Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Lack of Compensation in Open Source Software Is Unsustainable

trstringer.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 413 posts

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

#221

Post by bogwog »

hahn-kev wrote: post #58
eschneider wrote: post #6

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say it's perfectly ok to charge folks for software and if you're OSS project isn't motivating you like it used to, it's perfectly ok to charge users for support/updates/bugfixes.

I agree with the sentiment. But if anyone has ever contributed now you're in a bad place because you are making money off their work which they probably didn't consent to.

A CLA could fix that, but that should be done early, and you need to be prepared to ignore people that try to pressure you into not doing it.

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

#222

Post by karmakaze »

> Open source software developers should have compensation that follows this:

  money = contributions * usage
This seems wrong. Typically opensource that gets compensation is for support. That's active ongoing work. Past contributions or usage thereof isn't material. That's the beauty of opensource, it keeps on giving to the original work, and derived works.

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

#223

Post by mikrl »

andsoitis wrote: post #175
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…

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…

>so they have to develop management strategies where they ignore the noise

I believe this is called “please use the template when submitting an issue” and we all know how that goes.

I’ve honestly found myself laughing like a madman at GitHub issues where the maintainer calmly and repeatedly tries to explain to the increasingly disgruntled reporter to UTFT (use the fine template)

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

#225

Post by blitz_skull »

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…

Are you serious? No one is being FORCED to suffer in the United States. Such is the beauty of our freedom.

No thanks, I’ll take the system that allows me to move up or down generally in correlation with my effort and work ethics.

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

#226

Post by joshmanders »

creshal wrote: post #183
sugarpile wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like an issue to take up with your government. Don’t complain that other people spend _their_ money in a way _you_ disagree with.

"You can't blame us for offering bribes, you can only blame the people who take them" is a weird idea of morality.

I mean you're the one who votes for your officials in your area, so if they're accepting bribes that is kind of on you isn't it?

I as a tourist didn't elect your officials, so it's not on me.

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

#227

Post by corethree »

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…

Telling people to have gratitude isn't going to fix a logistical problem or social phenomenon.

It's like telling people not to be Christian/Buddhist/muslim because religion is just a bunch of fantasy stories.

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

#228

Post by blitz_skull »

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…

Where is it written that being an OSS contributor should be a sustainable career? Just go write software for a company if that’s what you want to do. But why there’s an expectation that “open” source software should pay anyone is beyond me.

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

#229

Post by karmakaze »

I don't agree with this formulation of the problem nor the proposed solution space. The cost/price angle might be useful to solve other problems though.

Publishing opensource to a package repository should have higher hurdles than picking a LICENSE file and pushing code to Github. Java/Maven repos typically have higher quality because to get code there, you have to have a domain, register it and get through the packaging requirements/bureaucracy. The use of packages from Github with merely a repo/git-hash is a bad trend. On the other side, if everything had a visible price/cost, then we might not end up with simple functions being overused and compromise a library ecosystem.

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

#230

Post by blitz_skull »

phpisthebest wrote: post #44
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…

You mean you would write your own leftpad function instead of pulling in a $1 npm dependency That is crazy. /s

It would actually be amazing if you could do that—somehow stub dependencies with your own libraries.

Because the number of times I’ve needed a left pad lib is literally 0, but other, more useful libraries always have it as a dependency.

Post reply on HN