Drivers passing through San Francisco have a new roadside distraction to consider: billboards calling out businesses that don’t cough up for the open source code that they use.
The signs are the work of the Open Source Pledge – a group that launched earlier this month. It asks businesses that make use of open source code to pledge $2,000 per developer to support projects that develop the code. So far, 25 companies have signed up – but project co-founder Chad Whitacre wants bigger firms to pay their dues, too.
The software is supposed to be free as in speech, not beer, ergo you can use it for whatever you want. If right out of the gate, GNU was like “you better contribute back if you use this!” nobody would use or contribute to it. All this does is produce drama and reduce use because of negative perceptions, it is bad for corporate adoption and adoption overall. If browbeating people like an ass worked we would live in a very different world. It does not.