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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

#211

Post by hgs3 »

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…

> The feeling of entitlement people have around open source is unsustainable.

Free-rider problem [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-rider_problem

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

#212

Post by anonymous_sorry »

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.

The thing to notice about this system is that only people who send more emails than they receive lose out. It would end spam at a stroke.

And it doesn't matter if online purchases are more expensive, because you get that money back through email receipt fees.

Tougher challenges are the traditional ones with micropayments. Transaction costs. And maybe tax implications. And the differential incentive based on wealth. People struggling for cash would still try and minimise their outgoing communication, which is probably a bad thing for a healthy society.

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

#213

Post by cherryteastain »

dale_glass wrote: post #160
cherryteastain wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one area where cryptocurrencies are useful. Don't need anything other than a wallet address.

You don't need cryptocurrencies to commit tax fraud. The problem isn't being technically unable to get the money.

I guess then everyone accepting 50 quid from a mate for fixing up their car or something is also commiting tax fraud. Immaterial amounts like this are not on tax authorities' radar. And if you are making a material amount, nothing is stopping you from doing the right thing and reporting your side income anyway.

Crypto just reduces the hassle.

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

#214

Post by xoac »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #152
xoac wrote: post #29

IMO a huge problem is that extremely permissive licenses have totally devalued software development as the software you release gives everyone the opportunity to infinitely exploit it. What did people think was going to happen? I find it especially funny when people complain "that they can't use the software 'at work'" when you release something as GPL.

> the software you release gives everyone the opportunity to infinitely exploit it How is that exploitation if you write some software for yourself, think it's useful for others, release it and then someone else uses it? If the software wasn't released, then others may have the same need and thus similar software may be written multiple times in a huge waste of time and effort. To my mind, open source software is ret…

Ok I make a really nice server and give it away for free. Some guy making 300k a year uses it to build something else and gets a promotion so now he makes 400k a year and his company is now making millions. They've exploited my freely available software to acheive this goal. Sure they could have invested to build it again (perhaps by paying me to build it? or by licensing my software from me?) but instead they get this at the cost of 0 and the result that they make is under no obligation to be free. This is a problem because when you assume that it's free you whole business model is based around exploiting the free to build the proprietary. This is the business model of almost every software company in operation and why the OS authors are broke and the software is devalued. A lot of the times if you're working at one of these companies that operate under this business model you are even discouraged from writing anything serious yourself or to do "overengineering". That's because the overengineering is being done by unpaid open source contributors.

> To my mind, open source software is returning to the basics of human society - helping each other where we can. If you only ever do things with the intention of getting paid to do them, then you live a sad life.

This honestly is horseshit because we wouldn't have this conversation if the profit of off open source was being distributed in any way fairly (or to put it patronisingly: used to help the contributors). By releasing your software under a license that permits this type of exploatation you are putting yourself in a precarious position of being at the mercy of whoever exploits it for commercial gain.

So as I am not misunderstood, I am not against open source in general or say GPL, but against using licenses like MIT/BSD by default.

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

#215

Post by bensecure »

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.

I've thought about doing this where the money is escrowed, and the recipient can optionally take it if they think the email is spam or otherwise unsavoury. You of course wouldn't take money from friends or family. Email marketing that you never asked for you would of course accept their money. Random spam phishing emails you would readily take the fee from.

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

#216

Post by foobarchu »

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.

While I don't think this idea is a good one, that problem is easily solved with whitelisting. Everyone gets to pick a set of senders who can communicate with them freely, or up to a cap.

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

#217

Post by junon »

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.

I maintain some popular packages. It's not often, but it's far from never. Some people are really nasty, I've yet to figure out why.

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

#218

Post by OfSanguineFire »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #205
OfSanguineFire wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cen…

The development I mentioned in Cluj predates the IT-sector boom, let alone the tourist boom. It began in the student cafes, and it can be ascribed to the fact that running a profitable cafe is hard. You like to make claims about things you know little about, don’t you?

“Go to Italy, Portugal, Austria and many others” The countries you mention by name are either southern European or Central European. You need more firsthand experience than that to make such blanket statements as "In any European city you'll find...", like you did in the OP.

Your idea that Starbucks is unusual in that people stay there for hours, while independent cafes are necessarily drink-and-go experiences, is horribly misinformed. Go to the Western Balkans, where there are few or no Starbucks around, but myriad independent cafes where men often spend half the day on a single purchase. The cafe has always been a community center in that region. And in areas with high unemployment, ageing demographics, and little money, they also play an important role as simply a way to get out of the house.

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

#219

Post by [deleted] »

kawhah wrote: post #99
hypfer wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but what isn't clear to me is why maintainers don't ignore these people. One reason is that you're being told that that's an awful thing to do by basically every resource on "proper open-source" you can find. 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. It's also worth nothing that some requests/issues/questi…

> 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…

[deleted]

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

#220

Post by luzojeda »

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #162
sofixa wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 so…

They are terrible for everyone except Maduro, his family and friends and the same about Kim Jong Un in North Korea.

I many times suspect that people who yearn for communism/socialism just wish to be those who come out on top from the revolution such as the Castros, the Chavez, Maduro, Guevara, Ortega, etc.

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