Projects with bigger problems [LWN.net]

Projects with bigger problems

Posted Apr 27, 2026 21:25 UTC (Mon) by marcH (subscriber, #57642)
In reply to: Projects with bigger problems by pizza
Parent article: Dependency-cooldown discussions warm up

> > GitHub, Gitlab and co. are currently in the best place by far to prototype something like this and get this ball rolling. Anyone working there and listening?

> Do we _really_ want to further reinforce these organizations' grip on F/OSS development?

No, we want them to pay the initial cost of experimentation and then "steal" the lessons learned. As open-source usually does - including open-source "forges". Cause you can't really patent pure ideas yet (knock on wood) despite monopolies trying hard. Code may be flowing only one way, but you can't stop ideas from flowing in all directions.

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Projects with bigger problems

Posted Apr 27, 2026 21:47 UTC (Mon) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (5 responses)

> No, we want them to pay the initial cost of experimentation and then "steal" the lessons learned.

... so you want them to take a[n ever-increasing] cut of money paid to F/OSS developers, instead of "just" advertising, datamining, and actively undercutting our professions?

The only "lesson" here is that these for-profit organizations do not, have never, and never will, have our backs. They view us as (a) a market to be captured and locked in, and (b) an expense to be minimized, if not eliminated entirely.

Projects with bigger problems

Posted Apr 27, 2026 22:42 UTC (Mon) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link] (4 responses)

I'm aware this is a lost cause because antisocial media has been methodically destroying any sort of nuance or subtlety but.. the world is still a bit more complex than "they" versus "us". Yes: some things (and some people) are simple. Many others are not.

Projects with bigger problems

Posted Apr 27, 2026 23:21 UTC (Mon) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (3 responses)

> The world is still a bit more complex than "they" versus "us". Yes: some things (and some people) are simple. Many others are not.

Sure, that's fine.

What I take issue with here is that this gives the big forge[s] another lever to use to lock folks in. Their sheer size/scope means they'd be the only ones able to meaningfully implement this trickle-down payment mechanism; anyone else trying to replicate it won't have anywhere near the reach to build a competitor after the fact. A classic example of network effects.

The only way I see this working is a through a truly neutral private collection society with a "public good" charter or a governmental department. And even then I don't see why the overwhelming majority of freeloaders would ever _voluntarily_ pay in.

Projects with bigger problems

Posted Apr 28, 2026 12:13 UTC (Tue) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link] (2 responses)

> Their sheer size/scope means they'd be the only ones able to meaningfully implement this trickle-down payment mechanism; anyone else trying to replicate it won't have anywhere near the reach to build a competitor after the fact. A classic example of network effects.

I agree there would be significant network effects but I don't think they would be as bad as for music for instance. If only a few artists you like are missing from your favorite streaming service, then you're unlikely to subscribe to an extra one just for those. I bet most people just _buy_ that particular music instead of streaming it in that case. Whereas with a voluntary donation system, you can split your donations anyway you like any time you want. It seems quite different from that perspective.

Also, artists are getting ripped off because there is yet another indirection layer / middlemen: record labels. Not sure why these are still dominant in our Internet age (getting off-topic) but there's no rip-off equivalent for FOSS and I don't see why there would be any there.

Projects with bigger problems

Posted May 1, 2026 9:16 UTC (Fri) by massimiliano (subscriber, #3048) [Link] (1 responses)

IIRC, the Radicle (https://radicle.xyz) project was attempting to build a "trickle" system to transfer funds from projects to dependencies.

It was all blockchain-based, so it would not give power to monopolies.

I do not know what happened to it...

Projects with bigger problems

Posted May 1, 2026 9:50 UTC (Fri) by liw (subscriber, #6379) [Link]

I believe you mean Drips, drips.network.