@zardoz @dredmorbius @kick @enkiv2 @freakazoid the best attack on the SEO problem I've seen so far is Wikipedia: Wikipedia's messy social processes are very good at not getting captured by SEOs and the like. Not perfect, but enormously better than Google SERPs
@zardoz @dredmorbius @kick @enkiv2 @freakazoid I guess the other alternatives along those lines are the Git model (fork at will, and choose whose fork you link to) and the Debian model (maintainers exist, and vote on governance, but NMUs are available to limit the worst failures of the maintainer model, despite the avconv/ffmpeg problem etc.)
@kragen On the Git / fork model, there's a problem I've been trying to articulate for years and think I may finally have:
The threat of the low-cost / high-capability developer.
That is, even outside the proprietary world, it's possible to shape the direction of software (or protocol or data standards) development by being the most able / capable / low-cost developer.
That's been an issue in several notable projects, and seems more so now.
@zardoz@cybre.space @kick @enkiv2 @freakazoid
@kragen This goes back to the days of "worse is better" -- because "worse" is also (near-term) cheaper, and faster to develop, so it iterates and improves much faster than "better".
You may end up stuck in a local optimum as a result. But you'll at least get there quickly, while "better" is still trying to get their 0.01 out the door.
Otherwise: I tend to agree re: Wikipedia and Debian: social and organisational structures help tremendously.
@zardoz@cybre.space @kick @enkiv2 @freakazoid
@dredmorbius @zardoz @kick @enkiv2 @freakazoid it sounds like you're saying that free software tends to be meritocratic and some people don't like that? or is it more that it's much easier to add complexity to a problem (e.g., HTML5) than to remove it?
@kragen So whilst it's possible to fork, it can be hard to fork *and sustain a competitive level of development and support* especially against a particularly complicated alternative.
Say: browser rendering engines. Or init suite replacements. Or integrated desktops. Or office suites. Or tax or accounting software.
A vastly funded adversary *even if operating wholly within Free Software*, can code circles around other parties.
@zardoz@cybre.space @kick @enkiv2 @freakazoid