Re: Corporate Conspiracy Open-Source Theory

On Thu, 3 Jul 2025 11:31:45 -0000 (UTC), Borax Man wrote:

Yes, I do believe there are people within large organisations, who
are motivated by things other than money. They also want a sense of
moral supremacy, of power, of discerning themselves as the elite.
You don't just do this by being rich, but by being influential.

You know the phrase “Pride goes before a fall”? What you’re describing
is the classic situation of some successful business getting too big
for its boots, and setting itself up for ignominious failure.

It has happened so many times. History repeats.

The one thing that cannot happen is that the company takes down Open
Source with it.

Why do you think companies push DEI? It is a way to signal yourself
as a thought leader.

Interesting that a judge just threw out a case brought by the Trump
administration in its attempts to ban DEI grants
<https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/07/doge-told-the-nih-which-grants-to-cancel-with-no-scientific-review/>.
The judge’s objection was simple: nowhere in the case had the White
House actually defined what “DEI” was. Without something as basic as
that, such denial of funding could not be interpreted as anything
other than an “arbitrary and capricious” act.

I suggest that your use of the term is just the same: nothing more
than an attempt to smear those with different politics from yours.
Just because some on the opposite end of the political spectrum like
to use Open Source, is not mutually exclusive with your doing the
same.

The four freedoms ONLY concern themselves with the source/binary, not
with the mode of operation of the software.

Um, no. Freedom 0 specifically concerns itself with how you use the
software. It says “use it as you wish”.

Nothing stops GPL or "Free" software imposing a very string method
of operation. Especially if that software is a core component (i.e,
GTK)

I don’t understand that. What do you mean a “very string method of
operation”? How long is your “string”?

Open interoperability standards are a key feature of Free software,
yes. There is a strong preference for open and interoperable
protocols/ standards over proprietary ones.
>
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This is not guaranteed by the licence.

Let’s just say, if the software attempts to restrict what the users
can do with it, that tends to be seen as a bug, not a feature.

Remember, if the original developers/maintainers are going to be
obstinate about things, then there is nothing to prevent others from
forking off a new project to take things in a more reasaonable
direction.

There are many cases of this happening in the Free Software world.

IT exist in the free software world because the free software
audience consisted of people who wanted *BOTH* the ability to
custmise and shape their computing experience AND the ability to
freely modify the source, hack at it. Free Software was in the past
the purview of people who specifically wanted to take the
not-so-beaten path.
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There is no guarantee these two will overlap in the next generation
of users. In which case, you may see people who value one, or not
the other, or perhaps people who use free software, who value
NEITHER.

Each such group is free to take things in whatever direction they
wish. The one thing they cannot do is shut out other groups who choose
to go in a different direction.

On the other hand, GNOME project specifically sought to limit user
customisation.

The only complaints I’ve heard about that are from people who don’t
understand how to do such customization.

Chrome has significant sway, and Google can, and do, shape how
people use the web.

“Chrome” is proprietary. If you want to complain that an Open-Source
project somehow commits such infractions, you would have to make your
case with “Chromium”.