The goal isn’t to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.

Chuck Palahnuik – Author (Fight Club, among others)

At the time of writing, I must have watched at least 10 videos in the last week titled with a variation of “open source software is dying”. A prominent example is Cal.com going closed source. Based on the looming and promised threat of super-intelligent AI, they posted a heartfelt video explaining their decision, which went on to naturally spawn about 10,000 parasitic reaction videos.

I work as a developer for a commercial software company that builds software for the aviation industry. Whatever your view on Cal’s decision – legitimate pivot to commercial OpenAI style bait-and-switch commercialisation stunt – if we were open-sourced, I would be having the same midnight sweats that Cal’s CEO Bailey Pumfleet would have been having. But hey, it’s rarely black and white – in the words of the little girl on the Old El Paso ads,

“Why not both?”

Another slow erosion of freedom

Call me a conspiracy theorist because their track record seems pretty good right now. Through planned obsolescence, the right-to-repair being taken away, parts and instructions being hidden being corporate IP walls, agressive patent enforcing going after even the little guys (mainly to instil fear it could happen to anyone), I see our freedom to buy, make, adapt and create technologies being slowly removed. We’re being told by the CEOs of AI companies, that “creating music is hard – who wants to do that? Let AI do it.”

To list a few nails in the coffin of technological creativity, which I could elaborate on in a separate post for each, here’s some methods how I have seen open-source be methodically and systemically attacked:

• Lack of affordability – even “middle” income can mean just getting by. No money for hobbies
• Lack of “free time” – working more, more distraction, less time to ourselves.
• Lack of availability – try buying a hard drive in 2026. DJI drone bans. 3D printers becoming regulated.
• AI creating a swathe of enshittification – saturated market, low quality tools that no-one asked for, unsustainable and dangerous code.
• AI creating a threat to effort – “vibe coding” creating instant gratification from smashing out a prototype, but disillusioning people when they meet the gap to “production ready” and they realise they haven’t learned anything along the way.
• AI’s security threat – Claude Mythos’ somewhat (you have to admit) brilliant marketing saying “this can find bugs in all open source software and nothing is safe, it’s too dangerous for the public”. Why bother making open source then? Why bother using it if I’ll just be hacked?
• AI “token anxiety” – Unsustainable bait and switch on AI pricing. Make it a free commodity, then start charging the earth for it once people have been hooked and are reliant on it.
• Instant gratification – So easy to see an idea come to life. But no ownership over that idea, no effort into that idea, no care for that idea.
• “Just comfortable enough” – Why go open source, why build something, when I’ve got just enough money left over to buy it from a big manufacturer? Saves the hassle…
• Pitting people against people – The “keeping up with the Jones’” – I gotta have what they have. I’m jealous of what they have. I want more. I don’t have enough. Also, politically keep them separated, keep people fighting amongst themselves so there’s no time to focus on creation.
• Maslow’s heirarchy – Generally speaking in the developed world I believe we’re at the “esteem” or if you’re lucky, “love and belonging” level. It’s dangerous for everyone to be self actualized – you can’t control them, and psychologically, they won’t have the consumer wants we need to build profits. At this level, they just want to buy stuff to feel good about themselves, and keep up with the latest trends.

Welcome the “Open-Stuff” movement

I’m calling it the “open-stuff movement”.

Not just open-source software but ANY technology; tools, medicine, ideas, systems, literature, music, energy, communication and knowledge. These shouldn’t ever be under the control and protection of any one person, organisation, or country.

What about rewards?

“Those who innovate and put their money, belongings, and person at risk should be the ones to reap the rewards.”

From just about any thread discussing capitalism

There’s nothing wrong with being rewarded. The issue is when that reward never ceases rewarding. Ever. When the creator holds on to their creation, the rights to that creation, and milks it for all that it’s worth at the expense of society and its people. When the top 1% of the population holds 50% of the world’s wealth, and the bottom 50% of the population holds 15% of the world’s wealth.

That level of divide is no longer about rewards. There are people dying, starving, being murdered, uneducated, homeless, hopeless, because the wealth is not allowed to be distributed. In this society, mainly driven by different forms of capitalism, wealth also includes access to ideas, the ablity to build yourself out of poverty, and the distribution of the essentials of human life. Power is control, and control is power. Wealth means you have control, which means you have power.

Having access to build tools, to build houses, to make your own fuel, to grow your own food, to collect and filter water, to make clothes, to own and farm animals, should not be under the control of government or corporation.

Our concept of “reward” is skewed. Why does reward have to look like trillions of dollars? Why fame and fortune? Where did that come from when it’s so clear, and proven psychologically that our greatest reward comes from effort leading to change, helping our fellow human, exercising creativity and freedom to benefit the masses?

The line keeps moving. Slowly.

Our ability to see the predator stalking our freedom appears to be, like the Jurassic Park T-Rex, to be based on movement. It moves so slowly, the goalposts shift so gently, that we quickly adapt to this new normal. To rationalise, we are good at justification. Not quite at “cognitive dissonance” level, but just saying things like the prior mentioned “That company put in the risk and money to design and deliver, they should reap the rewards.”

There are the “show me a better system” bros. It’s an obscene argument because a big part of why communism and socialism may have perceptively “failed” in the past is the same reason capitalism is slowing eating us now – greed. And it will fail also. It IS failing. I can’t show you a better system yet, because we haven’t lived it yet. But I believe, I KNOW there is one.

Communism/socialism can, if not controlled, shortcut the pathway to greed. Instead of the sociopathic people naturally pre-disposed to power and control, who in our current system need to strategically play a game over a period of decades, in communism or socialism they could be simply voted in, installed, or forcefully take over. The change is so jarring that the populace can see it happening “overnight”. The frog jumps out of the boiling water and revolts, leading to civil wars, and regime changes. Then headlines around the world in more “stable” countries can gloat again that the other system – communism, socialism – failed again.

Capitalism is a gentle heating. We’re the frogs in the proverbial pot. The power and money has been hoarded by a very very few exclusive elite, which then bleeds into government (even my little country isn’t immune – we have a CEO in charge right now too). Ownership is taken away from the people, and distributed by the government at their whim to give “just enough”. What they have they protect fiercly by implementing new systems, laws, rules, structures and technologies that ensure that the system continues to work how it benefits them.

Do you think there will be a time we cant legally grow our own food? Collect our own water? Generate our own power? It’ll be in the guise of protecting us. And why would you bother? Because we’ve got ample good food and surely WE won’t have our supply disrupted. We just gotta pay for it.

Use the system against itself

Supply and demand. Become a maker. Become an idea creator. Become a sharer of technology. Start collecting your own water, start building your own parts for the stuff you own, and things you need. Make your own security system, don’t buy the off-the-shelf version. Don’t buy a tripod, make one. Don’t know how? Then learn. Team up with others. Learn from the internet, learn from other people. Assimilate that knowledge, compound it over time. Practice, fail, try again, succeed, and enjoy the process and friends along the way.

If we keep doing this, if we keep demanding the tools, the time, and the rights to make and create and share, the market will respond. We are many, they are only 0.1%. Power in numbers, power in ideas, power in taking back control of our lives. Give the power to those who need it most. Make a generator for a family that can’t afford their power bill. Teach them how to garden. Look after your sphere of influence, your neighbour. If everybody does just that, the world will quite literally be healed. Work on yourself – be mindful where you find true joy and motivation, what form of giving, helping and creating sparks passion, and bears fruit.

It will take time – but so will their plan. Keep strong, stay awake, stay aware, and don’t give up.