**“Open source” is not broken** I read this article (“Open Source” is Broken by Xe) written in the aftermath of the unfortunate log4j2 fiasco. The author discusses a pertinent problem that has plagued the FOSS (Free and Open Source) world ever since large for-profit corporations started their widespread consumption of FOSS, ever since countless “unicorns” raised infinite amounts of funding on valuations built pretty much entirely on FOSS, ever since FOSS got co-opted into corporatisation and cap ... ⌘ Read more

(#zaoprhq) @osnews No I agree, Open Source **is not** broken. What is broken is our insatiable thirst for power and wealth. Humans are broken. Open Source has just been abused by sooo many corporations! 🤬

(#zaoprhq) > The fact that the maintainers of this small but important piece of software barely received any donations or other forms of financial support, despite their software being extensively used by some of the largest corporations in the world is not a fault of open source – it’s the fault of garbage corporations only taking, but rarely giving. The issue here is not open source – it’s unchecked capitalism. This ☝️ 💯 +100% 👌

(#zaoprhq) @prologic I respectfully disagree. Software is offered or sold on terms, and if corporations aren't giving back, that's because they don't have to: Most people with money have it because they don't part with it when they don't have to. If we want healthy open source, we have to set terms for open source that establish healthy relationships with corporate users.

(#zaoprhq) I would agree with the original claim, that open source is broken, because we've let small groups of people (OSI and FSF) hold very arbitrary and restrictive rules that prohibit fixing the issue. The SSPL and similar solutions exist, but we refuse to embrace them because of these gatekeepers to the official definitions of FOSS.

(#zaoprhq) Personally I'm very fond of permissive licensing like MIT for things that I work on myself, but I also am not looking for financial support from any of these efforts. But we can't set licenses and then be upset when people abide by them: As long as we allow by license terms for Amazon to profit off the work of open source companies in a one-way transaction, we can't complain that they do so.