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submitted 2 months ago by hellfire103@lemmy.ca to c/foss@beehaw.org

Don't let the title fool you! This is not anti-FOSS!

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[-] jdnewmil@lemmy.ca 9 points 2 months ago

Don't get me wrong... I am all for FOSS and I avoid walled gardens, but people have a hard time remembering to take the trash out to the street on the right day. Spending time driving garbage trucks monthly in the local waste management Co-op is not going to fly well. That problem gets solved using money... homeowners are taxed and the local government either hires garbagepeoples directly, or more often they hire a company that takes care of the problem.

Upshot there is money rather than co-op ownership, and frequently for-profit contractors win the day over government ownership. Contractors supply GaaS, we just have to get the bin to the street. So the equivalency here is the need for the public institution known as city government to retain ownership of the waste management system. Not quite "the people", since getting co-op volunteers is, well, erratic at best. And there are a ridiculous number of people out there who are vehemently against government management of actual organizations like this. I am for it, but over and over I see "privatization" win elections.

So I am not seeing how pitching this as "stupidly obvious" will win when "obvious" means hiring a contractor nearly every time.

[-] jherazob@beehaw.org 6 points 2 months ago

Well, you're on Lemmy, one of a gazillion examples of this working

[-] jdnewmil@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 months ago

... and there are a gazillion examples where no community forms and the founder burns out. Cheers where it works, but some projects aren't sexy enough to attract a self-sustaining community, and when you don't preselect success stories but choose according to external needs that hit-and-miss experience starts to look less obvious and more like the thing only "smart" people can succeed at.

My objection is to the idea that FOSS is easy... it does require some smarts to succeed with.

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this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2024
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