The Few, the Tired, the Open Source Coders • Hacker News Board

Re: The Few, the Tired, the Open Source Coders

#121

Post by dageshi » Fri, Nov 20, 2020, 10:53 AM UTC

floren wrote: post #26

> While you're surfing the web, you ought to thank Jacob Thornton for making it so pretty. He's a programmer who, along with web designer Mark Otto, created Bootstrap, free software that the pros use to make their sites look spiffy. If you've ever noticed that a lot of websites have the same big chunky buttons, or the same clean forms, that's likely because an estimated one-fifth of all websites on the planet use Boo…

If bootstrap didn't become the de facto standard, something else would've, nobody wants to design every site in the world from scratch.

Re: The Few, the Tired, the Open Source Coders

#122

Post by norwegianwhale » Fri, Nov 20, 2020, 10:56 AM UTC

The funniest part is when there are accusations upon them for discriminating / not hiring women. Not only they do a selfish contribution to society for next to nothing in return, they also need to share whatever credit they earn with some self-appointed victims of sexual discrimination.

Re: The Few, the Tired, the Open Source Coders

#123

Post by rectang » Fri, Nov 20, 2020, 11:19 AM UTC

pabs3 wrote: post #100

rectang wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What has become clear over time is that most users don't contribute meaningfully to open source projects. The burden falls almost entirely on core maintainers. From the article: > But, with the exception of some big projects—like Linux—the labor involved isn't particularly communal. Most are like Bootstrap, where the majority of the work landed on a tiny team of people. Offering unlimited free support is guaranteeing…

Don't offer unlimited free support, create a space where users can and do help out answering support questions and turning them into well-researched actionable bug reports, which can be turned into well-written pull requests, which turn into knowledgable and ongoing codebase contributors. Its (one of) the marketing funnel but for open source contribution.

Community development is a lot of work. I was very active in the Apache Incubator for several years, so I've seen many projects build exactly what you're talking about.

Once the community exists, it doesn't get easier. Core maintainers now have more to do: reviewing contributions, steering architectural discussions, teeing up starter issues, nurturing prospects, resolving personality conflicts...

It's not impossible to do that kind of work as a hobbyist, but it's more sustainable when there is somebody getting a steady salary to do it. But not everybody enjoys such tasks, and not every open source project needs to be able to be economically viable.

All of this leads to the kind of burnout described in the article. And what makes it worse is the guilt tripping that if they don't either respond to every support request (reasonable or unreasonable) or build a community that does, they are not living up to their supposed obligations as open source authors.

Re: The Few, the Tired, the Open Source Coders

#124

Post by marvinblum » Fri, Nov 20, 2020, 11:39 AM UTC

It's important to set boundaries early on. I'm working on this analytics library [0] and this game server management app [1] at the moment.

I started the first one with my own website in mind and as it gained some popularity, decided to try to make a commercial product out of it. Instead of making everything open-source, I develop the platform closed-source and keep the core (this library) open-source, but set limits to what can be contributed and under what conditions. This isn't clearly communicated in the repo yet, but it helps to stay sane.

For the game server project, which is older, I see a lot of feature requests and small contributions, because people actually depend on it. But boy, the support requests drive my crazy sometimes. Even if you only have a hand full of users, they can get demanding some days, when a new DLC for the game is released for example. I really want to support it and keep it up-to-date, but I sometimes have to ignore them. This week someone asked me if I could support them setting it up as they had trouble making it work for their drivers. Turns out they're a professional e-sports team. As soon as I asked for compensation, they didn't write back (after sending them 4-5 emails, taking half an hour to write). This is when it gets frustrating...

I don't know how to fix the issue, but we, as open-source maintainers, should value our time.

[0] https://github.com/pirsch-analytics/pirsch

[1] https://github.com/assetto-corsa-web/accweb

Re: The Few, the Tired, the Open Source Coders

#125

Post by Kinrany » Fri, Nov 20, 2020, 12:00 PM UTC

strogonoff wrote: post #101

apatters wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but for almost everyone, there's a dollar figure at which they're willing to stop having fun and start making money. Maybe that dollar figure is $1,000/hr for some open source maintainer out there (I bet it's much lower for most of them). Why not put a line in the readme which says, if you want to commission a specific change, send me an email to discuss, my consulting rate starts at $XXX/hr. Or there's a $YYYY…

If OSS project maintainer offers “fixes for money”, then could there be a conflict of interest? Merging a PR that scratches some obvious itch would be equivalent to robbing my family of money I could earn by charging a BigCo and doing it myself. IMO one of the best ways to contribute to OSS while making some living is to do product development and/or consulting work, and structure it so that you can methodically enca…

This can probably be fixed by splitting the platforms/features into tiers. Tier 1 is always fixed ASAP, tier 2 means that good contributions will be merged, tier 3 changes will only happen if sponsored.

Re: The Few, the Tired, the Open Source Coders

#126

Post by ChrisMarshallNY » Fri, Nov 20, 2020, 12:03 PM UTC

lionkor wrote: post #120

noncoml wrote: post #85

There are TONS of people out there writing code and opening the source. These people don’t do it for company sponsorship or money or to improve their CV. They do it purely for the pleasure of someone else using it. It’s just that only a very tiny fraction becomes popular. That’s when the problems start. Some may see their software being adopted by millions and may start feeling envious of those that make money using…

> They do it purely for the pleasure of someone else using it. Exactly! I've been open sourcing all my projects, often even under MIT or similar, and hope that one day it will be useful to someone! I even sit down for sometimes hours to write documentation, comment my code, make it maintainable. It gives me a certain joy to make it all neat and tidy, just in case someone ever comes across it (which might or might not…

> I even sit down for sometimes hours to write documentation, comment my code, make it maintainable. It gives me a certain joy to make it all neat and tidy, just in case someone ever comes across it (which might or might not ever happen, but if it does, it'll be nice!).

I've been doing that for so long, that it is completely habitual.

My stuff is generally not popular. I'm my own best customer, but I write (and document) everything I do (even the one-offs), as if they will be a corporate legacy.

One of my projects (a fairly massive one, actually) became something a lot bigger. It is now being maintained by a skilled and energetic team. They don't always do things the way that I would have, and that's a good thing. The project is thriving.

The best thing I did for it, was step away, after developing it -alone- for ten years.

Re: The Few, the Tired, the Open Source Coders

#127

Post by ganafagol » Fri, Nov 20, 2020, 12:04 PM UTC

zamalek wrote: post #31

_greim_ wrote: post #10

It isn't so much that companies are unfairly using others' work. It's that if you're going to use an open source tool in your business's codebase, you'll inevitably need support, upgrades, and bug-fixes, which translates into you putting pressure on the maintainers to do more work. By all means, use those people's previous work to put something amazing out into the world quickly. However, when you inevitably need hel…

This was so easy to "sneak" into the process where I work: > The fastest way to get results is for me to contribute a fix. > Can't we copy their code and fix it locally? > Absolutely, but then we won't get any fixes from them in the future, unless we set up our own build infrastructure and have a team make sure that they merge across changes regularly. ... which starts sounding like lots of money. Your employer cares…

This was the best comment about open source that I've seen on HN in a long time. Thanks a lot!

Re: The Few, the Tired, the Open Source Coders

#128

Post by throwaway1723 » Fri, Nov 20, 2020, 12:20 PM UTC

gonational wrote: post #47

If you’re part of some group (e.g., OSS contributors), and a mass media propaganda company, like Wired, which is run by a Vanderbilt, comes along and starts saying things about “this poor lil feller is being abused”, etc., you should be extremely worried; they work for somebody who’s coming after you. The first step in taking advantage of a group else is convincing that group that they’re victims.

Well my friend, the soil where you're trying to plant your sensible words is just totally barren. Here on HN you'll most probably face feedback only from those who work exactly for somebody who's coming after some group as you say, or zealous dupes who follow the former for free. And that feedback will never be positive!

Re: The Few, the Tired, the Open Source Coders

#129

Post by rleigh » Fri, Nov 20, 2020, 12:24 PM UTC

apatters wrote: post #92

bawolff wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of people do this as a hobby - getting paid for a hobby is a very good way to make it not fun anymore. If its consistent $$$ that might be worth it. For a one shot thing, maybe not as much. I think it also can be difficult to mix volunteer stuff with money. Posting in a bug tracker that multiple people work from which anyone can take on a bug from, that you will do it for $x, can make it feel like you're using a…

Sure, but for almost everyone, there's a dollar figure at which they're willing to stop having fun and start making money. Maybe that dollar figure is $1,000/hr for some open source maintainer out there (I bet it's much lower for most of them). Why not put a line in the readme which says, if you want to commission a specific change, send me an email to discuss, my consulting rate starts at $XXX/hr. Or there's a $YYYY…

Having a full-time and well-paid job means that open source work is in my spare time, and that time is limited and precious. I don't actually want to be paid for that. Or have any written or unwritten major obligations to others. The amount I need would have to be a full-time job that pays better than my current full-time job, and that will be expensive.

I've previously worked on large open-source projects like Debian, taking upon many obligations and essentially working a second full-time but unpaid job. That's definitely unsustainable, and I quit for several reasons with this being the major factor. Working like this is definitely not in anyone's self-interest.

Like another poster in this part of the thread, I have tried my hand at open-source consulting work, and I didn't have a viable business. You can't rely upon the sporadic needs of end users; you need something more sustainable, and not every project can support that.

This is coming from a UK perspective, but if you're earning money in anything more than trivial quantities, you need to register as a sole trader or create a limited company. That brings with it legal obligations, and other obligations, like bookkeeping, separate bank accounts, corporation tax payment, company reports and tax returns, personal tax returns and more. That makes for a lot of friction to take payments, and is a huge amount of hassle and inconvenience. But these are all factors in why I don't currently have any intention to make money from open source projects. There needs to be a way to narrow the gap required to make the transition from unpaid to paid work without all of the overheads of running a full company. Maybe there are ways around that to make it an easier burden to bear.

Re: The Few, the Tired, the Open Source Coders

#130

Post by marcus_holmes » Fri, Nov 20, 2020, 12:31 PM UTC

Is it actually feasible to just say "no contributions or support requests will be accepted for this project"?

Or to have an hourly rate for support requests right up front? ("if you want me to fix this project for your use-case then I will charge you $100/hour to do that")

And in the case of abusers, can you add a list of specific indivuals to the licence that are specifically disallowed from using the code in any form for any purpose? e.g. ("anyone is allowed to use this project for any purpose, except the people listed in the shit_list.txt file, who are not allowed to use any of this code for any purpose at any time").