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The Lack of Compensation in Open Source Software Is Unsustainable

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Re: The Lack of Compensation in Open Source Software Is Unsustainable

#161

Post by pharmakom »

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #158

It's really interesting to me how the vibes have shifted against open source in recent years. I remember when open source came out, it seemed like an implicit critique of proprietary software as stuffy and corporate. But proprietary software has an advantage: The devs get paid. If you want to get paid for your work, why are you choosing to give it away for free? I'm not judging, I'm genuinely curious. Are there any o…

I do free open-source work because I want to reshape the world, and this is somewhere I have leverage. If I was paid to do the work, then I would have to deliver what the customer wants, which is not always aligned with how I see things.

It’s pure ego, but I hope it benefits the world too :)

Re: The Lack of Compensation in Open Source Software Is Unsustainable

#162

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

sofixa wrote: post #108
agent327 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It still beats having a central planner from the politburo tell you to work in the mines for zero compensation.

You know that's not how central planning worked, right? You were told to live in a specific place, with a few (narrow) options on where to work at (unless you were (un)specialised, then there was sometimes zero choice), for meagre but sufficient compensation. You could have a place to live, food to eat. The place to live might be a room in an apartment shared with other families, the food to eat might be bread with b…

>Do you prefer everyone (of course with some minor exceptions for higher ups) to be equally "not great, but not terrible"

There's the argument that in a planned economy, things can be terrible for pretty much everyone, like in Venezuela or North Korea.

You also have to account for the central planners choosing to repress people for political purposes.

Maybe you can give us a specific example of a centrally planned society which worked OK according to you? Here's a compendium of case studies to get you started: https://iea.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Niemietz-Socia...

Re: The Lack of Compensation in Open Source Software Is Unsustainable

#163

Post by pharmakom »

Galanwe wrote: post #101

Unfortunately, a system can be individually unsustainable while being globally sustainable. That is, maintainer burnout rate can be high, but a continuous influx of new maintainers could compensate. In fact, a lot of industries work like that, and numerous examples regularly appear on HN. Video game companies are notoriously full of super bright young developers, which are squeezed until burnout, just to be replaced…

> Unfortunately, a system can be individually unsustainable while being globally sustainable.

Wow this is such a great description of the arts, fashion, Hollywood, game development, startups (?), …

Re: The Lack of Compensation in Open Source Software Is Unsustainable

#164

Post by cxr »

apex_sloth wrote: post #22

Side note: donations are kind of difficult in a cooperate environment. Once I request that the department donates a modest amount to an OS project. We had to call it a 'license fee' internally. Paying it fine - donating is not :)

You, along with the original author, are selectively framing the issue. The original author's words:

> This all boils down to a situation where you have many profit-generating companies using software that some programmer volunteered to write. That software contributes to that company making even more money. But the developer sees none

Which developer? Because what I see going on matches what Stringer actually says earlier in the post: "There are lots of users, many in a corporate sense using my software to further progress their organization."

So you have at least two persons here; there is no "the" developer.

First, you have a company trying to make money. And then you have a developer trying to get money from their company (and not just that, but getting it, and generally trying to get more). Let's call this a type-1 developer. On top of that, you have a developer upstream writing the software in question that "contributes to that company making even more money". Let's call this a type-2 developer.

What we're neglecting to acknowledge here, and what most conversations like these fail to acknowledge , is that it's not merely "the company" that is benefiting from the work of the upstream developer. It's the type-1 developer, too.

If type-1 developers are effective at converting the labor from type-2 developers into personal enrichment, internal accolades from their employer, general career trajectory, &c, then type-1 developers really ought to acknowledge their culpability in the system that leaves type-2 developers undercompensated. This doesn't really happen, though. Most developers with a type-1 role wrt some money-earning scheme (i.e. the ones employed at a company) seem to treat their TCP, which is on average includes a salary alone that is well above the combined income of a typical household, as a sacrosanct natural right that should not be examined at this level.

Re: The Lack of Compensation in Open Source Software Is Unsustainable

#165

Post by gnramires »

dale_glass wrote: post #9

One of the problems I found with this is that actually taking donations is hard work. I live in a country completely unsuited to making money from a hobby project on the side. To take donations I'd need to register as self-employed, and pay monthly for social security as long as I'm registered, even if I make no revenue whatsoever in that month. That's an absolutely awful idea for a project just getting started. I'd…

> I live in a country completely unsuited to making money from a hobby project on the side. To take donations I'd need to register as self-employed, and pay monthly for social security as long as I'm registered, even if I make no revenue whatsoever in that month. That's an absolutely awful idea for a project just getting started. I'd be losing a very appreciable amount of money, regularly. It'd take lots of effort to have enough support that I'm back to zero, and still not making anything. This is because this is a system made for plumbers, not for people doing rare jobs on the side which might some day grow into something serious.

We need to keep in mind systems can be changed. You've set a very clear example that can be understood and communicated. Legislators should get to know this. Receiving donations for community work should be possible without hurdle (at least until it reaches a very high level) everywhere.

I call the idea that we spontaneously support what is right for all of us a Donation Economy. If most people are ethical, this would work well.

---

Furthermore, I think we should also fight, in the long term, for organizations (collectively supported) that provide this function (supporting community work). Like pollution is a negative externality, where the act of someone is (an unpriced) bad for everyone, contributing to OSS is a positive externality, where the work of someone is (again unpriced) good for everyone. I propose creating distributed institutions for identifying and pricing those externalities (positive and negative), evaluating and rewarding (or pricing) them accordingly. What is the metric for externalities? Collective meaning and wellbeing of everyone.[1]

There are foundations like NLNet[2] that do this for OSS. I think we should donate to them in the meantime.

[1] More about this here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29043752

[1] https://nlnet.nl/

Re: The Lack of Compensation in Open Source Software Is Unsustainable

#166

Post by bluGill »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #72
bluGill wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people. There are people who think Starbucks is too expensive. There are people who donate to open source.

I don't know anyone who doesn't think Starbucks is overpriced slop. In any European city you'll find local cafes with better quality and prices than what Starbucks sell. They seem to only be present in the big metro areas that attract a lot of tourists, travelers and immigrants who are familiar with the Starbucks brand and go for that out of habbit and know quality, similar to how McDonald's is so popular.

You need to meet more people. I know many who think Starbucks is great coffee. I know others who hate it. That is diversity.

Re: The Lack of Compensation in Open Source Software Is Unsustainable

#167

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

_heimdall wrote: post #94
amelius wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I don't actually think that's a problem with capitalism (though it has many problems). I've always seen this as the markets reflecting what we collectively actually prioritize. Sure we want to be safe and educated, but damn it if we don't really get enjoyment out of fancy new toys, vacations, and new cloths. In this case capitalism doesn't seem to be holding down salaries of the careers you listed. Its noteworthy tha…

Teaching, nursing, and policing are all either _highly_ regulated or outright organized by the government. So I don't know if it makes sense to say something like "the market chooses not to prioritize policing" or "teacher's unions allow teachers to collect above-market salaries". The voters seem more relevant than the market here.

Re: The Lack of Compensation in Open Source Software Is Unsustainable

#168

Post by pacifika »

ahepp wrote: post #144
kawhah wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Another is that these people are pretty good at starting shit storms trying to ruin your reputation if you don't comply with their unreasonable demands. If you go on social media and offer your well-thought-out opinions about some controversial subject, you are very likely to get large number of people sending you offensive messages, arguing with you objectionably, trying to start pile-ons, attempting to dox you, e…

This is a bit tangential, but I actually think charging money to participate in certain online discussions is a really good idea. For instance, I think it would be awesome if everyone sending an email to my main account had to send me $1. If what they are sending me isn't worth $1 to them, why should I get a buzz on my phone? Spam would be solved instantly. I certainly don't think that every corner of the internet sh…

Your friends and family are going to pay you for every email? Every online purchase would be several dollars more expensive. Transactional email providers would go bankrupt.

Re: The Lack of Compensation in Open Source Software Is Unsustainable

#169

Post by fzaninotto »

Many open-source developers just want to code and get paid. But do they pay open-source developers to do the same? Or do they pay companies to sell them a product or service? In that case, they should build a product or service, not a tool or a library.

I have written and maintained dozens of open-source project [1], but I have only managed to make one sustainable open-source project [2]. It's also the only project for which I did all the things necessary to build a business (documentation, payment, invoicing, marketing, content, support, design, product management, tax fillings, legal, finance, etc).

I encourage everyone to open-source their code. But if you want to make a living out of it, you must also be an entrepreneur.

[1]: https://github.com/fzaninotto [2]: https://marmelab.com/blog/2023/11/13/open-source-profit-2.ht...

Re: The Lack of Compensation in Open Source Software Is Unsustainable

#170

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

pharmakom wrote: post #161
0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #158

It's really interesting to me how the vibes have shifted against open source in recent years. I remember when open source came out, it seemed like an implicit critique of proprietary software as stuffy and corporate. But proprietary software has an advantage: The devs get paid. If you want to get paid for your work, why are you choosing to give it away for free? I'm not judging, I'm genuinely curious. Are there any o…

I do free open-source work because I want to reshape the world, and this is somewhere I have leverage. If I was paid to do the work, then I would have to deliver what the customer wants, which is not always aligned with how I see things. It’s pure ego, but I hope it benefits the world too :)

Thanks for replying. Yeah that seems like a decent model -- it starts as a passion project, then acquires users, then the dev stops having as much fun and starts feeling a sense of responsibility.

One solution is to announce that you're abandoning the project and suggest that its users make a plan to fork it / take over maintenance. Instead of adding a social norm that open source devs should get paid, we could drop the norm that open source devs should feel obligated to maintain projects for free. Maybe every README could have info about the primary maintainers and how enthusiastic they think they're going to be about the project going forward, so people can make informed technology choices. That way no one complains about a bait and switch.

Another idea is for the dev to respond to issues on Github by saying things like "I can fix this if you pay $X"

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