FOSSMeet 2019

A critical review of the Free Software philosophy by someone who is an ardent supporter of Free Knowledge. The recent upsurge in the use of permissive licenses, adoption of Open Source model by most corporate world, dominance of corporates in FOSS world clearly indicates that the grassroot movement ideal of the Free Software movement has not progressed. The programmers might have got some freedom, but the software and IT industry remains largely dominated by corporate control. Most of the FOSS development today is driven by the corporate world. The idealist nature of the Free Software philosophy, which misses the real worldly contradictions of the software world, does not provide a realistic framework of livelihood for people. The talk argues that both Free Software and Open Source movements are capitalism, and Open Source wins because it is better at capitalism.

Outline

What is FS/OS and the debate, Growth in use of permissive licenses, corporate dominance in FOSS, indications that FS loses against OS, Nature of knowledge vs other commodities, The limits of FS philosophy, Why FS joins hands with OS, Why OS wins, What should FS community do to sustain and grow

Requirements

Just the grey cells.

Speaker bio

Abhijit is an activist and a Free Software enthusiast. He has been promoting Free Software and organizing FOSS events for almost a decade now. He is the main developer for the Free Software Taasika timetable project on gitlab. He engages with the Moodle, Debian and Wordpress communities as well.