KDE devs & other hobbyist programmers, beware: upper management at FAANG hates your guts

Posted Jan 24, 2024 14:28 UTC (Wed) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183)
In reply to: KDE devs & other hobbyist programmers, beware: upper management at FAANG hates your guts by rqosa
Parent article: Jujutsu: a new, Git-compatible version control system

> Whichever corporation you might have believed was your ally (against Microsoft, or against AOL/CompuServe/Prodigy et al.) during any of the past 3 decades is probably your enemy right now.

Businesses do not have feelings. They have always acted in what they think are their best interests. I think all open-source developers develop because they think it's in their best interests in some way. Open-source is where it is because sufficiently many people and businesses think it's better than the alternatives.

If FAANG are contributing to open-source, it's because they believe its the best thing for their bottom line.

> Consequently, right now there's a danger that some people with deep pockets might try to lobby national governments into strangling those hobbyist-led FOSS projects with red tape!

Hobbyist developers are basically on the same level as hobby model train builders, or you paying the neighbours kid to clear your gutters: in theory it would be great if they followed regulations, but there's no public policy reason to spend any effort on it. And no legal avenue to enforce it either.