drummyfish
/
less_retarded_wiki
4
0
Fork 0
Code Issues Pull Requests Packages Projects Releases Wiki Activity
You cannot select more than 25 topics Topics must start with a letter or number, can include dashes ('-') and can be up to 35 characters long.
master
Branches Tags
${ item.name }
Create tag ${ searchTerm }
Create branch ${ searchTerm }
from '11591efdcd'
${ noResults }
less_retarded_wiki/bloat_monopoly.md

1.2 KiB
Raw Blame History

Bloat Monopoly

Bloat monopoly is an exclusive control over or de-facto ownership of software not by legal means but by means of bloat. I.e. even if given sofware is FOSS (that is its source code is public and everyone has basic rights to it), it can still be made practically controlled exclusively by the developer because the developer is the only one with enough resources and/or know-how to be able to execute the basic rights such as meaningful modifications of the software.

Bloat monopoly is capitalism's bypass of free licenses and accommodation to their popularity. With bloat monopoly capitalists can stick an FOSS license to their software, get an automatic approval of most "open-source" fans as well as their free work time, while really staying in control almost to the same degree as with proprietary software.

Examples of bloat monopoly include web browsers, Android etc. This software is characteristic by its difficulty to be even compiled, yet alone understood and meaningfully modified, by its astronomical maintenance cost that is hard to pay for volunteers, and by aggressive update culture.