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Brodie Robertson: Open Source Software Is Not A Democracy (www.youtube.com)

submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works to c/opensource@lemmy.ml

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"Open Source Software Is Not A Democracy". Brodie Robertson. 2024-05-26T21:00:18. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gphY5Okx_vs.
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[-] azimir@lemmy.ml 48 points 5 months ago

It's never claimed to be a democracy. It's not a monolith, either. Some projects have forms of input and/or voting, most don't because it's just a few people writing software that they want to write.

Get over yourself if you think that people working for free should be required to listen to you. Just as in anything else, pay them if you want a guaranteed response.

Otherwise, recognize that the key element of Open Source is that you have the source code. If a project isn't doing what you want then fork it and build it yourself. That's the whole point of this community and philosophy.

[-] Reawake9179@lemmy.kde.social 24 points 5 months ago

I won't watch this clickbait, but forks who succeed the prior are exactly what we call democracy.

[-] Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 months ago

I won’t watch this clickbait

Are you referring the title here on Lemmy (ported from YouTube), or are you referring to any video, in general, that uses this practice? If it's the latter, why punish the creator? The need for clickbait is more of an environmental requirement for success created by YouTube. I can't fault a creator for trying to succeed.

forks who succeed the prior are exactly what we call democracy.

Hm. Democracy, by definition, is rule by the majority. A smaller fork gradually becoming larger and more successful than the prior, thereby eating up a larger chunk of the market, is really more of an example of competition. The larger fork doesn't have any say over the smaller forks. It is somewhat of an analogy to democracy, perhaps, in that people "vote with their feet" by moving to the fork that they want to succeed, but it breaks down in that you don't have one, or the other — both can exist in tandem.

[-] Reawake9179@lemmy.kde.social 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I don't click on clickbait i'm absolutely sure it's misleading or wrong.

If someone has a valid point, tone it way down, i don't expect anything serious out of it.

"Why blue isn't a color" isn't something i'm interested in.

[-] Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 months ago

I don’t click on clickbait i’m absolutely sure it’s misleading or wrong.

Well, if you didn't click on it, then you can't be sure — it's just a presumption.

If someone has a valid point, tone it way down, i don’t expect anything serious out of it.

How do you mean?

[-] Danterious@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Sounds more like anarchism than democracy.

~Anti~ ~Commercial-AI~ ~license~ ~(CC~ ~BY-NC-SA~ ~4.0)~

[-] todd_bonzalez@lemm.ee 13 points 5 months ago

I love how this guy made a whole video debunking an argument I've never heard anyone make (that FOSS is democratic).

[-] Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 months ago

Is that a bad thing? Why is it a problem that you, personally, haven't heard the argument before?

[-] anzo@programming.dev 8 points 5 months ago

It's not a representative democracy. It's direct democracy, like anarchistic communes.

[-] Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 months ago

It’s direct democracy

Maybe some projects, but that certainly can't be said for all open source projects. Also note that "open source" in "open source software" is simply the license that makes it so. This idea of governance is more of a project issue than a software distribution issue.

[-] Jake_Farm@sopuli.xyz 7 points 5 months ago

Wouldn't it technically be anarchy?

[-] jet@hackertalks.com 17 points 5 months ago

I think because everyone can contribute, its more like adhoc collectivism

[-] Telorand@reddthat.com 2 points 5 months ago

With a dictator at each branch, since the branch owner has final say in every decision.

[-] jet@hackertalks.com 8 points 5 months ago

🍴 forks

[-] Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 months ago

Hm, it depends on the context. Any open source project, or fork thereof would be an independent isolated instance with it's own practices — e.g. authoritarian, anarchist, democratic, etc.

[-] OpossumOnKeyboard@lemmy.world 7 points 5 months ago

I’m so tired of seeing his clickbait thumbnails on here all the time

[-] Lumisal@lemmy.world 6 points 5 months ago

Neither was that YouTube video 🤷🏻‍♂️

[-] Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 months ago

Correct...? I'm not sure what your point is.

[-] warmaster@lemmy.world 4 points 5 months ago

Open Source is democratic through natural selection.

[-] Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 months ago

I like your idea of "natural selection" for OSS, but I'm not sure I understand the parallel that you are drawing between democracy and natural selection. Would you mind elaborating?

[-] warmaster@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago

Projects that have a big community tend to last longer. If the project does things that alienate the users, the community shrinks, thus endangering the prohect's future. The community can mean desktop users or businesses, doesn't matter. My point is, users have a saying, wether devs like it or not.