> Requesting work in an economic context without offering compensation in some form is morally indefensible. Not even close to all open source work is in an economic context though.
_Requesting_ it is fine. _Expecting_ it is not
No Free Features
11–20 of 87 posts
Re: No Free Features
#12There is at least one SaaS tool for this (that takes its own cut too, of course) - the name escapes me - but rather than require that the change requestor put up the full sum, it allows multiple people to chip in ('+1 I have this problem too', but with cash) so rather than sort by #people affected as some projects do (proxied by +1s on the original post in the issue usually) they could sort by #currencyunits that the…
> There is at least one SaaS tool for this (that takes its own cut too, of course)
BountySource? Yeah their name escaped me too for a moment and when I was able to figure the name out I came across a post from a while back about them. Apparently they turned evil.
Re: No Free Features
#13> Requesting work in an economic context without offering compensation in some form is morally indefensible. Not even close to all open source work is in an economic context though.
That's why I made it clear that I'm talking about this in an economic contest.
If you are making a SaaS for organizing church group outings, I wouldn't expect that 'pay for your change requests' would be a great model.
Re: No Free Features
#14100% agree. "Sorry, but I don't work for free, consider sponsoring the project" should be a perfectly legitimate reason to reject a request on an open source project.
Sure, but what's a reasonable price to offer? $1? $10? $100? At what point does it not make sense for the end-user to sponsor a FOSS project in order to bring it up to feature parity with a proprietary equivalent if it costs more to pay for the feature than just buying the proprietary version? To use a real-world example, I used to use a program called Tag&Rename for managing my mp3 metadata for years.[0] It had a me…
I don't understand this post.
It's worth $30 to you, so offer some amount above $0 and below $30. If the core developer won't do it for less than $30, find someone who will, or use a different tool, or live with the deficiency.
This is literally how all other markets work, or are supposed to work. Imagine having a completely unrelated market in which you are totally free to negotiate, and then complaining that it's too hard to settle on a price.
Re: No Free Features
#15100% agree. "Sorry, but I don't work for free, consider sponsoring the project" should be a perfectly legitimate reason to reject a request on an open source project.
It's astounding how people are susceptible to taking things personally and generally being browbeaten. Kudos to the faker.js dev for coming to this conclusion, but it's wild to me that this wasn't their default position from day 1.
Re: No Free Features
#16100% agree. "Sorry, but I don't work for free, consider sponsoring the project" should be a perfectly legitimate reason to reject a request on an open source project.
Sure, but what's a reasonable price to offer? $1? $10? $100? At what point does it not make sense for the end-user to sponsor a FOSS project in order to bring it up to feature parity with a proprietary equivalent if it costs more to pay for the feature than just buying the proprietary version? To use a real-world example, I used to use a program called Tag&Rename for managing my mp3 metadata for years.[0] It had a me…
The right price is the developer's consultant rate * number of hours it takes.
If you are the only person in the world that needs it, you should pay the full rate. If others have the same need, you call can share the price.
Re: No Free Features
#17> So let’s get one thing straight: open source developers are not volunteering to fix your problem.
That's not universally correct. As an open source (and non-open source too) developer I appreciate every idea of how to improve my app, by fixing a bug or by adding a feature (or even by rewriting my app entirely in a particular language - this is unlikely but may happen to be a good idea occasionally). Surely nobody should rely on the idea I will actually do what they want and when they want but nobody should ever hesitate to tell what they want.
Re: No Free Features
#18100% agree. "Sorry, but I don't work for free, consider sponsoring the project" should be a perfectly legitimate reason to reject a request on an open source project.
Sure, but what's a reasonable price to offer? $1? $10? $100? At what point does it not make sense for the end-user to sponsor a FOSS project in order to bring it up to feature parity with a proprietary equivalent if it costs more to pay for the feature than just buying the proprietary version? To use a real-world example, I used to use a program called Tag&Rename for managing my mp3 metadata for years.[0] It had a me…
[deleted]
Re: No Free Features
#19100% agree. "Sorry, but I don't work for free, consider sponsoring the project" should be a perfectly legitimate reason to reject a request on an open source project.
The reason that response is so rare is that people forgot the origin of open source. Once I solve my problem, it costs me nothing to give you the solution. If you just want me to solve your problem when I don't also have it, you need to compensate me for my time.
I think (some)people forget that that particular piece of software saves them money and/or time and think they are entitled to it (somehow). They forget that nobody owes them anything and should be grateful for the fact it's FOSS in the first place.
Re: No Free Features
#20> Requesting work in an economic context without offering compensation in some form is morally indefensible. Not even close to all open source work is in an economic context though.
Nearly all human activity occurs in a "economic context". Doing something outside of an economic context is like that old comedy sketch about a leaking oil tanker being towed "outside the environment". Most human interactions are at some level transactional and driven by individual incentives.
This is true even for personal side projects and charity work. In all Western societies and economies that I know of, it is both legal and acceptable to offer people compensation in exchange for them doing stuff for you, whatever that stuff is and whatever that compensation is.
I'm sure there are human societies in which this is totally untrue, but I would be surprised if the rules of those societies were applicable to open source software development outside of very specific situations.