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Open-source is broken: the sad story of Denis Pushkarev (core-JS)

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Re: Open-source is broken: the sad story of Denis Pushkarev (core-JS)

#11

Post by bentobean »

bombolo wrote: post #4
robertlagrant wrote: post #2

Open Source is broken if you think you should be able to make money from it when you need to. I don't think it's broken for its stated aims. I feel bad the chap, but I don't think Open Source is to blame. It is fundamentally hard to charge tiny amounts of money to millions of people, which is all he really has to do to survive, because receiving money, especially with all the different tax rules from countries, make…

As the developer stated. It doesn't matter if the system is in place. People will mostly not donate.

Then don’t spend countless hours on that project. Simple.

Re: Open-source is broken: the sad story of Denis Pushkarev (core-JS)

#13

Post by rezo2 »

cratermoon wrote: post #7
bombolo wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the developer stated. It doesn't matter if the system is in place. People will mostly not donate.

Those with the most ability to pay are simply benefiting from free labor. How many multi-billion dollar companies are shipping products where core-js is an essential component?

It is strange to count on payment for code distributed under a free license. You can use a license that would prohibit the use of code for free in commercial products, but then spread of project will also be reduced.

Re: Open-source is broken: the sad story of Denis Pushkarev (core-JS)

#14

Post by bentobean »

I myself am the beneficiary of many open-source projects. I readily acknowledge this.

That said, where my mind keeps going to is that open-source software is in many ways similar to communism. And communism failed for a reason.

If you want to freely give away your work, then by all means - do so. But do so with the understanding that you are promised absolutely nothing in return. No one owes you anything. This man would have been better off had he pursued a paying career and spent a reasonable amount of his free time working on this.

Re: Open-source is broken: the sad story of Denis Pushkarev (core-JS)

#15

Post by sebastien_b »

bentobean wrote: post #14

I myself am the beneficiary of many open-source projects. I readily acknowledge this. That said, where my mind keeps going to is that open-source software is in many ways similar to communism. And communism failed for a reason . If you want to freely give away your work, then by all means - do so. But do so with the understanding that you are promised absolutely nothing in return. No one owes you anything. This man w…

I fully agree with your statements that nobody is owed anything if they give their work/time to a cause. But it doesn’t give a free pass to others to demand work/fixes/time, or have a sense of entitlement, to that work, and become belligerent towards those that are giving their work to them.

Re: Open-source is broken: the sad story of Denis Pushkarev (core-JS)

#16

Post by basch »

kimixa wrote: post #5

I'm not sure if Open Source is broken, so much as the expectation to monetize anything is guaranteed. Most new businesses fail too. Just because you've created something doesn't mean it'll always be monetizable. I'd argue that if income was the expectation, grinding year after year at the same thing with repeated failure is a mistake. Doesn't matter if it's writing software, or selling widgets on a street corner, not…

It’s a failure of stakeholders to be good stewards. This sort of on the fly patching service should be a part of browser maintenance. There should be a collaborative polyfill.js service like Dennis described or The Financial Times has, maintained by Microsoft, google, safari, Mozilla, and web standards orgs. Any website that needs to call or should be able to for free.

Legacy support has become atrocious and it shouldn’t fall to web developers to deal with, because the end result is what Bloomberg does, and a shitty experience for the consumer.

His work also ended up being so good, it effectively eliminated completion and the need for businesses on either end of the web (browser/site) to take it upon themselves to make things better.

Re: Open-source is broken: the sad story of Denis Pushkarev (core-JS)

#17

Post by ipaddr »

Interesting story he made more success of out it compared to most projects but it wasn't enough to support his lifestyle and debt. The Russian war pushed him over the edge. The new model will provide him some additional money. Will it be enough for his lifestyle? Will his criminal record and location employment?

The fact that people rely on this project gives him some power. Attempting to use this power has gotten backlash and threats to remove that power. The sad story demands for money break unwritten rules. The pivot to closed license is a familiar story we've seen time and again and what happens is the free popularity boost of open source disappears and the project barely makes any money.

A lot people do open source so they can leverage that popularity into expert status rather then trying to profit directly. He has already built up that credibility (perhaps lost some here) but he should stop working on the project and attempt to find employment. The projects who rely on this will need to support this and will creating jobs in this area where he would have an excellent chance of landing this type of position. He created the market now he needs to stop serving it for free and profit.

Re: Open-source is broken: the sad story of Denis Pushkarev (core-JS)

#20

Post by bombolo »

rezo2 wrote: post #13
cratermoon wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those with the most ability to pay are simply benefiting from free labor. How many multi-billion dollar companies are shipping products where core-js is an essential component?

It is strange to count on payment for code distributed under a free license. You can use a license that would prohibit the use of code for free in commercial products, but then spread of project will also be reduced.

I've always only used GPL on my projects, and I'm now moving to use AGPL.

For me adoption is not important if that means freeloaders taking and giving nothing back.

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