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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

#321

Post by SamuelAdams »

cxr wrote: post #83
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…

> I keep reading from project leaders like ESLint’s things like “if only they paid $1 each…” as if that made any economic sense at all. If they paid $1 each, you would not [have] thousands let alone millions of users. The dirty secret of the GitHub era of open source is that many developers and open source codebases would be better off if such a thing happened. A lot of stuff associated with the development processes…

I could see it now, every time you run yarn install it charges you $1 USD per dependency.

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

#322

Post by bawolff »

zackmorris wrote: post #307
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. Do you have standards? It doesn't sound like you do. People with healthy boundaries set standards for themselves as far as what they give to others and what treatment they accept in return. I think the fallacy in your argument is that you're blaming contributors for noticing that they aren't being compensated for the work they've done, rather…

I dont think that is what the person you were replying to is saying.

> I think the fallacy in your argument is that you're blaming contributors for noticing that they aren't being compensated for the work they've done, rather than blaming others for using that work without giving anything in return.

Is anyone being forced to work on open source software? Unlike low wage jobs, where you could be forced in order to pay bills, eat, nobody is forcing anyone to work on open source ventures.

Just because you do something useful does not mean you are inherently entitled to compensation in the form you want.

If you are being forced to do something against your will that is bad. If it is some hobby you happen to like doing that is totally ok.

> The solution is to organize labor into a unified front so that exploitation can no longer happen.

Lol. What type of leverage do you think open source devs have to form a union? Open source in many ways is designed to remove all economic leverage from source code. Its not a bug its a feature.

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

#323

Post by _heimdall »

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #167
_heimdall wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't actually think that's a problem with capitalism (though it has many problems). I've always seen this as the markets reflecting what we collectively actually prioritize. Sure we want to be safe and educated, but damn it if we don't really get enjoyment out of fancy new toys, vacations, and new cloths. In this case capitalism doesn't seem to be holding down salaries of the careers you listed. Its noteworthy tha…

Teaching, nursing, and policing are all either _highly_ regulated or outright organized by the government. So I don't know if it makes sense to say something like "the market chooses not to prioritize policing" or "teacher's unions allow teachers to collect above-market salaries". The voters seem more relevant than the market here.

Yep that's a fair point. Government intervention can muddy the waters similar to unions, with regards to markets deciding on prices and value.

There is still some level of market sentiment though, both in that we don't collectively prioritize politically pushing through higher wages and individuals are still willing to do the jobs for the current salary rates.

Nursing may actually get the triple wammy - unions, governments, and insurance monopolies all weigh heavily into hourly rates and salaries for medical professionals.

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

#324

Post by _heimdall »

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #167
_heimdall wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't actually think that's a problem with capitalism (though it has many problems). I've always seen this as the markets reflecting what we collectively actually prioritize. Sure we want to be safe and educated, but damn it if we don't really get enjoyment out of fancy new toys, vacations, and new cloths. In this case capitalism doesn't seem to be holding down salaries of the careers you listed. Its noteworthy tha…

Teaching, nursing, and policing are all either _highly_ regulated or outright organized by the government. So I don't know if it makes sense to say something like "the market chooses not to prioritize policing" or "teacher's unions allow teachers to collect above-market salaries". The voters seem more relevant than the market here.

Yep that's a fair point. Government intervention can muddy the waters similar to unions, with regards to markets deciding on prices and value.

There is still some level of market sentiment though, both in that we don't collectively prioritize politically pushing through higher wages and individuals are still willing to do the jobs for the current salary rates.

Nursing may actually get the triple whammy - unions, governments, and insurance monopolies all weigh heavily into hourly rates and salaries for medical professionals.

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

#325

Post by empath-nirvana »

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…

I think the general pattern is that someone releases something for free, then people start using it, and start depending on it, and then start opening PRs and issues, and then the person who did it for free in their spare time is expected to respond to those issues, etc. Now other people are making money from your work, but demanding that you work on it for free.

Mostly this is the point where people start thinking about how to monetize it -- and they should! Your time is valuable, you should get paid for it. If you don't figure out how to get in the middle of the cash flows that are happening _because of your work_, someone else will do it.

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

#326

Post by mistrial9 »

gruppe_sechs wrote: post #137
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…

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.

you mean like the Plains Indians in America? yeah, ugly.. they "solved war" that way.. Almost all the "great nations" of the modern times did exactly that to minority language groups, at some stage of development. Many Wrongs Do Not Make It Right -- it is what happened, however. I would add that many genocides occurred in the longer time frame of history, which is the alternative to mass forced migrations, in the eyes of the Great Powers.

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

#327

Post by aaronbrethorst »

This is consistent with our findings in the OneBusAway project, an open source real time transit app that is hugely popular in Seattle, and used across the world, including in San Diego, Washington DC, Boston, Tampa, and New York.

We’ve been appealing to our end users for funding to help keep the development of the mobile apps going, which you can contribute to, as well: https://opentransitsoftwarefoundation.org/donate/

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

#328

Post by ben0x539 »

api wrote: post #54
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…

Those two things are connected. People will spend $10 on a coffee drink at Starbucks without blinking. Suggest that they spend $10 on a piece of software and they’ll throw a fit and claim you are taking away their rights.

Hm, why do you think that is? Do programmers just respect each other less than they respect baristas?

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

#329

Post by empath-nirvana »

donatj wrote: post #91

I have never understood this "I have an open source project and it eats all of my time, and I must scream". Just stop. It's a hobby. As in life in general, don't have hobbies you don't enjoy. That's weird. Give your project to someone else - if this is you, skip to the bottom for my advice on how to do this. I maintain a couple popular open source libraries, and a ton of unpopular libraries. At least two of the popul…

> Just stop. It's a hobby.

But why should they, if they can turn their hobby into a job -- there are many very valuable companies that have been built on top of open source projects.

I think donations is a bad way to handle it though. If you don't want to do the full SaaS model, another tried and true way is consulting and training.

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