This is where the supply chain metaphor — and it is just that, a metaphor — breaks down. If a microchip vendor enters an agreement and fails to uphold it, the vendor’s customers have recourse. If an open source maintainer leaves a project unmaintained for whatever reason, that’s not the maintainer’s fault, and the companies that relied on their work are the ones who get to solve their problems in the future. Using the term “supply chain” here dehumanizes the labor involved in developing and maintaining software as a hobby.

  • @brombek
    7•2 years ago

    I see many of articles and blog posts were people use commercial metaphors when describing free software. These simply do not apply to free software and use of them will just confuse everybody and make them to render incorrect conclusions. Free software is sufficiently different from anything that capitalism produces and requires use of its own metaphors to be understood correctly.

    • @hfkldjbuq@beehaw.org
      1•2 years ago

      Free software is sufficiently different from anything that capitalism produces and requires use of its own metaphors to be understood correctly.

      Hm

      Actually, we encourage people who redistribute free software to charge as much as they wish or can. If a license does not permit users to make copies and sell them, it is a nonfree license.

      —https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.en.html

      https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html.en#four-freedoms

      • @pingveno
        4•2 years ago

        From what I understand, the GNU philosophy around selling dates from when distribution costs were substantial. Picture manufacturing and distributing CD’s full of packages. It’s just a totally different world now in terms of how software is distributed, free or otherwise.

        • @hfkldjbuq@beehaw.org
          1•2 years ago

          It’s because rms needed money for remaining relatively independent from influence to implement the free operating system. Sending tapes for some bucks was just a means to that

          https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/rms-nyu-2001-transcript.html

          it is not a different world. capitalism is still here, and it influences everything including developers ability to maintain their projects, with or without profit-driven influence.

    • @federico3
      1•2 years ago

      Nonetheless, the concept of supply chain applies perfectly.