Karl Marx analyzed how explotation is inherent in wage labor by pointing out how the use-value of something is different than the value/exchange value of something. You show up to work and make your boss thousands of dollars, and that’s the use-value of your labor. But the exchange-value is just about enough to keep you showing up day after day. Your boss knows they’d be a terrible capitalist if they paid you more than enough to keep you showing up day after day. Their job is to maximize profits, and that means they have to pay you the bare minimum regardless of how valuable you are to the firm.
A lot of volunteer open-source development is exactly like this except the volunteer is being exploited by about 40 firms none of whom owe this dev anything on paper, so you end up with these absurdities like the corejs person having to beg for a job in NPM while providing core infra for huge swathes of the web.
A lot of open source is way more exploitative than traditional software development if you actually factor in how much money is being made off projects volunteers do in their spare time.
And this is dysfunctional and exploitative as hell, but it actually makes sense. Open-source was an effort to rebrand free software to appeal to companies on depoliticized grounds. We should completely expect that companies who embraced open source because it saves them money and no other reason would freeload. That’s what they were sold on – you can just show up and take it, no questions asked, no price tag attached. So they do.
Well, open source depoliticized free software, Microsoft <3’s Linux now, and open source devs are afraid to even try calculating how much money basically all of Silicon Valley would owe them if there was a shred of justice on this Earth.
Karl Marx analyzed how explotation is inherent in wage labor by pointing out how the use-value of something is different than the value/exchange value of something. You show up to work and make your boss thousands of dollars, and that’s the use-value of your labor. But the exchange-value is just about enough to keep you showing up day after day. Your boss knows they’d be a terrible capitalist if they paid you more than enough to keep you showing up day after day. Their job is to maximize profits, and that means they have to pay you the bare minimum regardless of how valuable you are to the firm.
A lot of volunteer open-source development is exactly like this except the volunteer is being exploited by about 40 firms none of whom owe this dev anything on paper, so you end up with these absurdities like the corejs person having to beg for a job in NPM while providing core infra for huge swathes of the web.
A lot of open source is way more exploitative than traditional software development if you actually factor in how much money is being made off projects volunteers do in their spare time.
And this is dysfunctional and exploitative as hell, but it actually makes sense. Open-source was an effort to rebrand free software to appeal to companies on depoliticized grounds. We should completely expect that companies who embraced open source because it saves them money and no other reason would freeload. That’s what they were sold on – you can just show up and take it, no questions asked, no price tag attached. So they do.
TBH how we need to think about open source as a whole is as a referendum on capitalism. Free Software as a movement had critiques of capitalism but was ambivalent. Eric Raymond and company explicitly gambled that if you depoliticized free software and got the corporations on board, you could fix the problems free software was facing.
Well, open source depoliticized free software, Microsoft <3’s Linux now, and open source devs are afraid to even try calculating how much money basically all of Silicon Valley would owe them if there was a shred of justice on this Earth.
That’s an excellent observation!