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Is It Even Worth Working on FOSS Anymore?

gavinhoward.com

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Re: Is It Even Worth Working on FOSS Anymore?

#51

Post by _y5hn »

IceWreck wrote: post #19
nopenopenopeno wrote: post #8

The FOSS that was imagined by Stallman, where end-users could actually use FOSS products in their everyday lives, is not possible under capitalism. So what you have instead is effectively a network of semi-public property primarily for industry use. But, just as anything else that industry cannot turn for a profit, FOSS is and will always be in the lowest of priorities, if a priority at all. Cheers to Stallman, but a…

> The FOSS that was imagined by Stallman, where end-users could actually use FOSS products in their everyday lives, is not possible under capitalism I have to disagree. Use a Linux based operating system, self-host your internet services at home, use google free android, or do a subset of that. Its all open source and works locally.

Just installed Chromium instead of Chrome on my linux workstation. Heck, you can even deploy your own private cloud locally with FOSS.

It's all a spectrum, with free learning material everywhere. Yes, some of thr licenses and agreements are less free, but in truth, never before have so much been available. You can break that golden cage. What you put attention on matters.

Re: Is It Even Worth Working on FOSS Anymore?

#52

Post by throw8932894 »

Of course it is worth it. You can make very good living as remote-guru-consultant with total freedom. All while making similar money to FANG employees (counting stocks, high cost of living and taxes).

OSS developers do not have to be unpaid doormats. If I would be log4j dev, I would probably just wipe out all JNDI related functionality from project. Companies who need JNDI for backward comparability, would have to pay for support.

Re: Is It Even Worth Working on FOSS Anymore?

#53

Post by watwut »

adabaed wrote: post #25

Imagine blaming a FOSS dev/mantainer because you didn't do your job properly and trust a third party on a production code!

I find thins point of view equally absurd as all the abuse on maintenners of Foss.

It is standard for production code to rely on third party libraries. Not just standard, but the opposite is considered bad thing - you are not supposed to implement everything from scratch. If you do, you will end up with more bugs and issues. There is nothing, absolutely nothing in development last 30 years that would say "it is bad to use open source libraries".

Re: Is It Even Worth Working on FOSS Anymore?

#54

Post by Mikeb85 »

If it's not worth it to you don't work on it.

If you do OSS because you want others to use your software but you're afraid to charge for it then just stop. Of course you'll be disappointed. The whole point of OSS is you put it out there, others use it, fork it, add to it, commit back, and because of pooled efforts now the software is better.

No one owes anyone anything beyond the terms of the license. DHH recently wrote a great article about OSS which seemed to be inspired by recent discussions: https://world.hey.com/dhh/i-won-t-let-you-pay-me-for-my-open...

The best way to get paid for OSS is to use it for a real product. Ie. Make something beyond just code.

Re: Is It Even Worth Working on FOSS Anymore?

#55

Post by rndhouse »

Creators and artists are making money hand over fist all over the internet. From educational courses to music loops. And copyright plays a big part.

But the humble software library developer is on another planet. For them its sponsorship or nothing. Otherwise their work wont carry the virtues of "free" and "open".

Re: Is It Even Worth Working on FOSS Anymore?

#56

Post by watwut »

Gunax wrote: post #3

It's always been this way. You shouldn't enter open source expecting accolades or deference. It's awful the way log4j is being treated. I just don't think anything has changed.

I was astonished by amount of people who have strong opinions on quality of log4j ... and apparently don't know what logging library does, don't know why projects use libraries and generally don't seem to know much about development ... while writing in development forums.

Re: Is It Even Worth Working on FOSS Anymore?

#57

Post by 99_00 »

scotty79 wrote: post #44

For me open source is like math. You don't work on math so that people will thank you for working on math. You don't expect people using math you developed contributing back to math or paying you. You get paid however you managed to organize getting paid. And work on the math for the math and nothing else. If you have other expectations maybe you'll find other endeavours more fulfilling. Which is sad but it is what i…

Software needs to be maintained to be useful. Proofs don't.

So for many, it is not the same.

Re: Is It Even Worth Working on FOSS Anymore?

#58

Post by kkjjkgjjgg »

99_00 wrote: post #57
scotty79 wrote: post #44

For me open source is like math. You don't work on math so that people will thank you for working on math. You don't expect people using math you developed contributing back to math or paying you. You get paid however you managed to organize getting paid. And work on the math for the math and nothing else. If you have other expectations maybe you'll find other endeavours more fulfilling. Which is sad but it is what i…

Software needs to be maintained to be useful. Proofs don't. So for many, it is not the same.

People are not obligated to maintain their open source software, though. In fact I would expect most open source software to be unmaintained.

Re: Is It Even Worth Working on FOSS Anymore?

#59

Post by scotty79 »

99_00 wrote: post #57
scotty79 wrote: post #44

For me open source is like math. You don't work on math so that people will thank you for working on math. You don't expect people using math you developed contributing back to math or paying you. You get paid however you managed to organize getting paid. And work on the math for the math and nothing else. If you have other expectations maybe you'll find other endeavours more fulfilling. Which is sad but it is what i…

Software needs to be maintained to be useful. Proofs don't. So for many, it is not the same.

You don't need to maintain anything, you can just drop it and go do something else if you prefer. Maybe someone will pick it up. Maybe noone. If you maintain something you chose to maintain it. You have no obligation to continue maintaining it.
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