What I don't understand is why major Linux distros with deep pockets (IBM/Red Hat, Canonical, SUSE, etc.) don't design, or help technically or financially maintain, major apps for photo editing, office suites, and video editing, and make them compatible with existing apps like Adobe or MS-Office. This would not only boost the FOSS ecosystem, but major government contracts could be given to them, and the public would benefit from it. Tax payers money should go to FLOSS and not to tech bros
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@nixCraft What I was thinking is local small businesses conscious of big tech corruption could use FOSS instead of proprietary software because it has open file formats that aren't tethered to Adobe or Microsoft's centralized cloud servers. And when they do well 10% of that money goes to FOSS developers. Developers can provide special updates for them based on niches, IE (a special GIMP plugin) that they pay for. Collaborative Enterprise and grass roots rebelling against big tech.
@nixCraft I don't think tax payer money should go anywhere. But I agree those companies should be obligated by community norms to financially support FOSS a lot more. The real problem is the damage software patents did in the 2000s destroying small devs. Partially because of that past there is no good way to consistently make money with FOSS today. Ideas I have are normalize paying for feature request, normalize businesses using FOSS to make money and most importantly abolish software patents
@nixCraft what I don't understand is why OSS developers spend a lot of time creating distros and DEs instead of focusing on software.
@nixCraft Because there is little incentive to do so.
@nixCraft it is really hard to get something of the complexity of LibreOffice off the ground, let alone make it successful. If you want to make the world a better place, put some money into scratching an itch. I'd love to see anyone with some cash to spare, sponsor LibreOffice to improve variable font support, just to mention an idea. It would leapfrog MS Offices equally lackluster variable font support in an instant.
But it's not the shiny new toy that will sell your OS to the masses, so not holding my breath.
@nixCraft RedHat has invested 20 years in LibreOffice and that is why it is actually actively supported.
Also deep pockets are really stretch - they spent few tens of millions for almost everything, kernel, server and then desktop. They don't exactly have Google kind of money. I think they have achieved a lot without wasting millions.
Also deep pockets are really stretch - they spent few tens of millions for almost everything, kernel, server and then desktop. They don't exactly have Google kind of money. I think they have achieved a lot without wasting millions.
@nixCraft Well, Sun did that with Star Office/OpenOffice. But in the end, it was a loss for them and didn't get them any new contracts.
It's similar with commercial distros: they don't make money with desktop installations but backend systems.
@nixCraft because unless those tools get picked up by enterprise users en-mass it is a small market; servers, which is what those vendors play at, are a humongous market, especially if one sprinkles security updates and long term support on them. For photo/video editing smaller market and folks tend to want bleeding edge, not old software.
@nixCraft It's all about formats. In the video post-production industry, there is an effort made to make applications interoperable, it's called USD. This is big!
@nixCraft I would suggest to start and lure over the best macOS apps and their developers.
@nixCraft they work for money not for people
@nixCraft But then the Linux distros would cease to be Linux distros. They turn into Microsoft or other commercial software
@nixCraft
https;//www.schleswig-holstein.de/DE/landesregierung/themen/digitalisierung/linux-plus1
@nixCraft
www.schleswig-holstein.de/DE/landesregierung/themen/digitalisierung/linux-plus1
@nixCraft
How many photo editing servers do you expect they would sell?
How many photo editing servers do you expect they would sell?
There's your problem. Data centers are where they earn their money.
@nixCraft i don’t think they can thumb microsoft protectionism in the eye safely. But they could definitely do professional fixes to the user interface and some functional spit and polish to adobe alternatives
@nixCraft My guess: The corporate owners of those particular flavors of Linux don't see any economic advantage to themselves by making something compatible with their peers' software. They're more than likely supporting the open-source efforts to piggyback off of unique ideas in an effort to develop retail products they control in a bid to take away market share from their competitors.
@nixCraft Maybe it would be simpler and much more likely to happen if FLOSS projects used a license that required paying the project if the org using the software has over a certain level of revenue.
Totally agree. Imagine governments funding FOSS tools instead of proprietary software. It's a win-win for security and taxpayer money.
@nixCraft talked to a major linux dev on this very issue once when I lamented how difficult it is to play my bluray collection on my linux box. Said it was because of codex licensing. Too expensive for a FOSS effort.
@nixCraft it’s because as companies their focus is on the enterprise market and specifically server and cloud. Those companies abandoned desktop as a core focus in the business market 15 years ago or longer. Sure, they “have” a desktop in their enterprise products but they mainly just package up what others do or provide some funding to the open source community efforts. #linux
@nixCraft these companies focus on distros, as you said: they employ people who have an understanding of Linux internals, its tooling and current ecosystem to work on them (stretching out to software like compositors or containers).
At that upper layer, without a guaranteed market, they would have to sink money without a certain return of investment.
@nixCraft well some have tried. Libreoffice started as Novell's fork of OpenOffice because Sun refused to allow patches coming from outside of Sun employees. So Novell's fork could open docx in 2.4 while the official one couldn't until 3.x (and Novell's 2.4 had better compatibility).
IBM also dabbled with their own OpenOffice fork but IIRC they didn't plan on sharing any code (mostly UI improvements) until they were abandoning it.
@nixCraft would make so much sense
@nixCraft
When Novell bought SUSE, they did Evolution. But main software to Red Hat or Suse is SAP and other specific enterprise software.
When Novell bought SUSE, they did Evolution. But main software to Red Hat or Suse is SAP and other specific enterprise software.
Colabora starts with a government plan on UK.
@nixCraft I woulf have expected that, after the current revelations related to data sovereignity from Microsoft, plus the big courtain of bullshit coming from the other hyperscalers, the EU governments would actually understand what the actual price of beign locked-in by a faithful servant of a crypto-fascist state actually means. And steps would be taken into the right direction. Alas... like russian oil and gas before, the current status quo will continue until... God only knows when...
@nixCraft The European Union has done and still is supporting open source.
There's a catalogue: https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/interoperable-europe/news/eu-open-source-solutions-catalogue-now-live
And that one https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/fosseps might also be interesting.
The German Parliament has a "Bundescloud" which is a Nextcloud. The Nextcloud GmbH contracts explicitly state, that everything they develop for a customer will be released as open source.
@nixCraft Maybe because they wouldn’t earn money to cover the cost? Pushing your thought one step further, they might make money with hardware maybe?
@nixCraft very good point
@nixCraft yeah, I never really thought of this tbh but it makes a lot of sense when you put it like that
@nixCraft
In Germany, there's a call: public money, public code. Not very successful, but if you listen to @Karlitschek, he's also aiming for it. There is a business model in providing FOSS to the government.
In Germany, there's a call: public money, public code. Not very successful, but if you listen to @Karlitschek, he's also aiming for it. There is a business model in providing FOSS to the government.
@himmelssohn @Karlitschek good to hear about it.
Of course, governments have no interest in doing that because tech bros and big tech have deep influence everywhere, so I'm probably just a fool dreaming about such things. A boy can dream, can't he?
@nixCraft I think this is due to the deep pockets (IBM/RH, Oracle, SuSE, etc) being focused on the server and data center market and not the desktop and laptop market.
@nixCraft Some goverments switch to linux, others like France already have a longer commitment. With more complicated use cases tham PIM, mail and office there sure will be more opensource investments.
@nixCraft Eu make some hesitant step in this direction so time to push a maximum by EU citizen
@nixCraft
The depressing part is that making good stuff is considered being bad and doing it in common efforts socialistic or communistic.
The depressing part is that making good stuff is considered being bad and doing it in common efforts socialistic or communistic.
Still, I trust FOSS. I know it isn’t perfect. I have been told by people they don’t use a program because it lacked some feature they never use anyway. Go figure.
@nixCraft, I think part of the reason could be that corporations are behind that, trying to control the ecosystem. As you mentioned, they do not fund or support systematically, so corporate products can keep gathering the market. IMHO.
@nixCraft
Government pays Microsoft.
Microsoft invests in government.
It's circular money spending, that's why.
Government pays Microsoft.
Microsoft invests in government.
It's circular money spending, that's why.
@nixCraft
It's a good dream though.
It's a good dream though.
@nixCraft@mastodon.social "Tax payers money should go to FLOSS and not to tech bros" That's why! 😉
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