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Paying maintainers isn’t a magic bullet

blog.hansenpartnership.com

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Re: Paying maintainers isn’t a magic bullet

#41

Post by newaccount74 »

As a maintainer of a slightly popular project I totally agree with the fact that paying maintainers would not fix much.

First of all, the project I maintain would likely lose 99% of users if we charged money. Being free (as in beer) is a large part of its appeal. And that's okay.

Secondly, the project is currently being maintained by a few people in their spare time. If you paid me, I wouldn't have any more free time, so to make it worthwhile, you would have to pay me enough so I would give up my job. And it just sounds unlikely that someone would pay so much for our project.

I really don't think Open Source needs fixing with regard to money. I like that Open Source is not about money. Not every thing has to be profitable.

Re: Paying maintainers isn’t a magic bullet

#42

Post by sieabahlpark »

mickael-kerjean wrote: post #2

As someone trying to make a living out of my OSS work, this kind of clickbait titles really get on my nerves. Just yesterday, like most week a company did contact me to get support but when sent a payment link and instead of ignoring me took the path of questioning why would they pay for OSS. This kind of behaviour is so common, I have a canned answer for all those companies oss attracts trying to get things for free…

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Re: Paying maintainers isn’t a magic bullet

#43

Post by varispeed »

fluoridation wrote: post #27
varispeed wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The hard truth is that these "for profit businesses" wouldn't use many of the projects if they weren't free and open source in the first place. This is why the moral argument falls on deaf ears. There is no evidence for that. If something is good for business and cheaper to buy than develop in-house, business will buy. > Relicensing is an increasingly popular choice for OSS devs to to try to monetize usage, and it…

That would not level the field. Someone who is disadvantaged would not be able to dedicate as much time to writing software as someone who is not. So while someone who is disadvantaged may be able to dedicate, let's say, two hours a day and get paid for it, someone else may be able to get paid for two hours and then do it some more for two more hours for free.

The whole point of level playing field is that they must be remunerated, so there is no instance of someone doing something for free.

We had similar problem in my country with apprenticeships, that used to be unpaid. The good ones where snapped up white middle class children, while children from ethnic minorities had to work for money, not necessarily in their field of interest. That amplified the lack of diversity in the space of white collar jobs. Now unpaid apprenticeships are illegal and that has vastly improved the access to jobs for people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

It's exactly the same situation with OSS.

Re: Paying maintainers isn’t a magic bullet

#44

Post by kemitchell »

This post sows the seeds of its own best counterargument: time is money and maintainer money means maintainer time.

There's no sharp either-or between just a hobby and full-time job. There are some inflection points, as where money becomes enough to take one fewer contract client, devote a day or afternoon per week, or leave a current full-time job. Overall, paying a maintainer who has to manage money enables them to spend more time. That addresses the fundamental unbalance between demand and capacity that risks burnout.

I think of burnout risk as having another key factor that isn't mentioned here: psychology. It isn't just demands versus wall-clock capacity. It's your perception of demands versus the focus you can bring in time allotted. Paying someone for their work is a very direct, accountable, and socially recognized way of confirming the value of their effort. Not feeling exploited changes how maintainers relate to bugs, patches, planning, and support.

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