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The Lack of Compensation in Open Source Software Is Unsustainable
261–270 of 413 posts
Re: The Lack of Compensation in Open Source Software Is Unsustainable
#262The feeling of entitlement of some developers is sometimes baffling. They have a position of authority in a project, and got that authority based on their demonstrated trustworthiness and ability to deliver useful software. Now they don’t feel like doing that anymore, but instead of resigning their position in the project like a responsible person, they want to use their earned trust to be paid for software development. Congratulations, you’ve come up with a business model. It might work, or it might fail. But it has nothing to with the software project. Open Source is not a business model. It is a development process.
Re: The Lack of Compensation in Open Source Software Is Unsustainable
#263Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
> Where is it written that being an OSS contributor should be a sustainable career?
Why shouldn't it?
Re: The Lack of Compensation in Open Source Software Is Unsustainable
#264Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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. They knew that before they started.
I meant it in a general sense, I think we'd be in a better place as a society if this model of work was easier to follow/more mainstream.
Re: The Lack of Compensation in Open Source Software Is Unsustainable
#265The 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…
A maintainer position for a software project is like any position or role, in say, a charity. You aren’t technically forced to do the work, but the charity announces publicly (on its web site, for instance) that the work will be done, and people expect it to be done. If you do not feel up to doing it anymore, you owe it to other people (who expect the work to be done) to announce your retirement and hand the position…
> B: Be clearly labelled, in its public-facing information, as being offered as-is, without any implied updates or future development.
So if I had a text file in the root of my repo that said:
THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.
Re: The Lack of Compensation in Open Source Software Is Unsustainable
#266Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, that’s the legal warranty disclaimer. It has nothing to do with support, security fixes, or future development.
What do you think a warranty is?
A warranty is about the code which already exists, and whether the code is fit for a particular purpose, etc. (all legal terms). The warranty disclaimer in free software licences all say basically “Although this specific version of the software is meant to be helpful to you for a certain purpose, you can’t sue the developer if there’s a bug or an omitted feature, since we don’t make any guarantee that it will work.” But this is not what I was talking about. I was talking about disclaiming any implied support, security bugfixes, and future development, all three of which are usually heavlily implied (or outright stated) to be available in official project information (such as on an official web site).
Re: The Lack of Compensation in Open Source Software Is Unsustainable
#267Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 th…
I agree that commercialising open source software can be exploitative and obviously, that why the GPL was thought necessary to try to stop that kind of behaviour (or at least ensure that the resultant code was also open source).
But with non-commercial usage, I don't see it as exploiting the author as they wanted to write it for their own reasons and had no interest in commercialising it or believed it to be non-viable. If someone releases under MIT/BSD, then they're pretty much saying "here's the code, do whatever you want with it", so I don't see a problem with companies using it.
Re: The Lack of Compensation in Open Source Software Is Unsustainable
#268The feeling of entitlement of some developers is sometimes baffling. They have a position of authority in a project, and got that authority based on their demonstrated trustworthiness and ability to deliver useful software. Now they don’t feel like doing that anymore, but instead of resigning their position in the project like a responsible person, they want to use their earned trust to be paid for software developme…
> they want to use their earned trust to be paid for software development.
They're entitled to do that, and you're entitled to fork it.
Re: The Lack of Compensation in Open Source Software Is Unsustainable
#269Earlier 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…
You forgot the part where the central planners herded millions of people into Gulags, starved tens of millions more to death, then executed a few million more for good measure. Other than that, spot on though.
GULAG is an acronym for a state organ, it can’t be pluralized.
Re: The Lack of Compensation in Open Source Software Is Unsustainable
#270Earlier quoted context omitted.
A maintainer position for a software project is like any position or role, in say, a charity. You aren’t technically forced to do the work, but the charity announces publicly (on its web site, for instance) that the work will be done, and people expect it to be done. If you do not feel up to doing it anymore, you owe it to other people (who expect the work to be done) to announce your retirement and hand the position…
> B: Be clearly labelled, in its public-facing information, as being offered as-is, without any implied updates or future development. So if I had a text file in the root of my repo that said: THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHE…
That text does not disclaim support, security bugfixes, and future development. On the contrary, all three of those things are probably either heavlily implied or outright stated to be available on the project web site.