "not a bot" "verifications". "Moderators" are typically not enthusiast members of the community, but instead just power hungry control freaks with the right connections, so they don't moderate, but instead shape the community with their personal agenda by banning outliers, creating an echo chamber for an ideology instead of valuing merit. Then if someone dares to attempt to contribute, then there's further deanonymization, filtering, and legal binding with a CLA and typically scrutiny of identity, completely dismissing valuable contribution in case of undesirable signs.
What you consider the "public eye" could really ironically change some matters. Let's see how can you contribute with some more specific examples.
A "good old" forum: You find the project easily with a search engine, it's all public, no need to make an account, and pretend that we are in pre-Cloudflare times without digital ghettos, so you can connect even from North Korea if you managed to get on the internet. You get to see enthusiasts (maybe some people are even too enthusiastic about some matters), so there are plenty of contributions, even guides how to contribute. At some point you want to contribute, so you make a patch, register an account, and make your post that would be judged on merit.
Modern Discord "server": Have fun finding it if you haven't specifically searched for this, because nothing in it is part of the "public eye" due to it being a walled garden. Hopefully you can access Discord to begin with, where you get to start with registering an account just to read. Mandatory phone number disclosure may already happen here depending on some conditions, which may already link your legal identity to your account depending on your country. Joining the server typically starts with ironically a bot doing an anti-bot challenge, which usually happens to require visiting a third party browser fingerprinting website. You finally get to see the content, but due to how moderators shaped the community, it's often not even relevant, but contains a lot of political grandstanding, memes, and a whole lot of other "trash", and you'll find the contributor to consumer ratio quite scary, with some contributors acting more like gods. If you still think it's a good idea to contribute, then your first submission will be considered "sus" by people not even understanding the code, and the code will be nitpicked for contributor guideline violations including insane rules like using "inclusive language" over well-established industry standard terms, and you'll have to fix every nitpicked yourself, the "god" overseeing the process won't change as much as just adjusting indentation to what's preferred in the project. Potentially add some more silly dances like CLA, and after all of this, there's still a good chance that your patch will just rot there, because it turns out that even the "contributors" aren't enthusiasts, but just employees of a company, ignoring issues the company doesn't deem valuable to deal with.
Sure, these can be argued to be extreme examples, but it's really not far from my own real experiences, and it's the reason why either I don't even try contributing, or I do so with aliases which can be mostly safely attacked by "the horde" surrounding way too many projects, and changing what's not acceptable every time some political winds start blowing in a different direction. This however is quite limiting, because if I write a patch, then it will be done with as much effort as I feel okay potentially wasting, and the people who also want the advantage of resume padding only stick to the larger projects deemed worthy for all the troubles.
jelly_cake@reddit
Open source is the Life of Brian scene about splitters writ large. I mean, the ability for anyone to fork a piece of software if they don't like how it's being developed is the defining feature of the movement. Of course you're gonna get disagreements.
mrdeworde@reddit
Reminded of a joke one of my professors told while we were discussing the history of Mennonism. "If you've got 2 Protestants in a room, how many churches do you have?"
Answer: >!3 - the one they both just left, and the 2 new ones they'll be starting.!<
fellipec@reddit
Exactly! Remember the systemd drama?
xatrekak@reddit
The Systemd drama is way way less than it used to be. There are still some very loud troglodyte haters of Systemd but since it has completely dominated init it is nothing like it used to be.
beardedbrawler@reddit
Remember it? It's still going on.
fellipec@reddit
LMAO, True
ou_ryperd@reddit
KDE vs Gnome, rpm vs deb etc. It's been polarised since I booted RedHat 6.0 in 2000.
srivasta@reddit
Netbsd vs *BSD is a decade older.
gatornatortater@reddit
Increasingly?
You must be new to this whole open source thing.
gatornatortater@reddit
When has the open source community not been combative?
Although I only first became aware of it in 1995, I wasn't always paying close attention, so maybe I missed one of those rare lulls.
ElCondorHerido@reddit
Why are people so afraid of conflict and contradiction? As long as we don't start stabbing each other in tech conferences, what's the big deal?
gatornatortater@reddit
Or murdering our wives in extravagant ways.....
kalzEOS@reddit
I feel like the last E of EEE is being achieved currently.
InfiniteSheepherder1@reddit
What is being replaced with a proprietary version or with proprietary extensions. In this EEE?
ronaldtrip@reddit
How so? Xorg is forked into XLibre, so no extinguishing. If XLibre survives is up to its community. They need to get buy in to keep DDX drivers from the graphics card vendors coming.
kalzEOS@reddit
I am talking about all the divide and tribalism that is happening in the open source community. You have people siding with corporations because those corporations are excellent at virtue signaling, some others are against corporations completely and want nothing to do with them. Maybe I am just new, I don't know. I have only been using linux since 2017. I feel like I need to not care anymore and just coast it out and enjoy linux. Humans will always be humans I guess.
Ok-Salary3550@reddit
Most users of any software that's developed enough that it's usable by the masses are always going to be "consumers". They don't know how to develop software even if they want to and they don't actually care about software, they just need to use it to do whatever they actually want to do.
If Linux is at the point where the median user doesn't have to be a software dev with strong opinions on Wayland vs. X11, that's good for Linux, because it means it's actually a usable platform for people who don't care or want to have to care about any of that shit.
Also, just to be clear - "polarisation" has been the case forever. It's not a new phenomenon.
Patient_Sink@reddit
I feel that the problem isn't that the median user doesn't have opinions about for example Wayland and X, but that they not only have opinions but also entitlements about stuff like that. I want XYZ and it's someone else's responsibility to fix that for me! The user is always right!
This creates a lot of friction, especially when dealing with projects on a volunteer basis.
primalbluewolf@reddit
A statement that in context, is making several implicit assumptions - typically, that the user is paying something to the developer, money or otherwise.
Entitlement is exactly the right word - paying customers are entitled to prompt support, and if not provided, they may take their money elsewhere.
FOSS users who feel similarly entitled, should be provided with a full refund and shown the door.
ThomasterXXL@reddit
You gotta understand - they're emotional investors. Them being loud, irate and hardly cooperative is because these stakeholders are just that heavily emotionally invested in the success of your project.
srivasta@reddit
Mist free software developers (apart from a few marquee projects) are volunteers. Of you are not paying me you didn't get to dictate how I spend my spare time
primalbluewolf@reddit
Exactly!
Ok-Salary3550@reddit
And?
It’s not a reasonable expectation to expect end users to be software developers and tell them to fix issues themselves but otherwise shut up. It’s also not reasonable to be a software dev, ship software targeted at non-techies and then complain that the non-techies expect stuff from you and aren’t learning C++.
Sorry but too much of the FOSS community wants to have their cake and eat it on this stuff - they want everyone using their stuff but then if anyone wants any changes or improvements, they get told to FO and do it themselves. Not tolerating that and responding to end user demands is the price you pay for a platform not used exclusively by neckbeards.
jhaand@reddit
I would at least them to articulate their request and submit some kind of issue. That way, the developers at least know what to work on.
But a lot of reactions seems like: it's different and I don't want to do any effort.
Ok-Salary3550@reddit
End users don’t care. They want to use software.
If you don’t want to volunteer to produce and maintain free software, don’t. But if you do, you have to accept that your users will have expectations of you while you have no entitlement to have expectations of users. That’s part of the deal of being a volunteer - you do shit you’d otherwise be compensated for voluntarily.
Business_Reindeer910@reddit
No, we as community members can help in telling them to NOT do that.
Ok-Salary3550@reddit
I don't want to tell them to stop because frankly, if users didn't constantly complain about some of the shit that FOSS devs think is ready for primetime, it would never actually change.
Business_Reindeer910@reddit
You're talking about something different. There's nothing wrong with asking (via feature requests) . What is wrong is demanding and complaining someone else spend time that you didn't pay for .
srivasta@reddit
In return they have no entitlement to how I spend my free time volunteering. They want features, they submit patches. Maybe I'll accept them
throwaway6560192@reddit
Is it unfair to want bugs to be reported, etc? It is unrealistic, perhaps, but is it unfair?
And who decides what a volunteer developer "has to accept" anyway?
Patient_Sink@reddit
The volunteer devs have absolutely no obligation to fulfill the entitlements of users. A user can request something, but if someone who works on a project in their free time don't want to implement it then that's tough luck.
And where do you get the impression that FOSS devs want everyone to use their software? If I release something it's because I've created something that I think might be valuable for other people. It doesn't mean that I'm signing an unpaid support contract in order to get as many users as possible. People can use it if they find it useful.
It's very much different in a customer setting where the user is paying for a service.
mrlinkwii@reddit
have you not seen most posts on this subreddit
srivasta@reddit
And what makes you think that these voices belong to actual devs, and not just hangers on?
Ok-Salary3550@reddit
Given the absolute conniptions people throw about the idea that people still use Windows, they should probably at least care a tiny bit.
srivasta@reddit
Are the people throwing these conniptions really the software devs, or just other consumers wanting validation?
mrlinkwii@reddit
depends on the context of said software , i would assume GNOME/KDE want users to use the software
you have a point in some random FOSS project
while technically true , if the project is big enough it has the effect of a good portion of the user base and should implement the norms that most everyone else is doing and not just throe their hands out the prams complaining
srivasta@reddit
Do you have a basis for this accommodation that as a volunteer free software developer I really care about the sentiments of those who do not contribute?
mrlinkwii@reddit
if you want a userbase you kinda have to
srivasta@reddit
I write free software to fix problems I faxed and to add features that I wanted. That is often the motivation for volunteers spending time on free software as opposed to just watching sports on tv. Whether I have other pepper also enjoying the features I wanted is nice, but not important.
jelly_cake@reddit
Wait, so is there a critical mass where you as an unpaid contributor are morally obligated to add a feature to your software because people asked for it? I can definitely see the justification for a GNOME or KDE user to be upset at the direction those bigger, funded projects might take, but for the majority of open source projects, it's a donation of time by the contributors, not something they get paid for.
Bug bounties are a possible solution to the problem. If enough people want a change badly enough, someone will eventually implement it.
srivasta@reddit
As a free software developer, I didn't care what consumers might want. I create free software to solve my problems, and I share the software to like minded others who also share free software, and for collaboration with others who also share features I might want.
I use copyleft licences to help this sharing of utility. My software being used does not strike my ego.
If someone wants features, I accept pull requests.
Ok-Salary3550@reddit
And?
It’s not a reasonable explanation to expect end users to be software developers and tell them to fix issues themselves but otherwise shut up. It’s also not reasonable to be a software dev, ship software targeted at non-techies and then complain that the non-techies expect stuff from you and aren’t learning C++.
Linuxologue@reddit
You're wrong, Emacs is clearly superior to Vi.
(/s obviously)
Samhain_69@reddit
I see your point, and agree with you. But I can think of a reason for polarization, stemming from frustration.
As fans of Open Source, we have seen examples where a united effort behind one Open Source product led to it dominating over closed source competition. Like GNU/Linux, or for a time, Apache and Firefox. We love that.
We've also seen where fragmentation in things like Linux desktop environments, packaging standards, Linux distributions, have at least contributed to categories like desktop OSes being dominated by closed source products. Fragmentation often makes open source less attractive because of too many options and choices. And it slows progress due to dividing contributors between many projects instead of unified behind one project.
When Open Source projects get enough market share and popularity, they reach a tipping point where many more individuals and corporations contribute to them and donate, like in the case of Linux. So seeing Open Source projects get popular isn't just motivated by pride or bragging rights, it results in more rapid improvements with features, quality, documentation and support.
So I think people sometimes want competing Open Source projects to die, because they want to see their preferred project get the huge benefits of greater popularity or market dominance. And they would love to see it win out against the closed source competition. People are frustrated at the downsides of so much fragmentation in Open Source.
srivasta@reddit
This frustration is mostly from non contributing consumers and not from people who do the work.
I never hear this in the actual developer community.
MonkeyBrawler@reddit
No
Greenlit_Hightower@reddit
The future of Linux will be lack of freedom. Rust is under MIT license which is perfect for embrace, extend, extinguish and is heavily pushed right now. Read up on Ubuntu Core too and the push for immutable distros, Ubuntu Core is completely made out of snaps and Canonical retains complete control over the distribution channel. Wayland build from the ground up with DRM in mind. It's glorious folks, I wouldn't be surprised if Linux is being transformed into a heavily locked down, potentially closed source system in due time.
dragasit@reddit (OP)
Unfortunately, I think you're right.
Still, I think the MIT license (as the BSD one) is ok. It's not the license, but the people behind. The BSD operating systems are, nowadays, more "free" than Linux and its distributions. Their Foundations will make sure that the OSes will continue to be free and the community is more about collaborating than "embrace, extend and extinguish".
dirtycimments@reddit
Elaborate on this "more free" definition please?
ronaldtrip@reddit
With permissive licenses you also get the freedom to take freedom away. Which is something that copyleft licenses prohibit.
dirtycimments@reddit
That's not what I meant, dragasit was saying that BSD is more "free", and I wanted them to elaborate on that. I can interpret in a hundred ways what they meant, but only they can explain what they had in their mind while writing that.
srivasta@reddit
Rubbish. Non copyledr licenses are more about ego {say my name), and correct licenses are about users (make sure features remain open and are not used to leverage free software for some company to make money).
MarzipanEven7336@reddit
DRM means Display Rendering Manager, dumbass.
OofyDoofy1919@reddit
Ppl be comparing this to vi and emacs but the problem nowadays is on another level.
All major DEs are dropping x11 support, despite there still being valid use cases for it. All major distros dropped systemd support which is backed by red hat...
And they will call you a chud and tell you to keep up or get left behind if you suggest that maybe Wayland isn't ready yet...
ronaldtrip@reddit
If we don't have a switch over, when will Wayland ever be ready? Bugs and weaknesses are discovered and fixed by using it. Making an adequate replacement without ever battletesting it in the wild will never yield results.
Also, X.org started out as a cluncky, hostile beast when it forked from XFree86. Editing the xorg.conf file mode lines was great fun way back when. Will my monitor survive or not...
Put Wayland out in the field. See development pick up the pace dramatically. Yes, a few years of suboptimal operation, but afterwards great yields. Just like ALSA, PipeAudio, Pipewire, dbus broker, etc.
srivasta@reddit
This is factually incorrect. People who think this have never participated in the "discussions" when Theo de Raadt was involved in netbsd wars before Linux existed.
Or the discussions between project Athena and GNU. Did you know that GNU is not UNIX, but the bsds are?
mrlinkwii@reddit
this has always been the way , users have alwasy been "consumers"
papa_Fubini@reddit
No
jerdle_reddit@reddit
Emacs vs vi.
Linux vs BSD.
Yes, we now have systemd vs sysvinit and X vs Wayland, but those are just another salvo in the long-running nerd fights.
The spirit of open source is not harmed by the polarisation and schisms, it is the polarisations and schisms.
WSuperOS@reddit
no, just more voices around.
long live the FOSS community!
FryBoyter@reddit
This has been the case for years and is therefore nothing new.
However, in my opinion, this only applies to a small proportion of all users. You could call them the noisy minority. Because let's take Wayland and X11. I bet the majority of all users simply use what they think is right and stay out of all discussions.
ExaHamza@reddit
Developers who occupy privileged positions in companies have a different mentality towards FOSS, individual developers often just do it out of passion have a different view, and here there is a clash. There is another thing: false dichotomies. The idea that you can only have X or Wayland, etc. It is a sick mentality.
MatchingTurret@reddit
Utter nonsense. Pitched battles have been part of the loosely defined Open Source "community" from day one.
SG_87@reddit
I don’t think this is just an Open Source problem — it’s a reflection of a much broader issue that’s bleeding into the open source world.
We're living in a time where opinions are more polarized, language is more hostile, and people are generally less tolerant. There are probably many factors behind this, but for me, a big one is unregulated capitalism. It's taken over politics, deepened inequality, and left a lot of people feeling anxious, powerless, and angry — even if they can’t fully articulate why.
Meanwhile, we’re constantly told that capitalism is the only way, and that it can’t be the problem. So that frustration needs a place to go. The internet becomes the outlet, and people start venting that anger wherever they can — including open source communities. Contributors, maintainers, and "the other side" become easy targets, even if the real problem lies deeper.
sparafuxile@reddit
On the contrary, the heroic spirit of the editor wars of old is revived /s
WaitingForG2@reddit
Open source by corporations and open source by solo or small group of developers are different things because they operate on different dev power(motivation vs throwing a lot of money to make multiple people work daily on the project at same time). One allows proper collaboration, sometimes hard forks, sometimes succession by different people when previous want to retire. The other is just free labor and free mindshare in eyes of corporations, see https://semianalysis.com/2023/05/04/google-we-have-no-moat-and-neither/#owning-the-ecosystem-letting-open-source-work-for-us
And what is happening to major open source projects is exactly that. Controversial changes happen exactly because corporate projects are big enough to get away with it while getting even better grip over platform, cementing own position into the future, to get benefits through setting direction profitable for them.