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Comment by ilovecaching | Hacker News Reader

And that’s exactly how dystopias are created. People give away their privacy feeling like they have nothing to hide, up until the point that they really need it back when it becomes a tool of oppression and espionage, but by then it’s already too late. Corporations love to downplay these risks and make it seem like avoiding their road map to vendor lock in and proprietary, subscription based software is for people wearing tin foil hats. There are certain areas where using proprietary software is too difficult and improvements are needed. I don’t advocate for a Stallman like approach. All I am saying is there are enough great open source tools out there that you don’t need to pay for a proprietary editor at the very least.

There’s also a bit of hypocrisy at play when you care about making your own projects free and open source, but you don’t want to support the developers building free and open source tools by using their projects.

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> it’s already too late

Too late for… what? What do you think is going to happen? JetBrains are going to lobby for a law preventing local development?

> hypocrisy at play

Wow there’s no hypocrisy. I’ve got no moral obligation to support your open source project just because mine is open source. Hypocrisy is telling people to do something and doing another yourself. Given I haven’t told anyone to do anything, where is the hypocrisy?

You’re the only person telling anyone to do anything.

> JetBrains are going to lobby for a law preventing local development?

You think this is hyperbole, but companies lobby for unfair and anti-consumer, anti-privacy laws all the time.

You live in a world with a weekend and reasonable working conditions because workers banded together and fought against corporations to buy those things for you. Don’t be naive. Corporations do what is best for their bottom line.

> telling anyone to do anything

I am explaining to you why it’s in your own self interest to support free and open source software and think of it as a community rather than a label for a project. Corporations don’t need you to side with them, they have money and lobbyists, advocate for your fellow volunteer devs instead.

This is way off the deep end as a response to a company offering a tool that nobody has to use if they don’t want to.

> I am explaining to you why it’s in your own self interest

That’s for your opinion of my own interests.

JetBrains don’t tell me what I should do, or tell me that I don’t know my own interests, or make moral judgements against me, only people like you do that.

Why would a corporation make a judgement against you when you’re advocating for them?

They don’t make judgements if you’re advocating for them or not.

If I turn down a service from a company they don’t question my morals or call me a hypocrite do they? That just doesn’t happen like you think it does.

If we, the discerning consumer, could just take and toss the flyer being thrust into our faces by the picketer outside the Amazon warehouse (or the free software movement's equivalent), the world and HN would be a less acrimonious place.

If you’re looking for a vitriol target I’d spend a lot more time looking at VS Code which has basically eaten the lunch of FOSS while dressed as a sheep than a commercial tool which has always been commercial (even if the source is available under a very reasonable license).

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