Comment by TheOtherHobbes | Hacker News Reader

Comment by TheOtherHobbes | Hacker News Reader

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No, the point is that in practice FOSS code is not any more open than closed source.

That's the point of this piece. For any non-trivial edit on a real project with real deadlines the source code is effectively useless, because no one has the time, the resources, or possibly even the inclination to fix bugs, do full-coverage testing, or make custom modifications.

So you have to take the internals on trust. Which is a ridiculous situation when so many packages are created as hobby projects with - literally - no guarantee of performance or reliability.

I realise it's hard for FOSS advocates to understand this, because it's a fundamental flaw with the FOSS philosophy. The benefits are "obvious" to crusaders, but the objective reality is that large swathes of FOSS are full of casual or hobby code that barely works, has gaping security vulns, and/or is nowhere close to being robust enough for production.

"Make software simpler" is a good goal, but hard to do. Other solutions are also possible. They're hard too. So it goes.

But there will be no solutions at all until the FOSS community starts dealing with professional reality instead of relying on free-to-tinker-without-consequences rhetoric - and understands that there are real problems that need real answers, and not just more "Clap Louder" and "At least we're not Microsoft".

Most widely used oss projects are not hobby projects. Only small trival projects tend to be hobby projects. Notably, apache projects are not hobby projects per foundation requirements.

Quite a lot of contributions are need driven - client project needing something digging into code and fixing it. It is called "scratching own itch". The reason for popularity of oss libraries was that comertial ones had historicall low motivation to improve after point of sale, especially when it comes to performance. That is why you see a lot of oss targeted at developers and very little at general public. Closed source libraries were unable to compete not just because of price, but because business of selling libraries does not value quality.

> No, the point is that in practice FOSS code is not any more open than closed source.

You seriously believe this? I mean, it's so obviously nonsensical I can hardly believe you are seriously making that point. With FOSS, you have the option to look at the code, with closed source you don't. And you are seriously saying that that is the same level of openness?

Also, even if it were true: How is that relevant? FOSS is just as bad as closed source, therefore you should exclude FOSS? How does that follow?!

> So you have to take the internals on trust.

So, I can not look at FOSS code? Like, you are telling me it is impossible for me to look at the code that I am in fact looking at when selecting code to use for something? I mean, really? That is your point?

And the solution then is to not use FOSS, because then you don't have to take the internals on trust?

I think you have pretty much proved his point.

>I realise it's hard for FOSS advocates to understand this, because it's a fundamental flaw with the FOSS philosophy. The benefits are "obvious" to crusaders, but the objective reality is that large swathes of FOSS are full of casual or hobby code that barely works, has gaping security vulns, and/or is nowhere close to being robust enough for production.

>And the solution then is to not use FOSS, because then you don't have to take the internals on trust?

I think the point is to realize FOSS is not a utopia and has tradeoffs like everything else.

> I think the point is to realize FOSS is not a utopia and has tradeoffs like everything else.

But that wasn't what this thread was about. The statement that I was responding to above was this:

>> or exclude FOSS when working commercially.

I.e., that there isn't a tradeoff, but that the solution to shortcomings of some FOSS that aren't unique to FOSS in any way is to not use FOSS at all.

And that was then defended using equally nonsensical logic.

So, noone here is claiming that FOSS is utopia. But people are implying that proprietary software is. Which I am asking people to justify. So far, nobody did.

No, I think what people are implying is that commercial licensing of software solves the trust/responsibility aspect of software. With proprietary software, there are legal remedies to malfeasance.

In which case that is still both obviously nonsense and irrelevant on two counts.

It's irrelevant because this was about FOSS vs. closed source, not about commercial licencing vs. noncommercial licencing. Even if commercial licencing were the solution, that says nothing about whether the commercial licence should be FOSS or closed source.

And it is also irrelevant because there are broadly the same legal remedies to malfeasance in all cases. If you are breaking the law, you are sill breaking the law if you are publishing your source code, and you are still breaking the law if your are doing it non-commercially.

And in so far as you mean liability for defects rather than malfeasance, it is obviously nonsense that there are any generally applicable effective legal remedies against terrible proprietary code if you look at the real-world quality of products in the market. You might be able to put together a contract that helps with that, but (a) that is far from the norm and (b) is obviously still irrelevant to whether the code should be open or closed.

Their point is, clearly, that to the end user, code they cannot understand is for all practical purposes no different than code they cannot view.

Code I cannot understand, I can ask for help with understanding. Code I cannot view, I cannot.

That's true. But most people using free software can't simply ask for "help understanding" millions of lines code written in possibly multiple languages. Like a lot of the axioms of FOSS, the utility of that breaks down at the scale of modern software.

But for one that still doesn't mean that not being able to view the code is somehow better, as was claimed above, and which I objected to. At best that means that being able to view the code does not necessarily imply the quality of that code is better. Which really is just obvious.

And also, that does not at all mean that the utility breaks down. Back in the day, it was normal for devices to come with schematics. Like, if you bought a TV, the schematic was included. Almost noone who owned a TV could read schematics. But the schematics were still useful to the owner, because those schematics were what enabled you to take your broken TV to any independent repair business of your choice and have them fix it at a competetive price.

You can profit from the wide availability of knowledge without having to learn it all yourself. If there are ten competing car repair businesses in your city that all understand how to fix your car, that is better for you than the manufacturer having a monopoly on repairing your car, even if you don't have the slightest clue how your car works.

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