<p><span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://not.acu.lt/@ignaloidas" class="u-url mention">@<span>ignaloidas</span></a></span> <span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://mastodon.social/@whitequark" class="u-url mention">@<span>whitequark</span></a></span> <span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@lunarood" class="u-url mention">@<span>lunarood</span></a></span> <span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://mastodon.social/@mcc" class="u-url mention">@<span>mcc</span></a></span> While it's certainly true that academics write software programs, they generally do not have the education, interest, and/or funding to turn those software programs into commercially valuable products with high utility and usability. This is perfectly normal; their research questions tend to begin 'is it possible to make a system that' rather than ‘is it possible to launch a product that achieves’.</p><p>The more general open source community on the other hand continually creates software that is useful, usable and commercially viable, often directly competing with commercial products, like OpenOffice or Wordpress. This is good for everyone, unfortunately, 'everyone' includes *everyone*.</p><p>Additionally, academia has a much, much more mature understanding and relationship with ethics than most FOSS projects – this is the real source of my concern, the misconception that you are helpless but to give good stuff to bad people so you can participate in the gift economy.</p>
