Paying for Open Source Contributions • Hacker News Board

Re: Paying for Open Source Contributions

#11

Post by kelset » Fri, May 03, 2019, 1:59 PM UTC

sktrdie wrote: post #6

My opinion is that open-source contributions stems from passion. People do it and implement something because they're passionate about it. When you attach any money to it, it becomes tainted with responsibility and emotions. Such as, "should I work on this an extra hour and burn myself out and get those extra 40 bucks for dinner tonight?" That formula doesn't make individuals want to work more on open-source. Sure th…

open source maintainer here - I disagree that you get those "responsibility and emotions" only when you attach money.

You already get plenty of those by the sheer fact that you care about the craft you contribute to.

> Nobody would have ever imagined it to work without "money", but it does and it will continue to work.

I'm sorry to break it for you, but it doesn't actually work.

And constant articles and talks from OSS maintainers about burnout is one of the proofs.

If you want to read more, there is a great book on this subject which I feel will help you get a more informed opinion on it: https://www.fordfoundation.org/about/library/reports-and-stu...

Initiatives like this are important to "show by example" - currently there are too many Open Source consumers and not enough contributors.

And also, work IS work - and it should be retributed.

Re: Paying for Open Source Contributions

#12

Post by sktrdie » Fri, May 03, 2019, 2:06 PM UTC

kelset wrote: post #11

sktrdie wrote: post #6

My opinion is that open-source contributions stems from passion. People do it and implement something because they're passionate about it. When you attach any money to it, it becomes tainted with responsibility and emotions. Such as, "should I work on this an extra hour and burn myself out and get those extra 40 bucks for dinner tonight?" That formula doesn't make individuals want to work more on open-source. Sure th…

open source maintainer here - I disagree that you get those "responsibility and emotions" only when you attach money. You already get plenty of those by the sheer fact that you care about the craft you contribute to. > Nobody would have ever imagined it to work without "money", but it does and it will continue to work. I'm sorry to break it for you, but it doesn't actually work. And constant articles and talks from O…

> I'm sorry to break it for you, but it doesn't actually work.

Happy to disagree here. Personally it has been working amazingly since over the past, what, 30 years open-source has been the foundation of almost any tool or tech we use nowadays and it was done without economical incentives. Not sure where your data comes from.

I agree about the burnout, but not sure adding money to the equation helps with this problem.

Re: Paying for Open Source Contributions

#13

Post by moneil971 » Fri, May 03, 2019, 2:13 PM UTC

This seems like a good way to recognize the extra time put in to support OSS projects - and I like the thoughtfulness about not making it an incentive to spend even more hours working, by capping hours and keeping the bonus amount low.

Re: Paying for Open Source Contributions

#14

Post by kelset » Fri, May 03, 2019, 2:19 PM UTC

sktrdie wrote: post #12

kelset wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

open source maintainer here - I disagree that you get those "responsibility and emotions" only when you attach money. You already get plenty of those by the sheer fact that you care about the craft you contribute to. > Nobody would have ever imagined it to work without "money", but it does and it will continue to work. I'm sorry to break it for you, but it doesn't actually work. And constant articles and talks from O…

> I'm sorry to break it for you, but it doesn't actually work. Happy to disagree here. Personally it has been working amazingly since over the past, what, 30 years open-source has been the foundation of almost any tool or tech we use nowadays and it was done without economical incentives. Not sure where your data comes from. I agree about the burnout, but not sure adding money to the equation helps with this problem.

> Not sure where your data comes from.

I literally linked a 150 pages book with both data and examples in my previous comment.

Re: Paying for Open Source Contributions

#15

Post by jsbaby608 » Fri, May 03, 2019, 2:20 PM UTC

sktrdie wrote: post #12

kelset wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

open source maintainer here - I disagree that you get those "responsibility and emotions" only when you attach money. You already get plenty of those by the sheer fact that you care about the craft you contribute to. > Nobody would have ever imagined it to work without "money", but it does and it will continue to work. I'm sorry to break it for you, but it doesn't actually work. And constant articles and talks from O…

> I'm sorry to break it for you, but it doesn't actually work. Happy to disagree here. Personally it has been working amazingly since over the past, what, 30 years open-source has been the foundation of almost any tool or tech we use nowadays and it was done without economical incentives. Not sure where your data comes from. I agree about the burnout, but not sure adding money to the equation helps with this problem.

You are correct. But, the biggest projects we all use (apache, linux, php, etc) all have many paid maintainers through large companies.

If these people weren't paid, I don't think we would have any of the quality software we see today.

Re: Paying for Open Source Contributions

#16

Post by Arkanosis » Fri, May 03, 2019, 2:23 PM UTC

sktrdie wrote: post #12

kelset wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

open source maintainer here - I disagree that you get those "responsibility and emotions" only when you attach money. You already get plenty of those by the sheer fact that you care about the craft you contribute to. > Nobody would have ever imagined it to work without "money", but it does and it will continue to work. I'm sorry to break it for you, but it doesn't actually work. And constant articles and talks from O…

> I'm sorry to break it for you, but it doesn't actually work. Happy to disagree here. Personally it has been working amazingly since over the past, what, 30 years open-source has been the foundation of almost any tool or tech we use nowadays and it was done without economical incentives. Not sure where your data comes from. I agree about the burnout, but not sure adding money to the equation helps with this problem.

> over the past, what, 30 years open-source has been the foundation of almost any tool or tech we use nowadays and it was done without economical incentives

Not sure what you are talking about… Most big open-source projects I can think of have at least at some point been the result of economical incentives, either direct or indirect. Sure, there are significant exceptions, but we wouldn't be where we are today if open-source wasn't economically sound.

Re: Paying for Open Source Contributions

#17

Post by sktrdie » Fri, May 03, 2019, 2:25 PM UTC

kelset wrote: post #14

sktrdie wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm sorry to break it for you, but it doesn't actually work. Happy to disagree here. Personally it has been working amazingly since over the past, what, 30 years open-source has been the foundation of almost any tool or tech we use nowadays and it was done without economical incentives. Not sure where your data comes from. I agree about the burnout, but not sure adding money to the equation helps with this problem.

> Not sure where your data comes from. I literally linked a 150 pages book with both data and examples in my previous comment.

Ah damn I'm sorry. Can you tell me where this data is in the book? I quickly brushed through the 217 page book and there seems to be no data regarding my comment where I think open-source doesn't need economical incentives in order to work.

Re: Paying for Open Source Contributions

#18

Post by sagartewari01 » Fri, May 03, 2019, 2:26 PM UTC

sktrdie wrote: post #6

My opinion is that open-source contributions stems from passion. People do it and implement something because they're passionate about it. When you attach any money to it, it becomes tainted with responsibility and emotions. Such as, "should I work on this an extra hour and burn myself out and get those extra 40 bucks for dinner tonight?" That formula doesn't make individuals want to work more on open-source. Sure th…

> Sure they push them towards doing stuff in open-source but that usually almost never leads to creating great pieces of work.

Blender, Linux kernel...

Re: Paying for Open Source Contributions

#19

Post by sktrdie » Fri, May 03, 2019, 2:30 PM UTC

jsbaby608 wrote: post #15

sktrdie wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm sorry to break it for you, but it doesn't actually work. Happy to disagree here. Personally it has been working amazingly since over the past, what, 30 years open-source has been the foundation of almost any tool or tech we use nowadays and it was done without economical incentives. Not sure where your data comes from. I agree about the burnout, but not sure adding money to the equation helps with this problem.

You are correct. But, the biggest projects we all use (apache, linux, php, etc) all have many paid maintainers through large companies. If these people weren't paid, I don't think we would have any of the quality software we see today.

Apache Software Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation -- (basically a charity). It does not "make money" per se, it just has to cover its costs.

Not sure about the rest but I believe most have the same model. Sure there are few nitpicks, but my overall point was that open-source doesn't need money to work.

Re: Paying for Open Source Contributions

#20

Post by antt » Fri, May 03, 2019, 2:31 PM UTC

>We pay our employees $20/hr for contributions to OSS and tech communities, whether it’s a third-party library we use in our work like React, Next.js

While I applaud the sentiment $20 per hour is too little to make me care and enough to make me start thinking about money.

A much better way to deal with this would be pushing laws to allow for tax offsets for contributing time to charities (open source ones). Seeing $10 per hour (after tax) that doesn't inspire me much.

Being able to write off my full time wage as a tax deductible would make me vastly more motivated to document what I've been working on and work on a lot more of it.