hot take, FOSS
The creation of Github has been terrible for FOSS.
Not because the situation before Github was so good (it wasn't), but because Github didn't actually solve any of those problems but it made it *look* like it did, and at the same time socially 'locked in' a toxic contribution and interaction model.
hot take, FOSS
@joepie91 I think it's not a great take,
Github has brought a lot of good def around it's existence. But, by now, we have alternatives so we should start switching away.
hot take, FOSS
@thibaultmol Good things such as?
hot take, FOSS
@joepie91 @thibaultmol
GitHub and the network effect was instrumental to me getting into open-source. I suspect this holds true for a lot of people.
I struggle to see an alternative reality (sadly?) where GitHub didn't exist and we would still have had the explosion of FOSS projects and contributors.
hot take, FOSS
@Foxboron @thibaultmol I don't struggle to see such an alternative reality at all, and more importantly, what does that "explosion of FOSS projects and contributors" actually *mean*, materially?
Sure, lots of people are nominally doing open-source. Have the FOSS options improved in quality or governance? Has work for maintainers become easier, or have they just been burning out even harder? (It's the latter.)
It's easy to focus on the numbers and say "open-source is more popular than ever", and in a literal sense you would be right. But is the *way* in which it became popular actually benefiting society? Or did we miss out on a healthy and sustainable ecosystem by focusing on number go up?
And who is benefiting the most from FOSS as it exists today? Is it average people, communities, and end users? Or is it tech corporations and fascists?
hot take, FOSS
@Foxboron @thibaultmol Actual sustainable grassroots community building, actively engaged contributors and internal social relations, collective consideration of the values behind a project and who benefits from it. In other words, sustainable social and governance structures.
Structures that actually make space for people and their needs, and that give them a reason to stick around beyond "there is Work to be done".
Not drive-by PRs that generate more work than they remove and that function as maintainer time sinks, "tech is politically neutral" whitewashing, licensing obsessions, corporate source dumps and labour exploitation, and so on.
hot take, FOSS
@Foxboron @thibaultmol And Github and its model do not fit into that picture; they are entirely designed around corporate workflows, corporate needs, hierarchical power structures, and so on.
The system does not make any room for community or collective governance whatsoever.
hot take, FOSS
@joepie91 @Foxboron @thibaultmol
i agree with the criticism.
my personal experience is open sourcd was winning until around ~2017ish +/- some years, when microsoft and other established industry players (who were already preparing) came out massively with web3/shitcoins stealing open source contributors from the general movement, making noise, disrupting and over the years also buying github, npm and establishing vscode to take over critical infrastructure pieces.
hot take, FOSS
@joepie91 @Foxboron @thibaultmol
twitter takeover helped as well. advertising and even offering NFTs integration into profiles, but mainly dispersing ppl and disrupting well functioning communication infrastructure.
the weaknesses back then were the centralized pillars
1. twitter for communication
2. github for work
3. npm for publishing
also - that ppl still need income and open source was not sustainable for them which burnt out many.
if we want to reboot we need to consider
hot take, FOSS
@Foxboron @thibaultmol Also, here's a concrete example of what 'making room for collective governance' might look like: whoever 'owns' a particular issue ('assignee', in Github lingo) also automatically has full moderation rights over the conversation in that issue, and multiple separate conversations can be had within its context.
hot take, FOSS
@joepie91 @thibaultmol
Then what is the alternative in your view?