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Open source sustainment and the future of Gitea

blog.gitea.io

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Re: Open source sustainment and the future of Gitea

#101

Post by pjmlp »

Aachen wrote: post #86
pjmlp wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is usually the main problem, in most cases the donations aren't enough as main line of income.

Not enough for what? Paying expenses? Or are you expecting that open source contributions are to be paid at developer rates, and that one should contribute only as much time as is adequately paid? I thought open source meant that everyone was volunteering by default, just writing the features they'd enjoy to have for themselves, and that sponsorship of development time is not the norm aside from hugely important proj…

Yes, I am expecting exactly that, many developers want to try to make a living from open source.

GPL was never about doing charity.

Re: Open source sustainment and the future of Gitea

#102

Post by viraptor »

tucnak wrote: post #83
remram wrote: post #5

I've been donating to Gitea for years (on their Open Collective [1]) but if they start with this cryptocurrency/blockchain stuff, I am out. I am trying to fund development, not invest unstable currency technology. Gitea itself started as a fork of Gogs, it wouldn't be too surprising to see it fork again if they start being creative with the brand. [1]: https://opencollective.com/gitea

[flagged]

> It could be some poor girl from Iran

That's not something a serious, registered company would risk given known sanctions against Iran. A random scam dao maybe doesn't care, but I suspect gitea does.

Re: Open source sustainment and the future of Gitea

#103

Post by karussell »

ddevault wrote: post #47
trevyn wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bus factor: 1?

SourceHut's bus factor is something like 3.6

fyi: I was just checking out SourceHut ... something is wrong with this link https://sr.ht/projects (get a "bad gateway")

(referenced from the main page)

Re: Open source sustainment and the future of Gitea

#104

Post by ddevault »

karussell wrote: post #103
ddevault wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SourceHut's bus factor is something like 3.6

fyi: I was just checking out SourceHut ... something is wrong with this link https://sr.ht/projects (get a "bad gateway") (referenced from the main page)

We're in the midst of a planned maintenance window:

https://status.sr.ht/issues/2022-10-24-planned-outage/

Re: Open source sustainment and the future of Gitea

#105

Post by ddevault »

alpaca128 wrote: post #84
Shared404 wrote: post #17

I am happy that my git host of choice has a very simple monetization/sustainability model: I pay money, they host my code. Thanks ddevault and anyone else from Sourcehut who may see this!

I just wish they offered more than one payment option. I don't have a credit card. Other than that it's great, uncomplicated and doesn't try to be some special CI cloud toolchain as a service and won't spam me with notifications.

We're working on more payment methods, hopefully before the end of the year.

Re: Open source sustainment and the future of Gitea

#106

Post by bruce511 »

barnabee wrote: post #95
bruce511 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to assume you are not an enterprise - forgive me if I'm wrong. Enterprises have very different needs to individual developers and small shops. So there are always features which apply to enterprises but not to small companies. Consider for example Active Directory integration. Equally purchasing in an enterprise is different to small companies. If you work for a small company you can basically go to a decis…

The problem is when any of the features the enterprise wants to / can buy is closed source and not available on the same terms as the rest of the project.

I'm not wanting to insult you here, so please read in that light. I'm not trying to be the dick here.

>> The problem

Problem to whom? Not the customer (the one paying the bills), not the developer (the one getting paid) but by "the rest" - the ones consuming but not contributing.

>> closed source

Unfortunately the term "open source" encompasses a group of freedoms - the lack of any of them leads us to the term "closed source". For some projects the freedom "removed" is the right to _distribute_ the proprietary source. In other words the source might be "open" in the sense that the customer has it, but it might be "closed" in the sense that they can't distribute it.

I'd suggest that the freedom-lost in the "can't distribute" model is a good compromise (developers wanting to get paid.) I'm less favourable to a "binary blob" model. Clearly in the abstract projects could go either way.

>> not available on the same terms

ie - for free. I hear you, but I feel like developers have a right to take their project in a paid direction if they want to. The demand that they continue the project forever for no return seems, well, unfair.

Re: Open source sustainment and the future of Gitea

#107

Post by Aachen »

cinntaile wrote: post #93
Aachen wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is literally the easiest inclusive way that works beyond a single country's borders. Easier for me would be iDeal, but that's not easier for you unless you're also Dutch. Easier for people in the USA might be credit cards, but those are issued only if you have a credit rating at all and the rating is good (I don't meet the former condition so bank said no), and surely transferring money from anywhere in the worl…

It doesn't have to be the only way. Add a Stripe, Klarna, Adyen, Paypal... option and you lower the barriers even more.

As a single system, though, it beats all of them. My mom doesn't have a paypal but she sure has a bank account. More options is always better, especially if you are happy to swallow exorbitant fees from the various systems, but I can very well see why they chose SEPA as primary payment method. I often wish more websites supported it: I don't want to pay more middle men, accept more privacy policies, deal with more crappy websites that break every few months when using an ad blocker, etc. when I'm already paying for a bank account where I can just send money from.

Re: Open source sustainment and the future of Gitea

#108

Post by tsegers »

fractalf wrote: post #99

Why not just use shaming to get big companies to contribute? Name them, keep a list, put them on display. I mean, they should be ashamed to use a free open source and not contributing in any way.

Using software in accordance with the terms of its licence is not shameful.

Re: Open source sustainment and the future of Gitea

#109

Post by tpxl »

KronisLV wrote: post #58
tpxl wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just compared Gitea and Gitlab side-by-side and they're very, very similar. So either there's also copying between GitHub and Gitlab, or the design of git lends itself to a very specific interface.

> So either there's also copying between GitHub and Gitlab Isn't it likely that there's just a certain kind of interface and functionality that both works and people have also gotten used to it over time? It might make a lot of sense to copy it to at least some degree, instead of reinventing the wheel: if you look at MS Office and something like LibreOffice, you'll notice that both of the spreadsheet apps are rather…

> Isn't it likely that there's just a certain kind of interface and functionality that both works and people have also gotten used to it over time?

This is what I meant by 'design of git lends itself to a very specific interface'.

Git has branches, commits, merging, rebasing, ... It makes sense for a UI interface over git to show data git itself shows.

I also find little wrong with copying UI elements, where it works. The result is better software all around.

Re: Open source sustainment and the future of Gitea

#110

Post by fragile_frogs »

johannes1234321 wrote: post #98
Aachen wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't non-consumer account holders pay much higher fees? I seem to remember they were okay if you can have a very low transaction cap, but if you need to accept/send many payments, you had to get expensive subscriptions or pay per transaction. Almost certainly still cheaper than literally any alternative, though, since you need that bank account anyway and I will get very much doubt they'd take as big a cut as the pa…

Yes, bank accounts for commercial purpose have different fees, but unless they pick a completely stupid bank it's still multiple orders of magnitude cheaper than any other transfer. Only downside of SEPA is that it is a lot less common outside EU/Europe and then more expensive and instant payment is not really possible (there are some vendors offering solutions ...) but that doesn't seem to be their aim. (Would be: "…

> Only downside of SEPA is that it is a lot less common outside EU/Europe

SEPA stands for "Single Euro Payments Area" and was build for the EU/Europe, I don't think it's available outside of Europe.

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