Comment by benjaminjosephw | Hacker News Reader

Comment by benjaminjosephw | Hacker News Reader

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benjaminjosephw

Contextually, it makes sense that licencing used to be such a big deal in the history of software distribution. Back in the 70s and 80s there was the real possibility that that FOSS could win and software freedoms could be embedded in the expected legal structure of software distribution. That didn't pan out though. Maybe it is time we move beyond licensing being the focal point of software movements.

The context has changed significantly since the start of the FOSS movement. This new generation of tech enthusiasts aren't trying to build the foundations of an operating system. Increasingly, ethical open source looks like building applications, tools and even platforms that defend end-user freedoms. This shift in emphases is something newer software movements should embrace.

Maybe ethical open source movements should focus more on what the technology enables for end-users rather than on how the project itself is structured or which licence is used.

I couldn't agree more. Well said!

The [Ethical Open Source definition][1] does include three general points on behalf of the end user: accessibility, safety, and privacy. But it does not address the relationship between developers and end users: how do those who will use the software have a voice in what gets developed? And how could it - as you say, it's time to move past licensing as the sole focal point.

[1]: https://ethicalsource.dev/definition/

> how do those who will use the software have a voice in what gets developed

Should they? If they want some feature, they can ask nicely or make a PR. Are there other options?

I'd settle for open API's at this point. And honestly to me seems like a fairly natural way to do "anti-trust" without actually breaking up companies in a potentially destructive way. If other people can make slack clients, or pull "popular times" information from google places, or aggregate instagram live / facebook live videos, that would go a long way towards an open (and competitive!) ecosystem.

Ideally, we'd all be mostly following and investing in extending existing standards for chat/etc. e.g. RFC 1459 doesn't have everything that slack/Teams/etc needs but there's no good reason that Microsoft can't throw some money at IETF to help them grow the standard to what we need for modern business chat.

Separately, I could see anti-trust legislation requiring internal API's to be made accessible to competitors and billed at the same rates as internal API requests from one business segment to another. E.g. Google Maps would pay Google Places for the info that it serves up, but Yahoo Maps could re-skin that info or combine it with other sources as well if they pay the same rates that Google Maps does.

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