Topic: Is Open Source a Collectivist Mantra? (Read 1139 times)

Fear. People buy them through fear.

I don't use one myself.

I think it's bigger than that. it's about legacy, and what type of world you want to live in... where someone can push data in your phone (ohh it's a nice song, be happy), owning or not. it's very rare to own a software, ex: I bought win xp, win xp doesn't get update, win xp is good for air-gapped. think about it with a open sourced software... then you add the ambient extreme fascism (ie merger of state and private corp) and you get your pc fully open to the ctrl+p team that will use all information to get more fuck, dsk, Silvio are just the peons "caught" in the light, but still roaming the pampas... in the old far west they would be immobile as a stone, because of being dead. once upon a time...

I think there are case uses for both open and closed source.

Personally speaking as a graphic designer, I think most open source graphics programs are total shit and even the best one the Gimp is still light years behind Photoshop, Adobe is still the king of that field. Capitalism, markets and the thirst for profits fuels innovation just as much as free code.

It doesn't have to belong to everyone if it's open source. You can choose whatever licence that you want and set the rules how you see fit. But the important thing is that the code is available and can be reviewed and compiled by people.

I understand that argument. but don't misinterpret decentralisation with belonging equally to everybody. a good that belongs equally to everyone could never function as a medium of exchange (money) like btc is intended. the gold in this worlds underground doesn't belong equally to all of us neither. it belongs firstly to those who put the work in to mine it. now if you wanna make the analogy here between a goldmine and a bitcoin miner it only works when bitcoin like gold remains unique and not inflationary duplicatable with little effort.

Same goes for every altcoin that aims to improve upon btc. I think the obsession with open source in crypto is the cardinal sin and will be its death eventually if we don't realise.

Bitcoin would be close to worthless if it was closed source. It being open source is absolutely fundamental to what it attempts to be: a trustless decentralised cryptocurrency. If it was closed source you might as well just make a database and not bother wasting all these resources on mining.

Closed source requires trust. And there are lots of companies I would trust and have no problem running commercial software from. But closed source in crypto is the cardinal sin.

If Bitcoin was closed source it would be just as popular imo even more. we would be trading at 10k a coin already. people would still understand it . closed source doesn't mean no documentation.

I like your term "share ideas freely". thats exactly my point . people mistake open source with sharing ideas or not protecting them legally. i'm all for that but bitcoins idea could have been shared without open sourcing it. this wouldn't hinder skilled individuals to develope similar code. it would only leave out the unskilled and lazy.

i wasn't saying that altcoins are bad if it came of that way. i love alts.  
i like your analogy of nature where the fittest survive. i just think that we find ourself in an environment where the bad mutations suck to much energy out of the ecosystem too long and hinder the good ones from flourishing. the hurdle for bad mutations to happen and live beyond its natural live expectation is to low when you can hold up the fassade of beeing a good mutation with little effort which it can't in nature. Android would have happened no matter what . And if it was closed source i wouldn't have 2 broken cheap china pads laying around here that broke after few weeks .    
I'm not a nerd btw.

I don't jump on a closed source coin by anonymous devs either.of course thats stupid in a environment where pandoras box has already been opened. but i think this community or parts of it should develop a new stance on closed source and no longer mistake it for pattenting ideas which its not.
there are several ways for a new coin to generate trust without sharing everything they worked for for free.

You want to have open-source because it lets people work on the project they are investing in. Say something like Bitcoin was closed source, how would anyone take Bitcoin seriously if they didn't know how it's run? Then it would just be another startup company like moneygram or paypal in which you have to go through all the legislation process. If you have open-source it means that you have the confidence to share your ideas freely and not care if other people use them because you are advancing the tech as a whole.

*cough* android *cough*.
It's Android that triggered the explosion of the "alt-pad scene" (lol). And that is OpenSource (well, most of it).

Also, the internet, when it was having it's first babysteps, was opensource, email was opensource.
It isn't about Bitcoin really, it's about the protocol, the blockchain.

And everyone stop saying that Altcoins are bad, you're in the wrong subforum for that. This is natural evolution, to say the least. Each altcoin is a mutation/fork. Not every mutation, like in nature, is a good one, heck, most aren't. But once in a while something goods comes from it, something that even BTC looks at and says: "Damn, that's a good idea" (/me is still waiting for his first PoS BTC reward )
Again, like in nature, more mutations happen but of lesser average "quality" when the ecosystem is doing well and everything can flourish. If the ecosystem is doing bad, most bad mutations get weeded out when it's still in the womb, so the quality of actual offspring will be better, but there will be much less.
Embrace this or gtfo this forum.

Closed-source has its applications, but on the internet itself, those are limited. Maybe too many nerds actually living there

your antivirus program is closed source . how did they get you to buy it then? most digital products are closed source yet still companies find ways for customers to trust them. why shouldn't that work for crypto?. it has to actually. with open source as common practice crypto is corrupted.

If its closed source it can contain hidden viruses and exploits.

great argument. thanks for your input

closed source == dead coin.
Don't buy in.

The question we need to ask ourselfs to find an answer is which of the following applies to keeping ones unique code closed source:

- pattenting an idea (socialist, corporatist practice, boooh)

- not freely sharing the fruit of ones work with the collective including lasy and unskilled competition (common free market principle)

When Apple came out with the ipad it was a great idea for every competitor to see in plain sight. so the skilled ones would jump in the lab and come up with their own version right away. While i am vigurosly against the practice of pattenting the idea of the ipad and i would criticise every attempt from apple to protect this idea through law, nobody in their right mind would criticise them for not sharing the exact building plans to the ipad with the launch right away. there is zero sense in beeing innovative if this would be common and demanded practice.

If Bitcoin would have never been open sourced we wouldn't be swimming in a see of shitcoins right know, but we would still have altcoins. the skilled coders of this world would have looked at what is there to see in plain sight and would have build their own version from scratch, or paid for the codebase to start and by so proof they are serious. The unskilled and lazy scammers out for a quick buck would have been left behind which brings us to one of the main reasons people have a pro open source stance. the so called vaporware.
It wouldn't exist. The scammers wouldn't even get the most basic wallets running and they would never put the money up for basecodes. they are lazy and unskilled. thats why they demand open source at any given possibility. I don't say there would never be a scamcoin again but it would be way less to begin with and we have other options to proof ones product is working and legit.

So now you know my personal answer to the title question. I think open source is holding the crypto currency movement back like nothing else. its worse than exchange hacks, deep web busts, and media propaganda combined. At least it should be further discussed and i encourage every dev out there that is serious about innovating and believes in the power of free markets to think about not open sourcing his unique code at all. At least not for free. Shitcoins would die in a minute.

I'm looking forward to your opinion.