Free and Open Source Software

Society was not ready for Open Source and society is is becoming less and less ready.

I think this is true for a lot of software in general. The average person is becoming less and less tech literate as time goes on. You'd think it'd be the opposite, since we're so saturated with technology now compared to 25 years ago. But we're moving so rapidly away from general purpose platforms, and more open ecosystems. A large number of my family don't even own a desktop or laptop computer. They have a phone and maybe a tablet, and that's it. And then you look at the state of the web and Internet, and how most digital lives revolve around a handful of tightly controlled walled gardens, with people being extremely reluctant to branch out to explore or experiment with other apps, sites, or services. I've seen people, even on here, say that they don't want another login to some app or service, so if they can't get what they want where they already are, then they're not interested.

Over the past 25 years of my life as a software engineer, I published both Open Source and commercial software. Only the commercial software has ever made a noticable return.

And this ties into the last point there: people simply aren't purchasing software anymore. Even a few bucks for a mobile app seems a bridge too far for a lot of people. Your average user doesn't spend money on desktop software. Unless they're a power user or a business user (where the cost might be shifted to the business), they're just going to use an OS's built in tools, or Google docs or something like that. PC gamers may spend a lot of a rig and on games, but they're a small market focused on very specific purchases. Even in the mobile space where everyone is now, the only ones making money are predatory subscription- or micro-transaction-based games.

The result is that fewer and fewer software is released as Open Source and instead distributed as Cloud-based commercial SaaS.

Exactly. And that only further decreases the control the user has over their computing lives. But the problem is: we as software devs are generally the only ones who care about OSS. The average user couldn't care less. They're not going to modify or redistribute it. They just want a tool or app or service that does what they want, and they don't care what happens behind the scenes.

I really think our shift away from general purpose computing toward locked down devices and walled gardens is driving a great deal of the problem. Add the problems of capitalism, the fact that it's so hard to get a small project off the ground without the dev burning out, and it really is a crisis. People like to think of the Linux kernel as an example a big project made by hobbyist, but it isn't. Companies like Oracle, Google, Intel, et al are the largest contributors. So what do we do when the most prominent examples of OSS are driven by companies who's primary goal is lockdown, lock-in, and control?

I don't know. I don't know what the answer is.