> The market is rapidly shifting and I'm just not sure how FOSS is going to stay relevant in this space.
How realistic is it to expect FOSS tools to directly compete head-to-head with these incredibly well-funded privately owned tools? The whole point of these companies is to solve the "hard" problems in order to gain a functional and competitive advantage in the market. FOSS OTOH deals with table scraps in terms of funding and technical talent. And let's face it, who are some of the biggest contributors to open source? These very same companies. They're happy to help keep the specific libs that matter to them up to date, but they're certainly not going to give away the entire product for free.
> Offline desktop tools have rapidly started to become obsolete. Products like Office had to scramble to pivot because Google Docs was replacing them. Its been a while now since I have been emailed an actual office file instead of being sent a link to the live version.
Just because the market moves in a particular direction doesn't mean it's the right decision for end users, all it means is that it's the right decision for the business. Take the mobile phone manufacturers removing the headphone jack. No customers asked for that, it was purely a move to drive sales of bluetooth peripherals.
There may come a time when running software locally becomes in-vogue again, who knows? It's companies that get to dictate the platforms because they own them. And as others have pointed out, it's not like these online collab tools aren't without their own issues. I guess I just don't understand why people think that FOSS can deliver polished end-user products on the scale that companies do.
How realistic is it to expect FOSS tools to directly compete head-to-head with these incredibly well-funded privately owned tools? The whole point of these companies is to solve the "hard" problems in order to gain a functional and competitive advantage in the market. FOSS OTOH deals with table scraps in terms of funding and technical talent. And let's face it, who are some of the biggest contributors to open source? These very same companies. They're happy to help keep the specific libs that matter to them up to date, but they're certainly not going to give away the entire product for free.
> Offline desktop tools have rapidly started to become obsolete. Products like Office had to scramble to pivot because Google Docs was replacing them. Its been a while now since I have been emailed an actual office file instead of being sent a link to the live version.
Just because the market moves in a particular direction doesn't mean it's the right decision for end users, all it means is that it's the right decision for the business. Take the mobile phone manufacturers removing the headphone jack. No customers asked for that, it was purely a move to drive sales of bluetooth peripherals.
There may come a time when running software locally becomes in-vogue again, who knows? It's companies that get to dictate the platforms because they own them. And as others have pointed out, it's not like these online collab tools aren't without their own issues. I guess I just don't understand why people think that FOSS can deliver polished end-user products on the scale that companies do.