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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

#191

Post by bee_rider »

FridgeSeal wrote: post #123
pjmlp wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if they don't care about liability. Those that care, CI/CD only fetches from internal repos, and stuff is only uploaded into them after an audit.

> Those that care, CI/CD only fetches from internal repos, and stuff is only uploaded into them after an audit. It would be really interesting to do a survey about this, so that we can get some stats and breakdown by industry, language, size, etc about where this happens. I gather some places do this, but I’ve never met anyone, or worked anywhere that does this.

One way to not include any unaudited open source code is not to include any open source code!

I think when people point it out—that open source code is great, but comes with no strings attached and no guarantees, so you need to audit it to use it safely—they are often trying to say something about the ecosystem. That dependency growth is out of control. That it isn’t really as simple as git pulling the code in.

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

#192

Post by sevagh »

janfoeh wrote: post #60
isaacfrond wrote: post #11

There we go again. It seems only yesterday we had the same thread. I choose an unusual hobby, that other people seems to find useful. Hence people should give me money. I don't get it, I really don't. If you enjoy working for free, by all means continue doing it. If you don't then stop. Nobody is forcing you. If you think your time and effort is worth more then you get now, go closed source, paid-support or whatever…

For what little it's worth, I fully agree with you. This _should_ be so blindingly obvious that I have yet to wrap my head around how one could think differently. Maybe it's a clout thing? That some people really want to make a living _selling_ software, but at the same time do not want to miss out on the cachet of "I'm doing open source"? Whatever the reason, there is some amount of cognitive dissonance involved.

I even feel the opposite would be terrible - imagine taking payment for something that started as a hobby project.

Now the "pressure from users" is an actual contractual obligation! I can't walk away. What a nightmare.

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

#193

Post by quectophoton »

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…

On one hand, I would like to see it happen. But on the other hand I just don't think it would work that well.

As someone from Europe, the first thing that comes to mind is that PCI compliance isn't even required by law in USA, is it?

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

#194

Post by andsoitis »

bjornsing wrote: post #188
andsoitis wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your sentiment of "Unless that guy specifically says he's going to maintain it for free you are entitled to exactly absolutely nothing" That works both ways though, a maintainer cannot expect users to not complain (so they have to develop management strategies where they ignore the noise, rather than try to engage/capitulate). A maintainer can also not lament when users do not feel the desire to contribu…

> a maintainer cannot expect users to not complain Eh… Isn’t that fairly close to the definition of entitlement (i.e. you complain when you have no reason to)?

As a maintainer you cannot control how people behave. There’s no point in lamenting that people act entitled.

Instead, it is more productive to develop strategies to ignore the noise from entitled voices. You do not need to respond to them. You do not need to convince them. You do not have to keep them happy.

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

#196

Post by quectophoton »

pacifika wrote: post #168
ahepp wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No worries, we'll make plans to make it easy to pay. And it will be just cents So you just subscribe to your plan, send emails without worries because it's just cents, and at the end of the month you get a bill. Even cheaper than Migadu.

We can call it "Simple Mailing Subscription". Or "SMS" for short.

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

#197

Post by mschuster91 »

ahepp wrote: post #70
skrebbel wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re in the majority. But look through any issue list of popular(ish) oss projects and there’s a small but very vocal minority just sucking up the maintainers’ energies like vampires.

I hear this and it makes sense that a minority of users sucks up a lot of time, but what isn't clear to me is why maintainers don't ignore these people. I've never maintained a popular open source project so maybe there's something about the situation I just don't understand. But it seems like: > Thank you for your feature request, we will add it to the backlog. The core team doesn't work on unfunded feature requests…

This is something I'd love to see, the problem is that any "pay for features" model runs into serious legal issues:

- for American developers, many of them have provisions in their employment contracts that allow them to do unpaid open source work, but ban any kind of commercial (i.e. in exchange for money) activity. The fact that this reach into off-time by employers is possible is nuts anyway, but doesn't make the problem go away.

- as soon as any kind of money is involved, a lot of jurisdictions have provisions regarding warranties and liabilities - and these can be pretty enormous, see the log4j fallout. Some of these can be put aside by contracts, but nevertheless it's a legal minefield.

- some jurisdictions don't allow you to just take money in exchange for a project, it exposes developers to tax and social security liabilities. Even labeling such stuff as pure "donations" isn't safe if your tax auditor is particularly focused on nailing you.

- what to do if someone from a sanctioned country donates you money? What to do if you're European and get money from someone in Cuba (which is not sanctioned by the EU), but are employed by / work for American companies or intend to travel to the US?

- what to do if some arms manufacturer donates you / funds money for a project that could be used in weapons? Virtually all countries have some sort of equivalent to ITAR regulations that you really don't want to run afoul of.

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

#199

Post by blueflow »

rpastuszak wrote: post #157
lakpan wrote: post #7

The annoying part in this debate is people spending their lives on a project and demanding to be paid for it. Don’t do it! Who’s asking you to work on it? I say this as a minor OSS developer who receives some donations. I love the money, but it would be pretty dumb for me to say they oughta pay me, because the only reason I work on it is addiction/compulsion/procrastination of real work. If it bothered me that people…

> The annoying part in this debate is people spending their lives on a project and demanding to be paid for it. > Don’t do it! Who’s asking you to work on it? I think the issue here is that we don't have a system where being an OSS contributor is a sustainable career path. The value we get from OSS compared to the monetary compensation for that work is disproportionately small. OSS generally doesn't depend on an army…

> I think the issue here is that we don't have a system where being an OSS contributor is a sustainable career path.

We do. You work for a company that needs software X, and you contribute patches and fixes to X from your paid time. Software X is essentially a collab between different companies then.

The Linux base (kernel, libc and compilers) basically works that way.

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

#200

Post by FirmwareBurner »

OfSanguineFire wrote: post #190
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> In any European city you'll find... This is so ridiculously optimistic and misinformed. In Poland’s cities, for example, the cafes mainly belong to chains like Costa Coffee and Green Coffee Nero, which act identically to Starbucks in terms of prices, quality, and range of drinks. There aren’t many independent cafes left, let alone ones with lower prices than a Starbucks. Similarly, in Helsinki the choice largely co…

That sounds strange and mildly concerning for Poland, as Romanian cities are full with small local cafes not part of any chains, but unlike Starbucks & Co. they're just cafes, as in you go there to get a coffee and drink it, not to loiter for hours on a macbook and use it as a coworking space. Kind of like how it's in Italy/Portugal/Austria.
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