I mean… I kinda get it, but nowadays it’s starting to get absurd.
(EDIT: This was supposed to be a “blow air out my nose and get on with my life” meme…)
I mean… I kinda get it, but nowadays it’s starting to get absurd.
(EDIT: This was supposed to be a “blow air out my nose and get on with my life” meme…)
What is the incentive to create and innovate FOSS? Altruism? I’m genuinely asking. Maybe I don’t know enough about the movement.
People like to make stuff for themselves, to do things, to share, and feel useful. I believe it is the default state of people, you see that in families and close friends. You see people simply doing stuff for themselves and sharing the results. You can build a pool and invite over your friends and such. It is nice when you do something for yourself but that other people also enjoy.
So I think the primary reason is that people like to do things to benefit themselves, things that they want the result or that they enjoy doing the process, and then why not share, even better if other people enjoy the result. It is like cooking for your family or friends
I agree people can and do create without IP as a motivation, and would continue to in its absence. I believe in a perfect world where everyone’s needs are met, IP may not be necessary at all. I would argue, though, that in the world we live in, the economic incentive IP creates has tangibly contributed to many valuable innovations that benefit humanity. Many people and companies rely on that incentive to be able to fund the work needed to create.
I disagree, in my opinion it is the opposite, IP and copyright laws of today do more harm than good, they stiffness innovation and creativity. The reason I think is at least two fold, one it incentivizes companies to stop innovating once they get a leadership in the market, since no one can use the innovation they can "camp out"on it and just pluck competition when they are at infancy, using their size and dominant position they can just buy any starting company that tries to innovate further. There is many examples of that, like kodak killing its own development in digital camera so to not jeopardize their camera film business. Same with electric cars, there was companies in the 70s that started doing it, they were just bought and the development interrupted, and because they have the IP on said innovations they can just not do it since no one else can either.
The second is that I argue that if a innovation is so easily replicated only by seen the end result or cursory explanation it really is like impeding people to do basic stuff, you see that a lot in software patents and video game mechanics. And last not forget that scientific advancements don´t happen in a vacuum, they build on top of previous innovations, and when just the author can build on top of its innovation it really slows it down. You can see it in how research and scientific achievements are done since the enlightenment, one research does something and share with the community and all over the worlds other researchers tries to build on top of it, otherwise everyone would be starting from scratch and would take so much more time. On the topic of researchers, must of the innovations and scientific advancements are done buy researchers that do not see any benefit of IP laws, be it in universities or companies, their IP are owned by the companies and universities, and universities are the more important ones because a lot of basic research are not immediately profitable, it is a slow climb of steps, each new paper, each new small improvements until it gets to a point that it can be applied.
And lastly I just wanna point out that Linux (and other FLOSS OSs) have being the leader in innovation on the operation system topic, and in fact Linux is the one pushing Microsoft to do more than just stagnating.