devyn changed the topic of #elliottcable to: 22:53:14 <+whitequark> also there was a fragment about Swiss embassy being located on top of a 1000-ft pole, inside which there was a gigantic arms exhibit
<alexgordon>
a module store
Sgeo has joined #elliottcable
<whitequark>
it's called... rubygems!
<whitequark>
or CPAN or whatever
<alexgordon>
right but lots of those suck
<whitequark>
or do you actually mean "made a programming language with a walled garden"?
<alexgordon>
not at all
<whitequark>
ok then I don't see your point
<whitequark>
at all
<alexgordon>
ok so let people charge say a dollar to use a module
<whitequark>
that implies closed-source modules, right?
<alexgordon>
not necessarily
<whitequark>
the majority of modules are designed to be closed-source
<whitequark>
hrm
<alexgordon>
could do GPL + proprietary license
<alexgordon>
or just do BSD and guilt people into paying a dollar
<whitequark>
you're working against a social factor
<alexgordon>
how so?
<whitequark>
people who would need to pay you in this scheme would stay the fuck away from such language
<cuttle>
yeah i think this would be a deterrent
<whitequark>
e.g. hardware vendors (working with arguably the biggest gpl deployment) absolutely despise it
<whitequark>
they just have pretty much no choice
<whitequark>
with linux
<cuttle>
also it's actually not too uncommon for game engines
<alexgordon>
they wouldn't be paying *me*, they'd be paying the module authors
<whitequark>
doesn't matter
<cuttle>
like, Unity has a sizeable set of paid addons made by other people
<cuttle>
and that actually does work
<cuttle>
Unity is prevalent
<cuttle>
but that's also because:
<cuttle>
it's way way good, and people are used to paying for game engines
<whitequark>
it's a very niche market also
<alexgordon>
well what you'd probably end up with is two tiers
<cuttle>
so if your language is in the game dev world you'd probably be able to do it
<cuttle>
whitequark: well, it's a huge niche market if you want to call it that
<alexgordon>
low quality free modules and higher quality paid modules
<whitequark>
so do you pay it once?
<cuttle>
whitequark: like, game dev is a huge world and not really a niche
<alexgordon>
whitequark: ?
<whitequark>
I'm a company, I write banking software and distribute it to 100k customers
<whitequark>
how do I pay for modules I use?
<whitequark>
just $1? how would that motivate the module author?
<alexgordon>
whitequark: it would motivate them if a thousand people bought it!
<whitequark>
$1k is a month's rent here
<alexgordon>
hell I'd write way more OSS if I got $1 for every download
<alexgordon>
whitequark: not if you live in your mom's basement :D
<alexgordon>
basementware?
<whitequark>
ugh.
<alexgordon>
whitequark: would it motivate them any less than if it were free?
<alexgordon>
which is the current state of things
<whitequark>
yes
<whitequark>
counter-intuitive, perhaps
<whitequark>
if I get paid $100 per month for writing, say, parser, I'm not going to give any fucks about it
<whitequark>
because $100/month is shit
<alexgordon>
now write 20 modules
<alexgordon>
$2k/month passive income
<joelteon>
you have 100 different people use your modules every month?
<whitequark>
but when it's free, what motivates me is a social factor
<alexgordon>
joelteon: I'm thinking of the tj's of this world
<cuttle>
whitequark: it's like patreon or whatever
<cuttle>
it builds up
<cuttle>
you do enough that you get passive income going
<alexgordon>
look at https://github.com/visionmedia and imagine how many downloads he gets. now obviously not all of those people would pay $1 for it, but lots would
<whitequark>
still. it's well-known that the results of writing software for free and for money are wildly different
<alexgordon>
in which direction?
<alexgordon>
free (as in beer) software is a mixed bag for me
<whitequark>
e.g. the kickstarter effect: the scope of the project will expand until it matches the budget
<alexgordon>
you get shining examples of perfect software like sqlite
<alexgordon>
and shitty abandonware (like stuff on my github)
<whitequark>
quite possibly leading to outright failure
<alexgordon>
this would incentivise people to maintain their software, otherwise someone comes along and usurps you and your income goes down
<whitequark>
it would also add a heavy dose of "I PAID YOU $1 BITCH ANSWER ME WITHIN ONE MINUTE"
<alexgordon>
haha but you get that with free users :P
<whitequark>
sure, but you can tell them to fix it themselves!
<whitequark>
now you'd basically be expected to work as tech support, which is shitty
<alexgordon>
the way I envisage it is someone looks at the networking libraries and says "I can do better", so they build a better one and it gets a better rating, and they get the $s!
<alexgordon>
capitalism, it works
* alexgordon
says to the russian
<alexgordon>
and this would also kickstart the language
<alexgordon>
people will want to monetize their open source easily
<whitequark>
I don't think that it would optimize for best software, not at all.
<alexgordon>
and so the language will get a reputation for having a lot of good quality batteries
<alexgordon>
whitequark: it would because it's a competitive system
<whitequark>
look at, say, ST3
<whitequark>
the author doesn't give a fuck and didn't really touch it for years now
<whitequark>
why? because he can
<alexgordon>
right but that's because he got his fuck you money
<whitequark>
are someone else going to step in and replace ST3? no, not really, because writing an editor is a major PITA
<whitequark>
*exactly*
<alexgordon>
I haven't got fuck you money with chocolat and I can assure you I spend lots of time on it
<alexgordon>
you wouldn't get fuck you money selling open source for a dollar
<alexgordon>
you might get a passive income however
<alexgordon>
*as long as* you keep your shit updated
<alexgordon>
so that someone else doesn't come along and steal your income from you
<alexgordon>
so more of a semi-passive income
<whitequark>
that would also lead to interesting issues like
<whitequark>
authors of popular libraries actively sabotaging others' code in order to manipulate the market
<alexgordon>
mmm maybe, but it would show in git no?
<whitequark>
idk
<whitequark>
it just looks like you're taking the worst of open-source and the worst of capitalism
<whitequark>
and throwing together
<alexgordon>
you could do it more subtlety by flooding their bug tracker with spurious feature requests
<alexgordon>
then let them feature creep themselves to death
<alexgordon>
whitequark: well I am evil!
<whitequark>
basically, replacing altruism with greed
<whitequark>
what could go wrong
<alexgordon>
greed is not a bad thing though
<alexgordon>
merely a powerful thing
<alexgordon>
without greed, humanity would be nothing
<whitequark>
greed doesn't optimize for good software though
<alexgordon>
I disagree
<alexgordon>
I think altruism doesn't optimize for good software
<alexgordon>
and I think that we are not fully harnessing the world's programmers to write good libraries
<whitequark>
I'm not sure whether you are trolling at this point
<whitequark>
have you ever seen, say, upstream Linux code and vendor Linux code?
<whitequark>
or pretty much any upstream OSS code and vendor modifications to it?
<alexgordon>
but that's different, the vendors don't have a direct incentive to write good code
<whitequark>
that's right, they're motivated solely by profit
<whitequark>
which is exactly what I'm talking about
<alexgordon>
but if they *did* have a direct incentive, in the form of money
<alexgordon>
they'd write better code
<alexgordon>
hell I have so many ideas for open source projects, but I never bother writing them because I know it's pointless
<alexgordon>
my time is better spend on things which I can make money with
<alexgordon>
*spent
<whitequark>
unless those OSS ideas are all extremely worthwhile, nothing would change
<alexgordon>
LOL burn
<purr>
LOL
<whitequark>
hm?
<alexgordon>
you said my ideas aren't worthwhile
<whitequark>
seriously, for all my projects except parser, if I got paid $1/download (unrealistic), that won't even cover the food
<alexgordon>
but if you knew you'd be getting $1/download you'd take more care making really good craic
<whitequark>
no, I'd care about having more downloads
<whitequark>
there's no reason to believe that incentive translates to better code
<alexgordon>
wait I actually don't think the word "craic" means what I thought it meant. always thought it meant "stuff" but it seems it's more specific than that
<whitequark>
it's more about intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation. people who care about thing they do write good code. people who don't, not really
<whitequark>
and you can't make people care by throwing money at them
<alexgordon>
maybe not russian people...
<alexgordon>
it would work for me *shrugs*
<purr>
¯\(º_o)/¯
<whitequark>
first, that's a really dumb insult
<whitequark>
second, what I'm saying is relatively well-established, it's not just my musings
<whitequark>
look up, for example, the effect of kickstarters on OSS projects
<alexgordon>
but kickstarter is not like it at all, because you get paid upfront
<alexgordon>
here you do the work, *then* people pay you
<alexgordon>
if you write crap, nobody will pay you
<whitequark>
you know what? write a blog article about such an ecosystem, make it completely serious
<whitequark>
even slightly pretentious, but not too much
<whitequark>
and post it on HN. I would gladly watch the ensuing bonfire