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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

#351

Post by sweetjuly »

prmoustache wrote: post #245
andsoitis wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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 contribute monetarily. The solution is quite simple really. 1) have your repo private and release only tarball files or have a read only repo with no pull/…

GitHub also lets you turn off the issue tracker, which is wonderful for projects which are ""incidentally open source"" where I have no plans to maintain it beyond my own personal needs

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

#352

Post by grotorea »

bogwog wrote: post #300
jh0486 wrote: post #241

I understand this is a jaded take, but it's not wrong. Open source entered a bubble because companies started requiring active open source contributions to staff+ engineering requirements. The model was never sustainable. A select few contribute to open source out of sheer passion, but the majority are/were using it as a career advancement mechanism or network effect. The result is that major companies were able to a…

This is what I dislike about OSI. It feels like their mission is specifically to provide free labor to megacorps. The FSF has (IMO) goals that have a more tangible benefit to society, and while megacorps can and do use free software without contributing anything, that feels like more of a side effect than the primary goal of the movement. If you know that someone is going to take your code and make money off of it an…

Maybe I'm naive but I get the feeling open source is more about convincing the megacorps that they can get better, cheaper and higher quality software without vendor lock-in by cooperating with the other megacorps. Not so much as convincing volunteers that doing open source in their time off is some great idea or that they can make a living off it.

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

#353

Post by agent327 »

iscream26 wrote: post #231
robertlagrant wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you prefer everyone (of course with some minor exceptions for higher ups) to be equally "not great, but not terrible" or do you prefer some to have amazing lives, but others to suffer? This isn't the choice. Socialism (actual socialism) repeatedly starves its populations. Capitalism repeatedly creates situations where new things are created that make everyone's lives better, and existing things get cheaper and b…

> Capitalism repeatedly creates situations where new things are created that make everyone's lives better, and existing things get cheaper and better over time. > everyone's lives better > things get cheaper and better over time. Oh, fuck off with that bullshit. Capitalism may appear to thrive when living in a first-world country, but only does so through exploitation and cutting corners. More to the point, isn't it…

Is there no exploitation in communist nations? I should actually phrase that the other way around: is there, or has there ever been, a communist nation that did not exploit people to the max, even killing them if that was the most convenient option?

As for cutting corners, check out some videos on tofu dreg projects, it will enlighten you on corner cutting in a communist system.

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

#354

Post by simbolit »

teddyh wrote: post #349
simbolit wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are saying I should add, to my free lemonade stand, a disclaimer: I will not help you with drinking the free lemonade; if the lemonade is too sour for you I will not be providing extra sugar; and I will not make free lemonade tomorrow. Can you give me one or two examples of official OSS websites where these are heavily implied or outright stated? Do you mean anything beyond a roadmap?

You don’t need a disclaimer for something which nobody reasonably expects. Although an “available today only” notice might be useful, since people might reasonably expect a lemonade stand to be available the next day. Regarding examples, basically any software project web site which talks about the project as an ongoing thing, gives links to where “new releases” will be available. Stuff like that. All that implies th…

Let's look at one of my favorite open source projects:

https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock

Does gorhill need a disclaimer, as you propose?

If so, please tell me specifically, where you are reading any "implied support, security bugfixes, and future development".

I am not purposefully complicated, I just feel your "implied" is doing a lot of work, and I want to see what that really means. I don't see the implication, but perhaps I am blind. So please enlighten me. (If ublock doesn't fit your argument, please give another example of your liking.).

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

#355

Post by agent327 »

zlg_codes wrote: post #156
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…

Ah, ye olden 'capitalism, or dystopian despair!' Strangely one of those things that culturally, we can't get past. It's a false dichotomy at best, and completely ignores the costs of implementing capitalism.

If you take away capitalism, you are still going to need a system. The alternatives are either anarchism (and I don't fancy living in a Mad Max-style world), or some form of dictatorship: either communism, or outright dictatorship, or theocracy, or some neofeudal BS. In all of them there is a single strong man at the top who will tell you what to do, and kill you if you don't.

Capitalism at least gives you the freedom to make your own choices. All the others (except anarchism) don't.

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

#356

Post by WorldMaker »

BeetleB wrote: post #286
rpastuszak wrote: post #157

Earlier 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. As is true for many (most?) crafts. If I am an artist (e.g. painting, digital art, etc). and give my work away for free, my fellow artists are not going to sympathize with my inability to make a living. Ditto photography ("look at all these companies taking my free stock photos and not giving me any mo…

Or maybe that's a large neon sign that we should fix those, too?

Why isn't it a sustainable career path to be an artist or photographer or musician or writer or open source contributor? (Outside of the lucky 1% or so at the top of those crafts, of course.)

Why are creative pursuits so much harder to make a sustainable wage on in our society? Why do we expect most of them to be unpaid hobbies? Why do we expect the arts and crafts that are the fruits of their labor to start at "cheap as free" unless they work to be insanely talented and are lucky enough to win corporate sponsorship/patronage?

I don't have good answers either, but there are a lot of questions of what actually are we valuing about our use of our labor here, as a society, in general, across the board.

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

#357

Post by friend_and_foe »

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…

This is right, but maintainers themselves often forget. They don't enforce this. Their little thing became very important and they became a rock star, so they carry the world on their shoulders. They respond to feature requests that are out of scope originally. They let any and every PR in. Maintainers often manage to do things with their project that turn them into bahemoths and support large industry and find themselves stuck.

More maintainers need to take the "no guarantee of fitness for purpose" part of their license more seriously. Don't fall for the temptation to be everything for everyone. Don't cave to social pressure.

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

#358

Post by jjav »

teddyh wrote: post #248
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…

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…

> Be clearly labelled, in its public-facing information, as being offered as-is

If you read the license (for most licenses anyway), that info is clearly right there.

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

#359

Post by CaptainFever »

vikmals wrote: post #234
karmakaze wrote: post #222

> 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.

yeah, seems like the author came up with this formular to cope with the fact that others are making way more money off his software because they found a way to utilize their oss software to make profit. Author should do the same or not ask for money. A more accurate and sane formular would be money = time_spent_on_project * avg_salary

I'm a junior so please take this with a pinch of salt, but yeah this is what I intend to do when I do open source too.

Once I've finished scratching my itch, I will only spend T hours per week on the project:

    T = patron_weekly_income / 20
Where:

    1
Where the min of 1 hour is intended to "get the project off the ground", and the max is for work life balance (any additional income is then either profits, or to be reinvested in other contributors).

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

#360

Post by jjav »

BeetleB wrote: post #286
rpastuszak wrote: post #157

Earlier 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. As is true for many (most?) crafts. If I am an artist (e.g. painting, digital art, etc). and give my work away for free, my fellow artists are not going to sympathize with my inability to make a living. Ditto photography ("look at all these companies taking my free stock photos and not giving me any mo…

> It's silly to expect SW to be any different.

True, I can't disagree.

However, it's important to note that there is something different about the software world, in that very large subsets of applications and infrastructure of large for-profit companies are built on top of the free labor of open source.

Not sure if that's true in any other craft.

If unpaid open source were to magically disappear overnight, all of the Internet and all tech-using companies would collapse immediately.

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