Rebecca Giblin on chokepoint capitalism [LWN.net]

Rebecca Giblin on chokepoint capitalism

Posted Mar 30, 2023 13:33 UTC (Thu) by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454)
In reply to: Rebecca Giblin on chokepoint capitalism by khim
Parent article: Rebecca Giblin on chokepoint capitalism

> If you look on what these companies doing while building these moats you'll see that majority of huge open source projects (Android and Chrome, Linux kernel and React and lots of other tools) are created as part of effort of building these.

Actually, most of those huge open source projects are built over huge pre-existing free software components, and those megacorps are using the very same playbook described in the article to corner those too, by coopting key players, and burying the free software core bellow a layer they have total control of (typically by promoting “open source” over “free software”, “service” over “protocol”, “static builds” and “vendoring” over “dynamic substitutable linking”).

Those all make it easier to capture and control access to the “free software” stack that enabled them to build their wares.

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Rebecca Giblin on chokepoint capitalism

Posted Mar 30, 2023 13:48 UTC (Thu) by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454) [Link]

If I may add, “static builds”, “vendoring”, “image-based” deployments are all part of an even older playbook the megacorps are all too happy to recycle. By making any replacement an all or nothing thing, that mixes open, free and closed components in an unscrutable messy blob, the bar for replacement and substitution is raised above the capabilities of most competitors.

The previous generation of software giants understood it very well, and they played the anticompetitive complexity game till they choked on needless complexity added just to corner the market, and were unseated by simpler free software alternatives.

The current generation of software giants are busy re-complexifying their solutions to lock down the market and close the free software capabilities that enabled them to rise in the first place.