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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?

#191

Post by indigochill »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #113
onion2k wrote: post #107

If I make a pencil and give it to someone, and they use it to draw a picture that they sell for $10m, they haven't ripped me off. They've added a lot of value to that pencil. I haven't lost anything. They haven't "profited from my work". They've done something pretty amazing using a tool I created. Good for them. FOSS is the same. The idea that people are taking FOSS code and building billion dollar companies with it…

I think the analogy would work better as: You make a pencil. Someone takes your pencil, and puts it in a really nice box with some other pencils. People use those pencils to draw a $10 million picture. The box maker uses contracts to ensure they get a 10% cut of that picture sale. Actual pencil makers gets no cut. I can see why this would annoy pencil makers, no matter how nice the box is, or how much effort they put…

> Someone takes your pencil, and puts it in a really nice box with some other pencils.

Not quite, because what you're paying for in AWS for instance is not just the nice box (and AWS glue like IAM), but abstracting away all the annoying hardware stuff you'd have to deal with yourself if you went box-free.

Particularly, it's a lot easier to scale hard up and down (and thus better align your infrastructure spending with the actual demand) in the cloud than it is with on-prem hardware. So cloud providers are billing for that convenience and flexibility because maintaining all that hardware and providing the glue between the services becomes their problem.

I'm not really AWS's biggest fan (I go full self-hosted on my personal projects and when I must use AWS for work I'm careful to avoid vendor lock-in), but neither do I think it's fair to characterize them as just putting pencils in a box.

Re: Is It Even Worth Working on FOSS Anymore?

#192

Post by paulryanrogers »

janto wrote: post #157
onion2k wrote: post #107

If I make a pencil and give it to someone, and they use it to draw a picture that they sell for $10m, they haven't ripped me off. They've added a lot of value to that pencil. I haven't lost anything. They haven't "profited from my work". They've done something pretty amazing using a tool I created. Good for them. FOSS is the same. The idea that people are taking FOSS code and building billion dollar companies with it…

Ha! Equating the relative value and effort that went into the underlying FOSS tech to "just a pencil", is a pretty accurate description of what a company does. In reality, many a company would put a frame around the picture and market itself as an innovative artist. There's value in the frame, sure...however...

When visiting a historical, oil baron's house the guide said the painting they had was a routine copy of a certain work and it was the ornate frame that truly demonstrated their wealth. Cultural signaling is a 'value' all its own.

Re: Is It Even Worth Working on FOSS Anymore?

#193

Post by sdiupIGPWEfh »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #134
rnoorda wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a fan of the trend I've seen where GitHub is treated as a portfolio- I once had a hiring manager I worked with tell me I should delete a few of my GitHub projects, as they made me appear "amateurish." I WAS an amateur! And I don't want to feel like I need to to hide random things I've tinkered with just to impress others. As a result, I know those who have multiple GitHub accts, one for fun personal stuff and…

Or, you could do every bit of work as if it were for a vital infrastructure project. That’s what I do. Even my “farting around” projects have a lot of polish. I write everything I do as if it will ship. I find it establishes great work habits and personal integrity, and my GH ids (I have a personal one, and a couple of org ones) make outstanding portfolios[0]. Not to worry, though. My experience, is that potential em…

If that's what you want to do and what you have the personal time for, that's fantastic. For others, being obligated to reach that level of polish means a ton of code will simply never happen.

I'd liken it to an artist's sketchbook. If every piece is required to have the appearance of a master work, lest you be judged by it, then the sketches must remain private or else be destroyed (which they often were). But the masterpieces don't jump to the canvas without sketches. Forgo one, forgo the other. And an artist's sketches often have an elegance that's lost in the translation to a finished piece. I see similar parallels in the rough line art for animation, and certainly in an architect's studies. Not all of it is destined to be finished, either, but such work is often prized regardless.

So why (aside from fearing for our careers) should we be afraid to share?

Some code is inherently low-stakes. Some code will only ever be useful, even to the public, for a few months. Sometimes I just want to express an idea, where the proof of concept matters far more than making something shippable, which might imply strapping it down to a particular platform or ecosystem where no one outside those walls is likely to see it.

Even on the job, there's a time and place for the quick & dirty script, where anything more would be an over-engineered waste of time.

Back to the artist analogy, the best advice for maintaining a good portfolio is edit, edit, edit. Constantly be looking to remove work, leaving only your best, as you'll be judged by the worst. Does that model really work for GitHub? If everyone started withdrawing work they were no longer satisfied with, we'd all be worse off, if not actively harmed. So that's where I believe my artist analogy ought to end.

Re: Is It Even Worth Working on FOSS Anymore?

#194

Post by indigochill »

swframe2 wrote: post #185

A better question, should we change the license of all FOSS to require companies to pay a support fee so that a lot more people can work on FOSS full-time? Or maybe, should we create a company like redhat that hires people to work on all FOSS projects and is supported by industry and governments?

I think both Docker and Gitlab have gone this way. Docker for Windows requires a commercial license for a company over a certain threshold in revenue/employees. Gitlab has a free community edition and an enterprise edition with the bells and whistles you'd probably want in that context. IMO, this is the future of open source in general: different licensing terms depending on the user/application.

However, both Docker and Gitlab have professional teams behind them. It might not be the case that a particular important FOSS gizmo's creator is interested in writing up/enforcing better licensing terms or providing the maintenance a commercial client would expect.

Re: Is It Even Worth Working on FOSS Anymore?

#195

Post by commoner »

sam_goody wrote: post #150
adament wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the GP wrote: “For many, such a license should be required for use in any org which is over X employees” emphasis mine. If this requirement comes from a clause in the license then it violates the open source definition https://opensource.org/osd because it imposes a restriction on the use of the software.

IANL, and am always willing to learn. What clause does this violate exactly? I would guess that you mean one of the following, but I do not see any violation: > 8. "not depend on the program's being part of a particular software distribution." > 9. "restrictions on other software that is distributed along with the licensed software. " > 6. "restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for ge…

A software license that prohibits use by individuals or groups (of any size) who do not pay a fee would violate section 5 of the Open Source Definition:

> 5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups

> The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons.

It's okay to charge for open source software, but for software to be open source, the license cannot discriminate against users who do not pay the developer. This means:

- If someone pays for open source software, the license cannot require the user to make any additional payments. This prevents the developer from imposing a recurring fee to use the same version of the software via the license, but the developer is still free to charge for future software releases.

- If someone pays for open source software and then shares it with other people, the license cannot require the people who use copies of the software to pay the developer.

Software releases under your proposed license would be source-available, but not open source. As a sibling comment mentions, the DoD FAQ you linked describes the Open Source Definition as 1 of 2 "industry review processes" that a software license should pass to be considered open source.

Re: Is It Even Worth Working on FOSS Anymore?

#197

Post by wheresmycraisin »

kkjjkgjjgg wrote: post #135
wheresmycraisin wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you don't want companies to use your code for free, don't publish it for free. If they violate the licence, presumably it is a case for the courts. Good look to the OBS team in pursuing legal actions against ByteDance/CCP.

So don't contribute to open source because of China/rogue countries? OK then.

More like: don't expect totalitarians to give a damn about some little hippy license. Rule of law means nothing to the CCP.

Re: Is It Even Worth Working on FOSS Anymore?

#198

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

sdiupIGPWEfh wrote: post #193
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, you could do every bit of work as if it were for a vital infrastructure project. That’s what I do. Even my “farting around” projects have a lot of polish. I write everything I do as if it will ship. I find it establishes great work habits and personal integrity, and my GH ids (I have a personal one, and a couple of org ones) make outstanding portfolios[0]. Not to worry, though. My experience, is that potential em…

If that's what you want to do and what you have the personal time for, that's fantastic. For others, being obligated to reach that level of polish means a ton of code will simply never happen. I'd liken it to an artist's sketchbook. If every piece is required to have the appearance of a master work, lest you be judged by it, then the sketches must remain private or else be destroyed (which they often were). But the m…

As an artist (by training. I don't really do that much, these days), I can relate.

I used to have a big Strathmore sketchbook, that I took with me, everywhere, and, whenever I had the time, I would practice in it. I have old photos of me, with it. I was fairly scruffy-looking [still are -Ed.], and the sketchbook was sort of my "brand." My classmates used to call me "Puff," because I liked drawing dragons.

It got to the point, where even my rough sketches would be as good as finished works.

The same goes with my code. For example, when I start writing code, I habitually add a headerdoc comment, almost immediately. I write about that here: https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/leaving-a-legacy/

I work surprisingly quickly. I can generally spin up a full-fat native swift app, App Store-ready, in a couple of days. I do that frequently for my test harnesses (but I prefer taking more time, for the apps I actually plan to release).

I never really warmed to Boris Valleho's work (he used to hang in a gallery that I had work in, and I met him), but I have to admit, that guy can draw.

Look up his sketches. He used to make a lot of money, selling them, so there's a lot of them out there. The gallery that I mentioned, had a big rack of his castoffs, selling for hundreds of dollars. They sold like hotcakes. He was that gallery's star (I, on the other hand, was chopped liver).

Here's a few of his marketed drawings, but his sketches are almost as good: https://www.borisjulie.com/product-category/prints/boris-pri...

Re: Is It Even Worth Working on FOSS Anymore?

#199

Post by paulryanrogers »

indigochill wrote: post #181
southerntofu wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't work on FOSS that supports a SaaS or proprietary product. So true. I'd expand on that with a more specific example: game modders. When i look at all the energy spent on game mods which bring significant (gratis) value to commercial games, i can't help but wonder what the FOSS gamedev ecosystem would look like if all those dedicated people put their energy on free-software ecosystem. Minecraft for example made…

On the other hand, plenty of game modders have started a productive career from modding. In an ideal world, I'd agree it would be better that that energy would go into free software. But in our current world, if there's a proprietary game someone is hooked on to the point they get excited about modding when they otherwise wouldn't and that modding leads to a career or even just skill development and perhaps connectio…

There is a balance. I made some connections and learned skills after a few years of moderate to serious modding. With today's free or cheap tools though I'd encourage folks who find joy in modding to consider making their own modest IP. We used to mod because there was little hope of making your own 3D game without an existing engine. (When licensing costs were in the hundreds of thousands and we were poor school kids.)

Re: Is It Even Worth Working on FOSS Anymore?

#200

Post by usrusr »

fxtentacle wrote: post #169
Djejdbdbsjs123 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand that attitude. If you simply pushed the code to a github repo with a note that you won't be providing any support and disable the issues page, why would you feel any burden?

I did exactly that with a Heroku buildpack. They featured me in their official registry anyway. Shortly afterwards, I started receiving insults via my github commit email from people who were Heroku customers and furious that my (free + OSS + unsupported) buildpack didn't work like they wanted to. They paid for Heroku support and mistook my OSS for a Heroku product, so they felt like they are rightfully entitled to m…

Half-kidding: sounds like a sales opportunity. "I'm not Heroku but I might be willing to help if you give me your company plus x". Only if the stars align in so far as the request is not insulting, you actually do happen to look for money and the requester would be willing to pay (never happens because even if "the company wanted" your contact would be in no position to decide) you'd name an adequate price. But yeah, those stars certainly won't align. The only benefit you can get from receiving those mails is a tiny glimpse into who might want to use what you made.
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