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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

#311

Post by inimino »

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

I think it would be something like "sign up with us and we handle the sales, support, billing, and invoicing".

Lots of open source projects don't need to bring on a business partner, but they might benefit from something like this. Just like not everyone on Kickstarter would go out and raise money by themselves.

Re: Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave

#312

Post by inimino »

annnnd wrote: post #248
cabalamat wrote: post #234

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. Maybe there could be a startup that helps people monetise their free software output?

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?

Is there a repeatable way to do that?

Re: Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave

#313

Post by TheCondor »

sandGorgon wrote: post #213
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…

in case of GPL, you merely sell support licenses. Gratitude-ware is not constrained by what you are selling.. only by 1) what can pass through corporate accounting 2) how convenient it is. Though it would be nice if the majority of people who intend to make money from opensource use Apache or MIT, however it is perfectly viable to make money from GPL. This is the crux of the problem - creators generally think "can I…

Actually there is another avenue for Gpl software, although it's one fsf may not approve of. You sell copyright exceptions and effectively let a company buy a non-gpl cut of your code.

There are details, especially with large projects that have many contributors, but it is done.

Re: Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave

#314

Post by garaetjjte »

pjmlp wrote: post #222
astrodust wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Normal people use Android phones. Which use Linux. Normal people use shared hosting. Which often uses Linux. Normal people use Linux a lot more than they realize. I think it's fine they don't have to pay attention to that, that computers can be invisible that way, but if you call yourself someone familiar with technology you can't be ignorant to it. So do you have an argument or just a whole lot of misplaced anger?

Android phones run on a Java runtime with constrained access to native libraries. Google can replace Linux for something else, no one will notice. Normal people use shared hosting, with runtimes that don't require Linux. It could be something else and PHP, Perl, ASP, JEE stacks will still run. Normal people use Linux on devices, because it is the best OS OEMs can get their hands on without paying a dime for it.

Android apps can use native binaries. Replacing linux without breaking compatibility with apps is rather impossible (unless with some linux compatibility layer)

Re: Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave

#315

Post by was_boring »

igk wrote: post #253
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…

Meanwhile in Germany : as long as the institution can provide a Spendenbescheid, companies can in theory donate all they want and simply deduct it from their taxes. But all the Anglo companies don't grok this, so now students unions etc are moving to what you describe "sponsoring agreements",where they pull any possible benefit they could possibly provide for the companies on paper so it doesn't look like a donation.…

Do you mind elaborating on this? Perhaps an example?

Re: Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave

#316

Post by edblarney »

fnord123 wrote: post #237
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…

Strong disagree. There should be funding bodies for projects like this who can fund projects and also provide a semblance of orchestration. The Linux Foundation (with the Core Infrastructure Initiative) and the Cloud Native Compute Foundation are already working in the right direction, imo. There are other organizations that work through contracting work to develop free and open source software. Red Hat and Canonical…

"There should be funding bodies for projects like this who can fund projects and also provide a semblance of orchestration. "

A much better way than 'government funding' would be for users to just pay for it.

It's called 'capitalism' it works very well.

Oftentimes, it's difficult for the government and centralized bodies to know 'what to fund' and what not to - it's a hard thing, it can get political. Money goes entirely to the wrong places, even with good intentions.

It's not always possible to 'sell something' but often that works well because the amount of money allocated to the project is commensurate with it's value. Roughly.

So - 'bad projects' that are either crap, or nobody really wants - don't get funded.

And the ones that are awesome - and everybody wants to use - get support and expand.

Obviously it's not always ideal, but it's rational.

Maybe - instead of someone offering this guy a job, they could teach him how to charge a nominal amount for the software, in a manner that still respects it's 'open sourcedness'. Like a $5/month price for access to a super set of documentation, that everyone using Octave would love and have no problem paying if the used Octave.

Re: Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave

#317

Post by ggame »

fb03 wrote: post #298
astrodust wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Python, PHP, and Ruby are not great languages. What high horse did you fall off of? They may not be perfect languages, but they get the job done, and for many people they've made their career possible. Greatness doesn't come from beauty, PHP is the ugly bastard-child produced when Perl and C got drunk one night and had a baby, it comes from utility . > I'm saying Dev culture in not paying for tools is bad. Maybe th…

Which languages do you consider great? (just curious to know where you are coming from)

For general purpose programming I consider the meta languages (ML) to be great. E.g. Rust, Typescript, Swift, Scala, F#, Haskell, Ocaml etc. Something like Hindly-Milner typesystem in order to build good tooling. Scripting languages don't have this so I don't consider them great. Facebook build one for PHP after the fact and at great cost. So, I consider them successful despite the initial lack of a type system. It is great that the world is catching on to ML languages now. This stuff has been around since the 70s so it has been ridiculously slow.

Re: Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave

#318

Post by Asooka »

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...

You mean flattr?

Re: Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave

#319

Post by radarsat1 »

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 agree.

Two things though:

* Developers, in general, are not business people. This may be different in Silicon Valley, but in a lot of the world, programmers have spent their life concentrating on one thing, learning to program. That doesn't mean they don't just "not know how" to start a business and find clients. It means they don't even know how to do the basic, first steps to registering one, knowing what to charge, etc. Let alone the complications of supporting an open source model on top of the usual business things like tax. It is just easier to throw up a paypal link and be done with it. Yes, something should be done about this, but there you go.

* When people pay for things, suddenly they expect it to .. work. As in, be stable. And be supported. And be kept up to date. All of a sudden you go from being able to work on your favorite project to supporting clients and responding to their needs. Many programmers don't want this. Admittedly, if you're floating such a project as your main income, perhaps you should be considering these kinds of things, but on the other hand one thing that keeps an FOSS project going, and gives it advantages, is not having to worry about exactly these things. It also might have a huge disincentivising effect towards contributions; why would contributor contribute if they don't get a cut? There are specific challenges in business-oriented FOSS funding models that would need to be addressed.

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