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Why We Can't Have Nice Software - Andrew Kelley

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The problem with software is that it's too powerful. It creates so much wealth so fast that it's virtually impossible to not distribute it. Think about it: sure, it takes a while to make useful software. But then you make it, and then it's done. It keeps working with no maintenance whatsoever, and just a trickle of electricity to run it. Immediately, this poses a problem: how can a small number of people keep all that wealth for themselves, and not let it escape in the dirty, dirty fingers of the general populace? This is a question that the music industry faced head-on, and they came up with EULAs, enforced via the state's monopoly on violence, and DRM, a way for software to act antagonistically against its own users. Software can do useful things like encode media into bits, and then copy those bits. That's dangerously useful, and it had to be stopped. What about bitrot, you say? It takes ongoing maintenance to keep software working, doesn't it? Let's think critically about bitrot fo

Why We Can't Have Nice Software - Andrew Kelley Andrew Kelley - Why We Can't Have Nice Software (2024 Feb 04) Why We Can't Have Nice Software The problem with software is that it's too powerful. It creates so much wealth so fast that it's virtually impossible to not distribute it. Think about it: sure, it takes a while to make useful software. But then you make it, and then it's done. It keeps working with no maintenance whatsoever, and just a trickle of electricity to run it. Immediately, this poses a problem: how can a small number of people keep all that wealth for themselves, and not let i

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