Ever since Be Inc. was bought out in 2001. A lesson I have taken to heart, is that it is dangerous to rely on technology stacks and services that are owned by corporations. You rely on them as little as possible.
Whenever possible you use floss so you can fork it if it gets abandoned or taken over.
Better yet, if it's community run, a coop, or a non profit with a clear governance strategy. It is much less likely to ever be taken over.
@trashheap trying to figure out if this is in reference to Twitter or CNCF/k8s...
@lunarogue Twitter has me thinking about it again specifically. But I find the thought widely applicable.
@trashheap I admire your optimism. I think he could use capital to take over other projects or ruin them, but dammit I only have one boost per post and your toots speak to me so strongly!
@stevelord I think in a very real way it would be much more difficult to just straight buy such orgs out the way he has with Twitter.
But yeah capitalism allows a variety of ways to ruin projects and organizations if he wanted to play dirty pool. Though corporations too wouldn't be immune to the worst of that either.
So worst case scenario coops running floss software, and community projects with clearly defined charters and constitutional processes have less attack surface.
@trashheap Well, to an extent. You can steer projects, like Spotify with Debian and Redhat with practically all of Linux, but I do in principle agree.
@trashheap That was pretty much my turning point as well.
@downey I know a few folks from my BeOS days who learned the opposite lesson from those times. They latched onto (and continue to latch onto) companies they perceive as too big to ever fail.
Which tends to feel a little bit stockholm syndrome-esque to me.
@trashheap for me it was hypercard getting discontinued, but yeah
@technomancy @trashheap
BeOS and Hypercard? Yo :D Is it time to wax poetic about the democratizing potential of MultiMedia Desktop publishing? Because I am very ready for this corner of the fediverse to become a thing.
We can resist the corperate ownership of web infastructure, lionize user friendly and empowering creation tools, create free and open cyberspace and get into the weeds arguing about RISC ISAs!
@trashheap Oh, I dimly remember Be. Wasn't that an alternative and rather beautiful OS?
@TexJoachim indeed BeOs was brilliant. #HaikuOS is the open source reimplementation / recreation of it. https://www.haiku-os.org
It has a lot of promise. Been watching the project on and off for a while now.
@trashheap Oh, I didn't even know that it went Open Source. Have to get a look at it now!
@TexJoachim The original had some bits go open source. Bits of the desktop environment mainly. Kernel is a different but philosophically similar kernal started by a former Be Engineer. Maintenance and expansion of which is mostly the community these days. With drivers borrowed from FreeBSD. Lots of hardwork done, lots still left to go.
@trashheap @aral
I miss so much my BeOS days! 😭
i.e. Musk can on a whim buy twitter if he wants.
But its unlikely or impossible for him to say buy Debian or OpenBSD.
He isn't going to be able to walk up with a check to disroot.org, hsocial.coop or riseup.net.
(Even if the mood strikes him).
But corporations are always for sale.