Professional maintainers: a wake-up call • Hacker News Board

Re: Professional maintainers: a wake-up call

#431

Post by j1elo » Sun, Dec 12, 2021, 10:01 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #107

mfer wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So, large SV companies and startup should also start agreeing to pay for open source, when it's the core of the tech. Companies usually have a reason to keep their expenses low. Sometimes they are a public company with fiscal responsibilities. A startup will only have so much runway and is likely trying to reduce expenses. Given this situation, why will they pay for what they can get for free?

It seems like you haven't quite got the concept of open source. If everybody consumes and nobody contributes, how long will that last? A while back I bought a cheap robot vacuum. Their scheduling feature didn't meet my needs, so I reverse-engineered the protocol and open-sourced a cron-friendly CLI tool and a library so people could do other things with it: https://github.com/wpietri/sucks Honestly, this was a mistak…

I don't think that releasing that tool was a mistake. The mistake was worrying about providing support for it, beyond what you needed it to do.

This is the same as the poor log4j devs, getting bashed and still trying their best effort to please everybody.

Lost and lots of open source authors release some work to the open, and then start to worry about everybody's opinions and complaints. But that's a very unhealthy thing to do, IMO.

In essence, this is your own garage project and you've taken it out to the street for people to enjoy or admire. You should care about people's complaints as many f*cks as stacks of money they are putting on your table. Anything else, will end up deteriorating your mental health, one way or the other.

Re: Professional maintainers: a wake-up call

#432

Post by titoCA321 » Sun, Dec 12, 2021, 10:26 PM UTC

davidgerard wrote: post #225

This essay looks like the business model for free software since Cygnus, thirty years ago - and yet, here we are. I have asked if he has a version that addresses the history of these ideas, and how they've worked out - because the history is a very long one. I would suggest moving away from permissive licenses, which are "just take my stuff." Companies don't even throw in their alterations. Stallman was 100% right ab…

Companies do submit alterations. Whether or not it's adopted into the streams is a different matter. Some don't submit but many do. The real problem isn't contributing to open source. Companies have teams of developers that contribute packages to open source projects as part of their portfolio of duties with the company.

The problem is no one wants to work on the day-to-day issues that need maintaining to keep the project afloat. Sure companies will pay to incorporate this feature and that feature and the community will submit this bug-fix on this new widget, but day-to-day maintenance to keep the code base alive is left to bit-rot. It's like the newspaper website for your local town. There are links to and from older stories that lead to broken webpages, but no one wants to update the links yet new content is posted on the newspaper's site each day.

Re: Professional maintainers: a wake-up call

#433

Post by another_story » Sun, Dec 12, 2021, 10:28 PM UTC

colinmhayes wrote: post #423

another_story wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or does it test for someone who in the hope of passing these tests will spend hundreds of hours dedicated to pointless exercises that produce no real value? If by harder, you mean sitting down and having a real conversation, then yes, I suppose it's harder. Edit: Value is a poor word here, now that I think about it. Let's say mostly pointless activities that generally don't apply to work they'll be doing with that sk…

Well the idea is if they're willing to waste all that time trying to get the job they'll spend even more time working and improving.

I suppose that makes sense, but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Re: Professional maintainers: a wake-up call

#434

Post by mbrodersen » Sun, Dec 12, 2021, 10:48 PM UTC

emptyparadise wrote: post #401

mbrodersen wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should they? Open Source developers give away their work with a price tag of $0. So why should anybody pay more than $0 for it? Do you pay more than the asking price for things you buy?

It's morally right. Not everything in the world is a business transaction.

I agree that not everything in the world is a business transaction. What does that have to do with getting paid for doing OSS?

Re: Professional maintainers: a wake-up call

#435

Post by mbrodersen » Sun, Dec 12, 2021, 10:50 PM UTC

strenholme wrote: post #402

mbrodersen wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People are unreasonable when they expect free hand-holding support just because the software is free I agree. I don't argue that people should expect support to be free. What I am arguing is that if you don't put a market value on your work then you are signaling to the world that your skills and hours are worth $0. Even though your work clearly has intrinsic value for companies/people. > Trollish, because telling…

If Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Warren Buffett all download and start using my open source project tomorrow, that’s fine and I won’t ask them for a penny until when and if they start sending me emails or bug reports asking for support. Indeed, big companies using my open source looks really great on my resume. Both the GPL and AGPL are restrictive enough that it’s a reasonable business model to say “GPL if you won’t p…

Yep that is definitely one business model that might work. So you agree with me that having a proper business model for your OSS work is the way to go instead of complaining that people don't send you $ out of the kindness of their hearts or some moral code that only the OSS maintainer is aware of.

Re: Professional maintainers: a wake-up call

#436

Post by mbrodersen » Sun, Dec 12, 2021, 10:53 PM UTC

selfhoster11 wrote: post #409

mbrodersen wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good question! However I am not sure what that has to do with what I am saying? People pay for over priced luxury goods all the time. There are psychological reasons for that (signaling wealth among other things).

The point is that sometimes, profit isn't the only priority, so one may choose to pay even if they didn't have to.

My point is that the evidence is in and clearly companies/people don't do that. And some OSS maintainers then get all upset and throw their toys around because people don't behave as they expect. My answer is: Grow up. Accept the world as it is. And act accordingly.

Re: Professional maintainers: a wake-up call

#437

Post by mbrodersen » Sun, Dec 12, 2021, 11:01 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #417

mbrodersen wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where did I say it was a brand new idea? Where did I say it would be easy? Starting a business is hard. I founded and ran my own succesful business so I know how hard it is. I am not sure what your point is?

My point is that you're trivializing the problems and insulting all of the people who have been trying to make it work for decades. I too have started successful businesses. What I learned from that was to respect the people doing the actual work, rather than to run around arrogantly blustering, "It isn't rocket science."

You are attacking a point I am not making. My point is that some OSS maintainers don't understand that they have to think about their work as a business if they want to see any $ thrown their way. That's the part that isn't rocket science. I agree with you that actually doing it is hard. My message is to stop whining that companies/people don't give them $ out of the kindness of their hearts and instead accept it and either treat their work as a business or accept that they will get very little gratitude or $ in return. The idea that OSS maintainers are special snowflakes that can work on whatever they feel like and the world automatically owns them something in return is childish.

Re: Professional maintainers: a wake-up call

#438

Post by mbrodersen » Sun, Dec 12, 2021, 11:13 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #415

mbrodersen wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with most of what you are saying. Groups cooperate internally and go to war with other groups externally. However that has nothing to do with my point. I am basically making an economic statement about how modern companies work.

No, you made a claim about "how humans function" over "millions of years of evolution". I guess you're abandoning that claim now? If so, maybe do it honestly.

No not at all. My comment was a reply to your argument:

> One of the things that distinguishes humans as a species is how extremely social, how extremely cooperative we are

Where I point out that what you are saying is not true in general. But it is true within a group (say a company) and not between groups (say between companies and OSS maintainers). Groups that corporate well within the group have an evolutionary advantage fighting other groups.

However I am not sure what the point is you are trying to make? My original point is that corporations/people don't throw $ at OSS maintainers for the work they do and expect them to maintain it for $0. That's a clear objective fact. So either treat your OSS project as a business and get paid to do your work or accept that outcome and stop complaining.

Re: Professional maintainers: a wake-up call

#439

Post by mbrodersen » Sun, Dec 12, 2021, 11:24 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #414

mbrodersen wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which world are you talking about? History is full of people exploiting other people. Mention any period of history where people were not trying their damn hardest to exploit other people?

You've the one making a positive claim. Let's see your evidence that this was the dominant mode of thought in all places and all times.

What are you talking about? You are the one that's making the following claim:

> That isn't "the world". It's a relatively small set of people in a relatively small chunk of history that see themselves as entitled to make endless profit ...

Which is a claim that can't be proven either way since you are talking about how people in all of history was thinking. In other words, you are making a claim that is just wishful thinking.

Re: Professional maintainers: a wake-up call

#440

Post by mbrodersen » Sun, Dec 12, 2021, 11:39 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #418

deterministic wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like you haven’t quite got the concept of capitalism and how humans and markets actually work. If you give away your work for $0 then the value of your work is $0. Yes a tiny minority may want to pay more than that to make themselves feel morally superior or to virtue signal their goodness. But most won’t. Accept it and act accordingly: make companies pay to use your work and sue the companies that fail to c…

This is a classic mistake of people worship at the church of Econ 101: confusing price with value. Our system depends entirely upon things that are priced at $0 but are valued much higher. If you actually spend your life only doing things you are paid in cash for, I truly pity you. And in fact I can help you out by reminding you that you aren't getting paid for posting here, so you are morally obligated to stop doing…

No you are not getting my point. OSS code often has a high intrinsic value (it is useful) and $0 market value (you pay $0 for it). The problem is that OSS maintainers often mistake the two. They seems to think that the world should automatically give the work they do a high $0 market value because of its intrinsic value. But that is not how it works.

> If you actually spend your life only doing things you are paid in cash ... > And in fact I can help you out by reminding you ...

Hahaha I love it when people get all passive aggressive :) It should be obvious to you that the fact that I am writing this, without getting paid for it, show that I don't spend my life only doing things I am paid for. You might want to look into the Econ idea of Utility Value. It has nothing to do with $.