Re: Corporate Conspiracy Open-Source Theory

On 2025-07-01, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

On Tue, 1 Jul 2025 11:37:54 -0000 (UTC), Borax Man wrote:
>

You sound a bit like those who have perfect faith in the market, a
sentiment I don't subscribe to.

>
I don’t have to have “perfect faith” in anything, least of all the laws of
economics. The neat thing about science is, it works whether you believe
in it or not.
>

However, "Conspiracy Theorists" aren't always wrong, and it pays to
be ahead of the game.

>
The number-one rule of any good conspiracy theory is to ask the question:
“Cui bono?” aka “Whose benefit?” In other words, “follow the money”.
>
So tell us, how does it benefit some mighty amoral megacorp (e.g. Red Hat,
for the sake of argument) to force competitors to use, copy and
redistribute its Free software without paying the company a dime? What
kind of business model is that?
>

"Cui bono?" presumes that other people are motivated by the same things
you are.  Not everythign is about money, not when ideology is involved.

Theoretic freedom is different to practical freedom.

>
Free Software licences are legally binding, and this has been proven in
countless court cases already. The “Free as in freedom” part of Free
software is an established fact.
>
Like I said, conspiracy theorists tend not to have the strongest grasp on
simple logic.

The software licence only covers the distribution and modification of
the software.  But freedom has more levels than simply the freedom to
copy.  It is also what the software allows you to do, how it
inter-operates with ther software.

The software licence says nothing though, about how much agency it gives
the user, when they are using the software.  Developers rarely look past
the code, and look at the software itself.  Does this software give the
user agency in their ability to configure it?  It link it with other
pieces of software?  To use it with other software to make their own
workflows?  A piece of software can be GPL licenced, but offer no
configuration, no real means of placing it in a pipeline, no
extensibility, whereas another, which could be proprietary could offer
vast configuratin options, allow extensions.