Ask HN: Can “open source” be used for evil?

2 points by thornjm 3y ago ↗ HN

Inspired by the “Google introducing competing open source Dolby Vision/Atmos standards” post and some of the great discussion there:

“Amazing new free open source standard freeing us all from closed / licensed tyranny”

vs.

“Giant corporation arriving late to standards competition hides behind “open source” as it uses it’s dominance to force fragmentation on everyone else”

My starter comment is this: whenever a new “open” project is proposed it should be independently evaluated as “good” as though it were closed source and the competitor open. Is “open-ness” being abused by companies when they find themselves in a market position they don’t like?

1 comment

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eimrine 3y ago ↗

I do not know any example of abusing the openness. Maybe there are some examples of abusing semi-openness, kind of Android, where the open kernel is using for obtaining lots of user data for gaining some profit. This example is interesting because deGoogle-ing Android has a cost of impossibility to install some bank apps - but this is the problem of certain bank's useds who do not care on non-free bank software.

When I have read the header only, this [1] is what comes to my mind at first.

[1] https://wiki.debian.org/qa.debian.org/jsonevil