I'm using FOSS but I'd still consider myself a casual user. It seems like most FOSS I've seen is a free, buggy, alternative to mainstream software, which resolves a problem the user had.

From my perspective, (and do correct me if I'm wrong) FOSS doesnt seem sustainable. Everyone can contribute, but how do they make a living? My guess is they do other things for income. And what about the few contributors who do 90% of the work?

What if every software became FOSS? Who would put in the free labor to write the software to print a page, or show an image on screen, or create something more complex like a machine learning advanced AI software?

Would it simply be that everyone provides for each other? Everyone pitches in? What about people who have bills to pay? Would their bills be covered?

This concludes my right-before-bed psychology inquiry.

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[–] oo1@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago

I agree this looks trolly. but to add

FOSS also has benefits to b2b customers ,
It gives them supply chain indepence / resilience avoids "vendor lock in" or a million ways to say it..

It's a similar benefit to using standardised physical parts in place of something bespoke.

Even if i'm paying a large tech company for a service, i'd want them using and developing foss so that i can theoretically switch supplier more easily. sure ther's probably some proprietary data, but not necessarily propritary code/software tools.

Of course some b2b cusomers seem to really enjoy paying MS and oracle etc. to bend them over a barrel. . .