[HN Gopher] What comes after open source? (2019)
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       What comes after open source? (2019)
        
       Author : simonpure
       Score  : 22 points
       Date   : 2021-08-07 19:17 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (denisnazarov.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (denisnazarov.com)
        
       | bitwize wrote:
       | Telekommunisten.
        
       | ximm wrote:
       | Not to be confused with the identically-named article by Steve
       | Klabnik from around the same time:
       | https://steveklabnik.com/writing/what-comes-after-open-sourc...
        
       | taneq wrote:
       | I've always found the, uh, "IP-flexible" environment of Shenzhen
       | to be a fascinating insight into what a fully open source world
       | would look like. From what I've seen (please correct me if I'm
       | wrong!) no energy is wasted on licensing or who you should ask
       | for permission, because what are they gonna do to you? And little
       | effort is wasted on locking things down, because they'll just
       | crack it anyway. If you can make something you just _do it_ , and
       | then you ship it and hopefully make some money before someone
       | copies it. And the rate of progress is incredible! Mostly because
       | of the huge amount of hard work done by the people working in in
       | the industry here, but also because there's less time wasted on
       | these regulatory questions.
        
         | fiddlerwoaroof wrote:
         | Yeah, I think IP creates a local-maxima where it seems
         | essential to have IP to have innovation. But, it's not at all
         | clear to me that it doesn't simultaneously restrict innovation:
         | all the locked down walled gardens, content silos and such make
         | it significantly harder for people to recombine inventions in
         | unforeseen ways.
        
           | bcrl wrote:
           | Patents certainly cause unforeseen damage all the time,
           | sometimes with damages with far too many zeros to be
           | considered at all reasonable (like what happened to
           | Blackberry a few years back). My personal belief regarding
           | software is that if a skilled practitioner of the art can
           | come up with a particular solution when given similar design
           | constraints for solving a problem, the solution should not be
           | considered novel and worthy of patent protection. Sadly this
           | is not anywhere close to how patents actually work in the
           | real world.
        
             | makapuf wrote:
             | I'd agree with your definition of novel except for the
             | addition "in a minimal timeframe or effort" because else of
             | course you can replicate the same outcomes with about the
             | same effort.
        
       | Ericson2314 wrote:
       | Services are bad and libraries are good. (Extra proof: the latter
       | can be turned into the former if you really want, but not vice
       | versa).
       | 
       | Cryptocurrency doesn't factor into any of this.
        
         | Overton-Window wrote:
         | We have open source. Crypto allows for open state. Blockchains
         | are databases where everyone is a root user.
        
           | WA wrote:
           | Nobody is a root user. Try rm -rf / on a distributed
           | blockchain.
        
             | jrm4 wrote:
             | Fair. I'm trying to think if "Blockchains are 'no-delete'
             | databases where everyone is root" makes sense?
        
               | verdverm wrote:
               | You need to account for consensus among many
        
             | Overton-Window wrote:
             | Nothing stopping you creating a blockchain that permits
             | such, albeit of a little value.
        
         | jrm4 wrote:
         | Well, I think "crypto" here means "universally viewable and
         | add-only modifiable" database which feels like there might be a
         | use for?
        
           | infogulch wrote:
           | ed: "consensus-driven publicly-auditable append-only
           | database" is actually a pretty decent generalization of
           | "crypto", thanks.
        
             | jrm4 wrote:
             | Is "consensus-driven" that necessary? I'm thinking how one
             | might argue that it's fundamentally an implementation
             | detail of "append-only," meaning that you don't really have
             | to say it out loud, like "electricity-driven" or
             | "cryptography-powered."
        
               | jtolmar wrote:
               | A centralized database operating off a write-once-read-
               | many drive would be append-only and not consensus-driven,
               | and also not really what anyone means by crypto.
               | 
               | A whole lot more efficient though.
        
         | wrnr wrote:
         | As a programmer I agree, but for a business a service might
         | have a nice mote and offer the right incentives to develop and
         | sell a service.
         | 
         | A crypto service is the worst of both worlds, in this case the
         | income just goes to the miners.
        
           | thayne wrote:
           | And the enegy companies that sell the power for mining, and
           | the chip makers that sell chips for mining.
        
             | wrnr wrote:
             | But chips and power-plants are harder to create then just
             | copying software.
        
       | thayne wrote:
       | I'm not sure if I agree that crypto is the future, but I agree
       | with most of the rest.
        
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