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submitted 1 year ago by imAadesh@lemmy.ml to c/linux@lemmy.ml

Reading about FOSS philosophy, degoogling, becoming against corporations, and now a full-blown woke communist (like Linus Torvalds)

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[-] yogthos@lemmy.ml 211 points 1 year ago

Linux and open source in general completely blow apart capitalist arguments that profit motive is necessary for innovation and technological advancement. Open source ecosystem primarily run by volunteers has produces some of the most interesting and innovative technologies that we've seen. The reality is that people make interesting things because they're curious and they enjoy making stuff. Pretty much nobody makes anything interesting with profit being the primary motive.

[-] schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 1 year ago

This is true to some extent, but the best, most successful open source software is nowadays to a large extent made by for-profit businesses developing it for their own use but sharing it with the world.

There is a strong correlation between "is this kind of software mainly used by businesses vs. individuals" and "does this kind of software tend to be open source". Hardly anyone uses proprietary version control or web server software anymore. But (other extreme) in the area of video games, nearly all of them are still proprietary and probably will be for a long time. Software such as web browsers or office suites sits somewhere in between, both kinds exist there.

[-] yogthos@lemmy.ml 22 points 1 year ago

Biggest and most popular projects are attractive to companies as well as individuals for the same reasons. However, the original point was that companies are not needed for open source to exist or for innovation to happen.

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this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2023
1403 points (85.7% liked)

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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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