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GitHub stars won't pay your rent (2020)

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Re: GitHub stars won't pay your rent (2020)

#201

Post by loopgh »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #98
jongjong wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't work if the project hasn't had any new issues in a while. There is no incentive to be part of the OpenCollective if the project is completed and has no bugs. I've been struggling with this issue with my project. It's a completed project, no scope creep, no bugs, just occasional update once every 6 months or so. The docs are complete and detailed so nobody needs extra help; no one will pay for support At th…

Which makes sense in a way because part of the brand is “we’ll be around in 2033 to support this”. And “need help? see myriad answers on stackoverflow” and so on.

Projects from big companies disappear faster than, say, Vim and many other similar projects.

Re: GitHub stars won't pay your rent (2020)

#202

Post by loopgh »

bruce511 wrote: post #78
jongjong wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't work if the project hasn't had any new issues in a while. There is no incentive to be part of the OpenCollective if the project is completed and has no bugs. I've been struggling with this issue with my project. It's a completed project, no scope creep, no bugs, just occasional update once every 6 months or so. The docs are complete and detailed so nobody needs extra help; no one will pay for support At th…

Perhaps it would be helpful to articulate what you feel you are missing? (I'm presuming money, but I don't want to put words in your mouth.) It sounds to me like you have a solid project, and some number of users. With good docs. Which is great (we'll done.) I'm assuming you want to monetize it? That seems to be the logical next step. Alas I'm not going to be very comforting with the next bit. A) the time to think ab…

I feel that you and the GP are mostly in violent agreement. GP just stated his experiences, which are not obvious for one's first large project.

What is missing is recognition for those small projects without marketing or branding that are better and more bug-free than corporate projects.

Money is not needed, just recognition.

Re: GitHub stars won't pay your rent (2020)

#204

Post by bstpierre »

vbezhenar wrote: post #182
senko wrote: post #116

I've been harping for years to anyone who would listen, Open Source is not a business model [0]. If your motivation for doing open source is money, you're doing it wrong. You'll be much better off just getting a job (and GitHub stars can help with that!). We all know "build it and they will come" and "follow your passion and the money will follow" don't really work in the real world. You have to make something people…

For me one of the eye-opening posts was: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7575210 "In a typical year the OpenSSL project receives about US$2000 in donations." OpenSSL is one of the most known open source projects. It's like https://xkcd.com/2347/ There's little hope to achieve its level of success by doing open source. And even that project did not earn good money. So living from open source project just by writi…

Only 2k in donations, but they offer paid support.

https://www.openssl.org/support/contracts.html

Re: GitHub stars won't pay your rent (2020)

#205

Post by CM30 »

beached_whale wrote: post #200
CM30 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This times a million. I'm not sure when people started thinking that everything they do outside of office hours should have a paid return, but open source is meant to be something you do to help others, if you feel like doing it. It's basically just giving back to the community after creating something interesting for your own purposes. Does that mean it can't help you get opportunities that can make you money? No of…

Hard disagree and flip it back to the freedoms of the user of the software. OSS is about giving the people using software the freedom to inspect and modify the code to the system they use, full stop. The developers have always had the ability and right to sell it or earn from making it. That people think it is developer servitude and virtuously giving it away is incorrect. It may happen, but it is def not a requireme…

I guess I should mention that there's nothing wrong with selling an open source product, or selling services related to it. And it can work for sure, especially if you market it correctly.

The thing to note is that:

1. If you're sticking your code up on GitHub or whatever, you shouldn't really expect to make money from that alone. People will use it, and the majority of them won't do much more to support the project that give it a star.

2. If you do sell an open source product, other people can compete with you by selling the same code to their users/customers too.

Re: GitHub stars won't pay your rent (2020)

#206

Post by b112 »

senko wrote: post #116

I've been harping for years to anyone who would listen, Open Source is not a business model [0]. If your motivation for doing open source is money, you're doing it wrong. You'll be much better off just getting a job (and GitHub stars can help with that!). We all know "build it and they will come" and "follow your passion and the money will follow" don't really work in the real world. You have to make something people…

I've been harping for years to anyone who would listen, Open Source is not a business model [0].

But it is, in that, your business would not exist without it.

Open Source asks so little in return. Get trillions of lines of code for free, just give a few back please.

This is akin, to a trucking business paying gas tax. A large corp might save hundreds of billions on software cost, so why not release a million worth for free?

Yes, I get it. A single product, the entire revenue stream, you need cash, I get it.

But regardless, I had to make this point.

Re: GitHub stars won't pay your rent (2020)

#208

Post by EGreg »

senko wrote: post #116

I've been harping for years to anyone who would listen, Open Source is not a business model [0]. If your motivation for doing open source is money, you're doing it wrong. You'll be much better off just getting a job (and GitHub stars can help with that!). We all know "build it and they will come" and "follow your passion and the money will follow" don't really work in the real world. You have to make something people…

I think One Republic wrote a song about this very topic of GitHub: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hT_nvWreIhg

But in all seriousness, Open Source is a gift economy, and collectively produces better and more stable codebsses for the planet, and allows more innovation and wealth creation than closed, proprieraty systems.

Compare Wikipedia to Britannica.

Compare Science to Alchemy.

Re: GitHub stars won't pay your rent (2020)

#209

Post by b112 »

robocat wrote: post #179
Aeolun wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many developers can afford $36 a year You realize that my dependency stack contains about 2500 dependencies right? If they all follow this model I’m looking at $90k/year just to contribute to a project.

> You realize that my dependency stack contains about 2500 dependencies That is amazing: when I was younger, sharing code was a goal, but absolutely nothing could prepare me for your world. Previously I have had the luck to be able to rewrite a lot from scratch, removing most runtime dependencies, although definitely not replacing build dependencies. I imagine auditing for security, and managing dependency upgrades,…

I imagine auditing for security, and managing dependency upgrades, must both be onerously expensive time sinks?

Modern devs don't care. They just install whatever, let it pull in 1000s of other packages, and continue on their merry way.

Meanwhile, a package you use today, can root your stuff tomorrow. That is, next update and bam! Package was sold to Evil Entity, or just the dev decides to rm your drive based upon geo location.

I get paid a lot to cleanup much of this mess, and while tools such as composer and node.js are useful, they are a horrible, horrible security risks.

If you use node or composer, be prepared for dozens of updates weekly. Each update risk laden, and feature and security fixes all mashed into one.

On a large project, you'd need multiple devs, just to audit all the change.

But as you will soon see, there will be all sorts of $reasons given, which all lack understanding of how traditional Linux distros handle updates, and boil down to "not my problem" or "someome else magically makes it safe!"

Re: GitHub stars won't pay your rent (2020)

#210

Post by nequo »

Havoc wrote: post #164
nequo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people and companies are making money from Linux, including Linus Torvalds and many kernel hackers. Linux is GPL’d. I think it is hard to make the claim that making money is antithetical to FOSS.

I’d say “some” is more accurate than “ a lot” The first name that came to your mind was Torvalds - hardly a random.

Many companies hire people to contribute to the kernel. Torvalds is the name we remember but there are many others.

And that is the kernel. There are also companies like Red Hat and Canonical that make money through their work (more) in the userland. The people that they hire all make money from FOSS.

Edit: For example, look at the “Most active 5.10 employers” list here:

https://lwn.net/Articles/839772/

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