Two whales

First, a small introduction, and may sophisticated users forgive me for some simplifications.
Free software development in general, and for GNU Linux in particular, currently stands on two pillars - GNU and Linux.

• Through the mouth of Richard Stallman, GNU promotes the free creation, modification and execution of software code, free software, and is legally expressed in the GPL
• Linux, by the hands of Linus Torvalds programmers, creates an environment in which this free code runs.

The basis of the philosophy of open source software is that a person can use whatever he wants all the wealth of the free software code created before him, but at the same time (under the GPL license) he must also make his own achievements free.

It is interesting, interesting to program and do something “for the idea”. The basic principle is “With a thread around the world, a shirt is naked”, everyone can create a little system in their free time and as a result the amount of free code increases, GNU Linux grows and gets stronger ... only here end users are still in 30 years after the advent of free software ideas, they mostly work with proprietary proprietary programs, even in an android that is “inside” completely Linux.
What is the reason?

Three pines

What is the reason that Linux now has a dozen graphical shells but not a single working free program such as "Trade and Warehouse"?
To do this, you need to remember for whom and at whose expense free software and Linux distributions are currently being created.

• “For an idea” - due to ideologically stubborn lovers of free software, fascinated by Stallman's ideas. There are especially many among students, but when a wife and children appear, it is very difficult to spend time instead of family on other, distant people, even for an idea. The way of Job, who has kept faith despite all the hardships is not for everyone, not everyone can be holy. And the creators of free software "burn out" and lose interest, GNU-program projects are closed. But even if such a project continues to exist, it is usually more important than “ideological” than “usability”, it is not for ordinary users - for ideological. Not for all. “Everyone” usually almost immediately shouts “HOW TO EXIT YOUR VI?”
• "For yourself"- at the expense of fans to build their own sandbox - the universe, "programming for pleasure" It is very interesting to make your program or system the way you want! This interest in itself is not bad, but it leads to a huge number of unfinished Linux programs and distributions, to the separation of efforts. And the desire to compare your sandbox with others - and to pride and abuse on the forums, because in the absence of an honest comparison mechanism, which in the ordinary world is sales, subjective, personal addictions and “loud shouting” begin to work. Also, in this paradigm, programmers make systems “for themselves” and not “for users”, while architectural things are done quite easily, but problems with ergonomics and initial settings, with design and help are very common. All this allows you to make a kernel,
  
• “For corporations” - at the expense of corporations. Yes, the funding received from a large corporation for some of its projects allows you to make a beautiful and quite convenient system. But this system will be made for the customer’s corporation (what freedom is there) and financing can be stopped at any time, because in the general case, Linux development does not bring any profit on its own, it’s very difficult to sell them, thanks to the GPL .
  

Thus, we can say that the reason for “stagnation” in the development of free software for end users, “for desktop” is the lack of communication between the developers of open source software and end users. Wandering in the three pines, the SPO development does not reach the interests of the user, and in fact he would eventually become the customer of the development. The standard market mechanism - "made-sold" in the case of the GPL does not work - how can I sell to users what can be copied for free?

What to do with a task that has no solution? Reformulate the conditions.
Let's get away from the manufacturer-consumer model

How to put a penguin on its feet

Digital copying has made it possible a very interesting thing - you can share without becoming poor yourself. Once you have made a program, you can give it to someone and you will have this program, as well as about graphics, music - any digital media. This principle contradicts the laws of modern trade and there are protected programs, laws on piracy, content protection, a hint of advertising and other illogical and unnecessary things for people.

But let’s leave all digital media for now, we’ll only talk about programs under the GPL. And also about rural freedom.

I live in a village, and when I moved there, I settled on the “new” street, where there was no roadway or water supply. Because “In the yard” there was a crisis, there was no need to wait for financing, but I had to drag water on myself and get stuck in the mud after any rain. When I was tired of it, I threw the idea of ​​changing the world around. We organized with other residents of the street, threw off money, found artists - and as a result, we poured the road and carried out water supply. Then I felt like a completely free person who can change the world around him at will.

How to make their developers free not only ideologically, but also financially? For this, it is necessary that users can participate in the development not only with bug reports and feature requests, but financially, so that they can pay programmers and tester builders.

For what? Not for simply copying previously done work, no!
Payment should be made for the real work - for building functionality. This is honest work, the results of which are shared by everyone - as with the road on which not only those who paid for its construction travel.

Most programs and services go from release development to smooth rolling, to “eternal beta” when changes are made to the system continuously, and its operability is preserved. Thus, the program ceases to be something unchanged, turns into a continuously developing functional. And each step of such a development can already be funded by those who need this development of functionality - IT specialists and users.

Adding free financing for changes to free programming and a free runtime environment, you can fix the weaknesses of open source software (dopilivanie and bug fixing with ergonomics) and completely change the psychology of creating programs.

In the proposed paradigm:

• the buyer-operator turns into a customer-investor, the consumer into a co-creator.
• purchase of a program is replaced by an order for the development of some of its features
• copy protection is replaced by free use of previously made developments
• a programmer tied to the company becomes an independent and freely choosing developer

Why has this not been done before? Without developed means of communication, this was impossible! Similar systems in other areas are now appearing one after another, for example, taxi services such as Uber (Yandex-taxi, Maxim taxi) or kickstarter clients. In open source software development, such a model is used, for example, by the OpenShot project.

This model also resembles the already well-known “grant” model for financing science. There, too, scientific results are published and available to everyone, grants finance new discoveries and developments.

Another similar model is “joint purchases”, when users join groups on the forum and order some goods at a wholesale price.

Third whale

In the real world, you can buy ready-made clothes or order them "for yourself" and - only for yourself. But the possibilities of digital copying allow either to choose from many options made before - “for free”, or to invest and make your own - for yourself and for all grateful humanity. In the near future, 3D printers will allow you to do this with many things from the real world, because if copying is free, you only need to come up with it once!

Already now this can be done in the development of free software.

It is important that in the proposed paradigm:

• It is beneficial for people to join communities to jointly order the developments they need. It's great to do something useful for everyone together.
• Everyone can find their place in the development - from coding and design, to organization or financing. From each according to his ability.
• The participants in the system are independent of loans, corporations, advertising departments and PR managers, they directly seek and find each other directly, without unnecessary intermediaries. Uberization - to the masses!

With this approach, it’s simple and logical - bugs and feature quests are ranked according to the importance of money, doping and design with documentation become interesting, and almost all of today's open source software weaknesses are closed. Money returns their real meaning - measuring the need for a product.

The third whale that will straighten the free software market (well, the world will change, as without it) is very possible, will be a platform that will bring together software customers and its developers, logically including the ordering process in the development process. The one who first launches such a platform will finish to a logical conclusion what Stallman and Linus started. And he can also make money on it - quite honestly taking his percentage for the operation of this platform according to the Kickstarter model.

What are the requirements for such a platform?

It seems to me that in the end it will be a social network aimed not at consuming content, as it is now, but at producing software. A kind of industrial hub in half with a git. A network that unites developers of open source software with a reputation, viewing the history of development-orders, the ability to combine efforts and the minimum cost of a transaction to change the code from one operational state to another.

For the sake of exclusion, duplication is even possible if there is such a centralized source code platform - does the single, but free Wikipedia work? Such a platform will link developers and end users with free funding. How?

IT independence - pay with money

The question arises - and who will formulate orders for changing open source software and pay for them? After all, the end user most often wants only to press the big red button and “do everything well” . Who are these people who need code changes and who are willing to pay for them?
These people are IT specialists, administrators and customizers, those who now go to computers or go to cities and towns, setting up windows (and even sometimes linux) and getting paid for it. Now they are divided, working for the glory of Western corporations or pirates - and no one knows the needs of end users better than these people. If IT specialists have the opportunity, on their own or in money, to change the software to the needs of their users and share these changes under the GPL, we will get no less - an infrastructure solution to the IT security problem of society. Indeed, then the software will not turn into a commodity, as it is now - but into an infrastructure such as roads or electricity, common to all, gathering society into a single whole. With all this, this infrastructure will be independent of both corporations and state funding,

How can it all look?

Differently. From a bright crowdfunding company like “we are a cool team, we want to make a cool program with such features, we need two lemons” (whoever says that this is impossible with us - he has not seen the planet to a portal like “joint purchases” where you can order or to fulfill some feature in the open source software The possible implementation of such an order is through the “target donation” auction, when an order is formulated and money is already donated to it, and the more money accumulates, the more useful this functionality is and the higher the likelihood that it will be written.

The transition to open source software can and should go not by voluntary decisions and coercion "from above", but from the understanding that this is beneficial to everyone. The state may well, as the customer, give grants for some changes in the functionality it needs — and these changes will be made by the network community of IT employees, but in the general case, the system will work without the state, or rather, creating the state “from below”, on level of self-organization of society, effectively, independently, without cuts and kickbacks. "For yourself" - but now this concept will include end users, not IT-employees, as in today's world of open source software.