less_retarded_wiki/bloat_monopoly.md
2022-10-09 14:13:45 +02:00

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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 legal rights to it), it can still be made practically controlled exclusively by the developer because the developer is the only one with sufficient 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 circumvention of free licenses and taking advantage of their popularity. With bloat monopoly capitalists can stick a FOSS license to their software, get an automatic approval (openwashing) of most "open-source" fanbois 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 mainstream web browsers (furryfox, chromium, ...), Android, Linux, Blender etc. This software is characteristic by its difficulty to be even compiled, yet alone understood, maintained and meaningfully modified by a lone average programmer, by its astronomical maintenance cost that is hard to pay for volunteers, and by aggressive update culture.