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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

#201

Post by pixelbath »

> One happens to be heavily used

This does not matter in the slightest; your only obligations to other entities are self-imposed. Using a developer's piece of code does not confer an additional right to that developer's time.

> The bad parts are that there’s a dozen issues that I haven’t even reviewed much less triaged, investigated, and fixed

If those 3/4 million downloaders really found it that useful, aren't there code contributions?

> time = passion + money

I didn't _start_ writing code because of money, and I'd still be writing code on my own even if I weren't being paid to do it. I know this because I code on my own without being paid to do it, only work on things that are interesting to me, and I don't have a problem dropping a project if I'm no longer interested in it.

> Those companies in that list are contributing to the success of those projects

Go work for one of those companies then? Seems like a win-win.

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

#202

Post by waffletower »

My sense of entitlement related to open source is honestly more specific and, in my mind, not related to specific compensation, but definitely related to the cost of utilizing and maintaining software. I feel entitled to a discipline of semantic versioning in open source ecosystems -- a consciousness where open source developers understand how flippant changes within software libraries can have ripple-effect maintenance costs. I feel entitled to software with appropriately pinned dependencies such that upstream changes will not divert software consumers resources to otherwise needless fixes. I often deride ecosystems where these values are often not shared (Javascript, Python, Ruby), and laud those that adhere more often (Java, Clojure).

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

#203

Post by OfSanguineFire »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #200
OfSanguineFire wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

If you are posting from Romania, then you have a very warped perception of Europe’s cafes overall. But even in Romania, the old Central European and Balkan tradition of the cafe as a home away from home for intellectuals is dying. It has been well over a decade now since many of Cluj’s independent cafes began to play loud blooming music to discourage lingering, and staff were instructed to immediately pick up a customer’s empty glass and say “Va mai servesc cu ceva?", in order to nudge the customer to order more or get out. And of course, prices have risen to about the same as Starbucks.

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

#204

Post by constantly »

It’s important to set an example to avoid being dismissed as a hypocrite. This author should post the inventory of all the dependencies their projects use across the board along with how much the author contributes to each of them monthly.

That would absolutely get people off the fence and to start agreeing.

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

#205

Post by FirmwareBurner »

OfSanguineFire wrote: post #203
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you are posting from Romania, then you have a very warped perception of Europe’s cafes overall. But even in Romania, the old Central European and Balkan tradition of the cafe as a home away from home for intellectuals is dying. It has been well over a decade now since many of Cluj’s independent cafes began to play loud blooming music to discourage lingering, and staff were instructed to immediately pick up a custo…

>many of Cluj’s independent cafes began to play loud blooming music to discourage lingering

Maybe because Cluj is an overrated, overpriced Silicon Valley wannabe (sorry to be so blunt), so greedy old-town cafe owners jack up prices to match IT workers' and tourists' purchasing power. In Iasi for example, there's still small neighborhood cafes that sell affordable coffee, you just gotta avoid the old town and city center where all IT workers and tourists gather.

>then you have a very warped perception of Europe overall

Doubt it. Go to Italy, Portugal, Austria and many others, and it's full of small family owned cafes and traditional coffee houses serving just affordable coffee and cakes, not acting like a tourist trap or hipster co-working space.

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

#206

Post by buster3000 »

kawhah wrote: post #30
ranting-moth wrote: post #13

The feeling of entitlement people have around open source is unsustainable. If someone releases code then that's it. You have it. Do what you want with it (within it's licence). Be thankful. Unless that guy specifically says he's going to maintain it for free you are entitled to exactly absolutely nothing more you ungrateful little git. If you add this code to your project, you should fix and share any problems you e…

What is the evidence for this feeling of entitlement? I use tons of free software. I've never either demanded that anyone work on it for free, nor have I expressed any sense of entitlement or expectation.

If you've maintained an OSS project and managed the tickets raised, you'd know.

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

#208

Post by pjmlp »

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.

Relatively common in industries whose main purpose is not to sell software, and tend to have restrictions in place that fortunelly are coming to everyone via the cybersecurity bills of several governments.

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

#209

Post by pjmlp »

argiopetech wrote: post #106
pjmlp wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Welcome to the pre-2000's, when it was possible to actually make a living from selling software, without having to bundle it behind a SaaS paywall, hardware devices,...

Serious question: is it not now? I have worked hard to escape closed source, commercial software, but I still purchase several box products (FamilyHistorian and SuperMemo come to mind immediately) from small companies. I acknowledge e.g., Microsoft or Adobe can make a killing by making their products subscription-based, but is that the way small companies (who can accept the lack of continuous income and charge a sig…

HN is a good mirror for that.

Every time someone posts a project that happens to be closed source, and asking for money, there are several voices reaching out for the pitch forks and torches, how dare someone charge for XYZ when FOSS alternative (less functional mostly) is available.

Hence why only those doing enterprise consulting get the nice toys.

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

#210

Post by angra_mainyu »

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…

One of the best handlings of this I ever saw was on opal, where someone was ranting about a non-software issue calling for the removal of a prominent contributor.
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