Joe

None are available due to conflicts of interest.

It typically takes a small core team to build the framework/architecture that enables many others to contribute meaningfully.

Most OSS projects get bugger all contributions from outside the initial core team, having limited ability to onboard people. The biggest and most active (out of necessity or by design) have a contribution friendly software architecture and process, and often deliberately organized communities (eg. K8S & CNCF) or major corporate sponsors filling the role.

Free Software and resulting ecosystems seem to have a better chance of contributing to the common good over the long term. This is simply because most companies are beholden to their shareholders, and at some point the urge to squeeze every last cent out of an opportunity comes to the forefront, and many initially well intentioned efforts get poisoned.

Free Software licenses like the GPL help to protect our freedom and to set open standards, and are essential for the core technology stack.

When someone can get annoyed with some shitty software or its license-terms and reimplement the core functionality in a few days/weeks/months … eventually someone will get annoyed and create some decent free software that will kill off the shitty alternatives, or even just a better commercial alternative. This only works because of the open platforms & protocols.

One of the major challenges for consumers is finding good software today in the grey goo of projects and appstores. This harks back to OP’s point about curated collections of software. It’s also where the various foundations add value (CNCF, Linux Foundation, Apache) … along with “awesome X” gitlab repos, which are far better than random youtube videos or ad-riddled blogs or magazine articles.

The true strength is in the open interfaces and common protocols that enable competition and choice, followed by the free-to-use libraries that establish a foundation upon which we can build and iterate. This helps us to stay in control of our hardware, our data, and our destiny.

Practically speaking, there is often more value in releasing something as free software than there is to commercialising it or otherwise tightly controlling the source code… and for these smaller tools and libraries it is especially the case.

Many bigger projects (eg. linux kernel, firefox, kubernetes, apache*) help set the direction of entire industries, building new opportunities as they go, thanks to the standardization that comes from their popularity.

It’s also a reason why many companies release software as open source too, especially in the early days, establishing themselves as THE leader…for a while at least (eg. Docker Inc, Hashicorp).

… and then out$ourced!

But you’ll still sell weapons to them, right?

I’d argue that your average communist is moral and trustworthy right up until the moment they get any power, then they are just corrupt(able) politicians, ready and able to fuck over group A to benefit group B, who they happen to favor more this week (decisions must be made, after all!). No system is perfect, and definitely no individual.

Big picture view: The scales will tip every now and then, but it’s ultimately survival of the fittest system that wins, with none existing in isolation - there are always external forces at play.

With that in mind, I’d put my money on more limited socialist-style-carve-outs like single payer healthcare in the US, more rent controls and housing subsidies, slightly better employee protections. Just enough to placate the masses, while the ruling class mostly continues as before. Even this will require a massive effort. Post-republicans, of course.

Great, finally they can include all the factual non-woke reporting about Donald Trump, Elon Musk and often underage hookers provided by the russian mafia and FSB, which mostly happened at Trump Tower as Trump’s business empire was being rescued by russian money. Perhaps it can provide photos from the non-woke archives. It could even be turned into a series of children’s stories to give them inspiration for their future careers of servitude and exploitation, which would be totally non-woke.

Meanwhile, the flu knocked everyone I know off their feet this year. Our last two covid bouts were mild knocks on wood.

That’s a minority. From what I’ve seen, the vast majority of Aussies are sheep, happy to be abused by their government and manipulated by corporations and propaganda (take your pick which). It’s just another fractured society, with apathetic masses turning away from the real world and living in their own bubbles of discontent.

Because that is ever going to happen in Australia?

Anki ?