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The Few, the Tired, the Open Source Coders

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Re: The Few, the Tired, the Open Source Coders

#101

Post by strogonoff »

apatters wrote: post #92
bawolff wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of people do this as a hobby - getting paid for a hobby is a very good way to make it not fun anymore. If its consistent $$$ that might be worth it. For a one shot thing, maybe not as much. I think it also can be difficult to mix volunteer stuff with money. Posting in a bug tracker that multiple people work from which anyone can take on a bug from, that you will do it for $x, can make it feel like you're using a…

Sure, but for almost everyone, there's a dollar figure at which they're willing to stop having fun and start making money. Maybe that dollar figure is $1,000/hr for some open source maintainer out there (I bet it's much lower for most of them). Why not put a line in the readme which says, if you want to commission a specific change, send me an email to discuss, my consulting rate starts at $XXX/hr. Or there's a $YYYY…

If OSS project maintainer offers “fixes for money”, then could there be a conflict of interest? Merging a PR that scratches some obvious itch would be equivalent to robbing my family of money I could earn by charging a BigCo and doing it myself.

IMO one of the best ways to contribute to OSS while making some living is to do product development and/or consulting work, and structure it so that you can methodically encapsulate and open up the components involved. Of course, this unfortunately does not apply to every project out there, but I believe Django was born and had been developed this way for example, as well as probably many well-known projects that we don’t know the precise origins of.

Re: The Few, the Tired, the Open Source Coders

#103

Post by raxxorrax »

pmoriarty wrote: post #2

How much better the world would be if open source was fully funded by some of those tech billionaires whose fortunes were made by sitting on its shoulders.

I would prefer crowd funding because with corporate sponsorships often come subtle obligations for corporate friendly adaptations and sometimes weird expectations.

https://www.business.com/articles/john-rampton-open-source-s...

While there is some truth to it and describes what you should be careful about, it fundamentally doesn't understand the different motivations behind open source.

Creators know that individual users can also create horrible expectations not restricted to software development, but you aren't suddenly half dependent on a company in which there is probably one guy calling the shots about your project and maybe it is better not to marry him.

Re: The Few, the Tired, the Open Source Coders

#104

Post by ritchiea »

apatters wrote: post #92
bawolff wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of people do this as a hobby - getting paid for a hobby is a very good way to make it not fun anymore. If its consistent $$$ that might be worth it. For a one shot thing, maybe not as much. I think it also can be difficult to mix volunteer stuff with money. Posting in a bug tracker that multiple people work from which anyone can take on a bug from, that you will do it for $x, can make it feel like you're using a…

Sure, but for almost everyone, there's a dollar figure at which they're willing to stop having fun and start making money. Maybe that dollar figure is $1,000/hr for some open source maintainer out there (I bet it's much lower for most of them). Why not put a line in the readme which says, if you want to commission a specific change, send me an email to discuss, my consulting rate starts at $XXX/hr. Or there's a $YYYY…

Maybe but I've reached out to open source maintainers to offer them contracting work focused on their library and they have pretty much unanimously replied that they are too busy. And we were willing to pay above market rates to work on a product that has a significant global user base. There's definitely culture, process & funding problems around open source but for the most part being an open source maintainer seems like it's very good for your career.

I suspect being an open source project maintainer is a self selecting grind.

Re: The Few, the Tired, the Open Source Coders

#105

Post by [deleted] »

strogonoff wrote: post #101
apatters wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but for almost everyone, there's a dollar figure at which they're willing to stop having fun and start making money. Maybe that dollar figure is $1,000/hr for some open source maintainer out there (I bet it's much lower for most of them). Why not put a line in the readme which says, if you want to commission a specific change, send me an email to discuss, my consulting rate starts at $XXX/hr. Or there's a $YYYY…

If OSS project maintainer offers “fixes for money”, then could there be a conflict of interest? Merging a PR that scratches some obvious itch would be equivalent to robbing my family of money I could earn by charging a BigCo and doing it myself. IMO one of the best ways to contribute to OSS while making some living is to do product development and/or consulting work, and structure it so that you can methodically enca…

[deleted]

Re: The Few, the Tired, the Open Source Coders

#106

Post by andi999 »

dalke wrote: post #89
andi999 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not from legal, but too me there the problem would be: you use a product, but you dont 'buy' it, you 'donate' to the guy who made it, who is also 'super nice' and fixes some stuff about the product you need. This looks like a work/service/purchase agreement in disguise. Actually you dont want that to be possible.

I tried commercial FOSS development. An older version was available at no cost, the newest version cost money. Both were MIT licensed. If you were a company, and wanted to pay me, it was easy - send me a PO and you would get the source code to the newer, faster, more capable version. Nothing in that looks like a donation. I did it this way precisely because giving someone money for being "super nice" and distributing…

Getting a new supplier in our ERP system is a nightmare. Also for each order three quotations needed from different suppliers...

Re: The Few, the Tired, the Open Source Coders

#107

Post by sokoloff »

dalke wrote: post #89
andi999 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not from legal, but too me there the problem would be: you use a product, but you dont 'buy' it, you 'donate' to the guy who made it, who is also 'super nice' and fixes some stuff about the product you need. This looks like a work/service/purchase agreement in disguise. Actually you dont want that to be possible.

I tried commercial FOSS development. An older version was available at no cost, the newest version cost money. Both were MIT licensed. If you were a company, and wanted to pay me, it was easy - send me a PO and you would get the source code to the newer, faster, more capable version. Nothing in that looks like a donation. I did it this way precisely because giving someone money for being "super nice" and distributing…

That cost is measured in dollars and in friction, not just dollars. There’s no software that I won’t pay $25 for if it helps my work. There’s some software that I’ll pay $100 for. It’s again difficult in the $100.01 to $1000 range and opens up again over that (only if the value is there of course).

It’s fair to assume that slightly different purchasing approvals are needed in the buckets above. In all cases, I’m making an RoI calculation and a return-on-effort calculation.

$0 and not AGPL hits a sweet spot on both RoI and RoE.

Re: The Few, the Tired, the Open Source Coders

#108

Post by jabl »

ozborn wrote: post #59

Would love if governments could better appreciate the value of open source and free software. Some sort of granting process that could determine which projects are worth funding on a sustainable basis would be wonderful. It's a great opportunity for access to technical expertise, avoiding vendor lock in, lowering costs and international collaboration if done right. Done poorly, it's throwing good money down a drain -…

I love science, but man, the way science is funded is a damn trainwreck.

Re: The Few, the Tired, the Open Source Coders

#109

Post by jabl »

eesmith wrote: post #80
PradeetPatel wrote: post #71

As someone who grew up in India, contributing to OSS has always been the best way for junior developers to get noticed by recruiters. Due to the sheer number of applicants, recruiters are only interested in the ones that are truly passionate about coding - exemplified by OSS involvement or side projects. I'm not saying that it is right, but it does give the much needed exposure to junior talents in order to foster th…

"passion" often seems like code for "will work more for free". From a business standpoint, it makes sense as it shifts risk to the potential employee. But like having unpaid interns, it biases the employment pool toward those who have extra money and time to work for no income.

This so much.

I can understand the motivation from the perspective of recruiters, but I'd really hate to see STEM fields be infiltrated with the filth of unpaid internships that is unfortunately so common in many other fields.

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