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Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave

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Re: Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave

#281

Post by ccozan »

pjmlp wrote: post #230
wpietri wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. I have a ton of closed-source software in my projects folder. That's not a business model. Neither is open-source software, where I take some of that stuff and throw it up on GitHub. A business model is where I repeatably create value for others and receive money in exchange. A modern software company can do that in a variety of ways, including selling training, documentation, support, custom features, consulting…

The difference with open source, is that I can take you out of business with the code you wrote yourself.

The biggest counter-example is RedHat.

Re: Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave

#282

Post by chillydawg »

gpvos wrote: post #263
sandGorgon wrote: post #116

This post today is what is wrong with open source software. If someone knows jwe, then they should tell him that lots of corporates and startups WANT to support stuff like this. But you cannot give a paypal link and expect donations. As a company, I cant do that. I need an invoice. Hell, if you can get a business account, I daresay you will get subscriptions. I like to call this "gratitude-ware". Check out Sidekiq Pr…

I still do not get it. What explodes when a company donates (instead of paying for something with an invoice)? I cannot imagine that it is illegal.

It's all legal and fine, it's just how do you get it approved? You're not actually buying anything, nothing will stop working and no projects will be impacted without the PO. In a large company, this effectively makes it impossible.

The solution is to just pretend you're buying a minimal support contract and that'll get approved no worries.

Re: Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave

#283

Post by phaemon »

scrollaway wrote: post #251
sandGorgon wrote: post #116

This post today is what is wrong with open source software. If someone knows jwe, then they should tell him that lots of corporates and startups WANT to support stuff like this. But you cannot give a paypal link and expect donations. As a company, I cant do that. I need an invoice. Hell, if you can get a business account, I daresay you will get subscriptions. I like to call this "gratitude-ware". Check out Sidekiq Pr…

I don't believe there is a single OSI or common license that makes it straightforward for an author to say "This has all the open source freedoms, except for commercial uses" and sell the exception. When I see people asking if they can do this, they get laughed out of the room by others who claim that "open source freedoms" does not restrict commercial use. This is kind of a serious issue. Artists get such a license,…

Isn't that "The Non-Profit Open Software License"?

https://opensource.org/licenses/NPOSL-3.0

Re: Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave

#284

Post by toyg »

bravura wrote: post #58
yazaddaruvala wrote: post #17

This is not a scalable model of software funding. People may send you money today, because its on their minds, but bills will have to be paid again next month, and next year. Please get yourself, a Patreon account, or something similar. Meanwhile, I'm sure MathWorks is looking for people with exactly your domain knowledge[0]. https://www.mathworks.com/company/jobs/opportunities/?s_tid=...

Would you donate a recurring amount monthly to open-source software development? Imagine a site that auto-bills your credit card every month. You can specify projects you want to support, or just support a portfolio of projects that someone else has devised. If so, please fill out this quick survey. I'm curious if this idea has legs: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfXIqUqsfDoUplWeWYs...

This has been done to death, with Patreon being the most famous example.

The problem of this model is that it's still basically B2C, a sort of charity for free work. What we need is enabling more B2B, i.e. a flow of invoices for some nominal "premium" work.

Re: Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave

#285

Post by paulryanrogers »

fijal wrote: post #250
sandGorgon wrote: post #116

This post today is what is wrong with open source software. If someone knows jwe, then they should tell him that lots of corporates and startups WANT to support stuff like this. But you cannot give a paypal link and expect donations. As a company, I cant do that. I need an invoice. Hell, if you can get a business account, I daresay you will get subscriptions. I like to call this "gratitude-ware". Check out Sidekiq Pr…

Maybe you're the one who can write a check, but this is a difficult topic... I do corporate accounting for baroque software and I can write an invoice and pushing people to pay for it is still quite a sales challenge - you need to be able to talk to high enough people and prove the value of what you're offering on top of the software you are already giving for free. It's not different to a standard issue sales exerci…

"...software you are already giving for free"

Free and open software has created the expectation that software has no cost. Trying to overcome that after the fact will take time and education.

Re: Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave

#286

Post by eli_gottlieb »

cabalamat wrote: post #234
fsloth wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My heart breaks each time I discover a free tool of recognition is developed by some altruistic talent who lives at a near poverty level while their work generates millions in added value. I suppose the simplest way would be to offer dual licensing. GPL for non-profit projects, proprietary for enterprises. The problem is, if the source code you are working on depends on third party GPL software it's very hard to do t…

> My heart breaks each time I discover a free tool of recognition is developed by some altruistic talent who lives at a near poverty level while their work generates millions in added value. Maybe there could be a startup that helps people monetise their free software output?

I mean, that's a great idea, but the question is whether you can monetize what's ultimately a communal, even communistic, mode of operation.

Re: Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave

#287

Post by pjmlp »

ccozan wrote: post #281
pjmlp wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference with open source, is that I can take you out of business with the code you wrote yourself.

The biggest counter-example is RedHat.

You mean CentOS and Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel ?

Re: Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave

#288

Post by dibstern »

skaplun wrote: post #262
annnnd wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

THIS!!! In open-source there is a huge difference between value generated and value collected. The people behind open-source projects are often clueless (sorry, but it's true) how to extract value from their work while keeping community happy. How about a service which helps authors monetize open-source software for some percentage?

I honestly don't think this will be very easy to achieve on a human level. There are plenty of platforms that allow devs to meet sales partners but most people would rather just go at it alone or don't trust others or don't play well with others etc etc. Even the author of this piece, who testifies to poverty, chooses to ask for global donations rather than seek out a business partner

A sales partner is different to a company that helps monetise.

And just because he is asking for donations doesn't mean he's against monetising.

Re: Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave

#289

Post by upofadown »

yazaddaruvala wrote: post #17

This is not a scalable model of software funding. People may send you money today, because its on their minds, but bills will have to be paid again next month, and next year. Please get yourself, a Patreon account, or something similar. Meanwhile, I'm sure MathWorks is looking for people with exactly your domain knowledge[0]. https://www.mathworks.com/company/jobs/opportunities/?s_tid=...

Does it have to be scalable or ongoing for a situation like this one? I kicked in $100 simply to acknowledge past work. I don't care if the person involved takes the money, spends it on a nice vacation and never touches Octave again.

Re: Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave

#290

Post by zapu »

JoelJacobson wrote: post #236

$5,000 (will be) donated. Tried to use PayPal. A Top Up to my PayPal account via Instant Bank Transfer worked fine, but when I tried to use the money by making a transfer to The Octave Guy, PayPal said my account had been frozen :-( I have emailed the author and requested bank details in order to make a regular bank transfer instead.

I think you will only need to provide additional verification for PayPal and you'll be good to go. They need to do it because of anti money laundering laws - at least here in Europe, but it's probably similar in US.
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