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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

#371

Post by teddyh »

somethingor wrote: post #370
teddyh wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firstly, uBlock doesn’t really talk about its own updates, since all the frequent updates it needs are provided by its filter lists. It’s basically an app store, a little bit like F-Droid. And you’re right, I can find no explicit language that either states or implies any of the things i listed. But think of it this way. There is a prominent link to their list of releases, https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/releases >…

> And, when asked Just so I understand, what would be the question here?

(I have edited to clarify.)

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

#372

Post by infamouscow »

teddyh wrote: post #347
infamouscow wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also doesn't disclaim the author from writing you a check out of the good will of their heart. I genuinely don't understand what's so difficult to grasp here.

> * It also doesn't disclaim the author from writing you a check out of the good will of their heart.* Nobody expects that. But people do reasonably expect a project to recieve updates, security fixes, and new releases.

I'm not disagreeing with you, you're just wrong.

It's not reasonable to expect a project to receive updates, security fixes, and new releases for software projects the author put on the Internet explicitly with a license saying it's warrantied for no purpose, both explicit and implicit.

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

#373

Post by friend_and_foe »

Nevermark wrote: post #365
friend_and_foe wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 thems…

> More maintainers need to take the "no guarantee of fitness for purpose" part of their license more seriously. I get this, as a very bottom line. But a lot of great projects are great because the developers consciously want people to use and depend on their work. Their is a living changing informal social bargain, unique to each project, along with licensing, economic and other concerns.

Well, I'd say if you want users to depend on your work, you're voluntarily signing yourself up to endless maintenance for little reward. I look at it like this: I built something cool, if it's useful to you, use it. But if you come to depend on it, and doubly so for business use, maybe you should consider being prepared to maintain it yourself. Other people look at it differently, and if it's your goal for the world to depend on your work and you haven't set yourself up to benefit from that responsibility you take on yourself in a way that you like, then I don't really think it's a problem the rest of us have to solve.

Is it unsustainable like the title of the article says? I suppose, but it's not some state of affairs that is unavoidable or that we are stuck with through no fault of our own. A guy wants people to depend on his work that he does for free, a company sees a core component of their business that they can get for free, a few years later the guy is upset that he is maintaining this thing everyone depends on and the company is scared their business will fall apart without him. They each got themselves there, it's a predictable state of affairs, the solutions for each party are very clear. As a developer though, the solution is what I've outlined: take the "no warranty of mechantibility or fitness for purpose" part of your license seriously and tell entitled people to solve their own problems.

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

#374

Post by teddyh »

infamouscow wrote: post #372
teddyh wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> * It also doesn't disclaim the author from writing you a check out of the good will of their heart.* Nobody expects that. But people do reasonably expect a project to recieve updates, security fixes, and new releases.

I'm not disagreeing with you, you're just wrong. It's not reasonable to expect a project to receive updates, security fixes, and new releases for software projects the author put on the Internet explicitly with a license saying it's warrantied for no purpose, both explicit and implicit.

I was going to present a fair rebuttal, but you’ve just convinced me that it’s unreasonable for you to expect any answer from me in this debate.

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

#375

Post by 1letterunixname »

The problem from the maintainer side is:

0. Don't give away something and expect tips, donations, or anything else because it will only lead to resentment. If you voluntarily give something away, you basically lose all control of how it's used in the real world. If someone intends to make money from code, then OSS is probably the wrong approach.

The challenges from the user side are:

1. Donate time, money, and effort based on utility and necessity to support what's vital.

2. Be a proactive self-starter whenever possible rather than depend on others for support.

3. Some maintainers and communities turn out to have an un{cool,professional} culture of hostility, uncooperativeness, or unhelpfulness. Don't waste time with that.

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

#378

Post by doxeddaily »

xoac wrote: post #214
ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #152

Earlier 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…

>nd why the OS authors are broke

OS authors aren't broke. In fact the guys from Microsoft are some of the richest dudes in the world. Maybe OS authors that give away their stuff for free are broke?

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

#379

Post by sofixa »

agent327 wrote: post #355
zlg_codes wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 freedo…

I don't know why you're mixing political and economic systems. The two are often related, but not intricately linked. Capitalism and democracy are orthogonal, and there have been plenty of capitalist but undemocratic (e.g. fascist) regimes out there, like there have been democratic countries with social democratic (aka not unfettered capitalism) economic systems.

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

#380

Post by joseluis »

Helmut10001 wrote: post #97
JoshTriplett wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One of the problems I found with this is that actually taking donations is hard work. As many problems as there are with GitHub (social lock-in, Copilot laundering Open Source license violations), GitHub Sponsors is incredibly valuable and substantially reduces the friction for getting support for an Open Source project.

I don't think he is speaking about the ability to get donations. Rather about the tax consequences. It doesn't matter to governments how you got money, you have to declare it, even if it is GitHub Sponsors. He did not say which country, but my guess would be Germany. You have to declare every penny here.

I was thinking Spain, it describes the situation here perfectly.
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