Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Open Source Maintenance Fee

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 260 posts

Re: Open Source Maintenance Fee

#191

Post by ozim »

ozim wrote: post #110
orochimaaru wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have mixed feelings about this. I’m not a Wix user so this is a general comment on the substance of this. As an open source project no one is forcing you to maintain it. Every fix you put in is something that you do of your own volition. No company can force you to accept a PR or work on it. I think FOSS developers often get stressed about this but unless you personally have financial motivations around what you’ve…

No one is forcing you to maintain it … but successful projects have community and people who rely on the project who somehow trust the dev. Once you say „I am not fixing it” there will be lots of people who will stop participating in community and project might die.

To add: But you mustn’t forget it. You become responsible forever for what you’ve tamed.

Re: Open Source Maintenance Fee

#192

Post by richrichardsson »

digianarchist wrote: post #34
thinkmassive wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The most powerful set of tools available to create your Windows installation experience. Open Source since 2004!

It's shocking to me that Microsoft aren't heavily involved with the project considering it's one of the fundamental frameworks for releasing software on Windows. I've had the displeasure of using Wix and it's an incredibly complicated and poorly documented platform that had us reaching for paid competitors in order to get our installer shipped. I realized shortly after that it's not really Wix's fault. Windows is squ…

> it's an incredibly complicated and poorly documented

So much this. I was interested in using WiX, but it's just impenetrable for a noob, and any "beginners" guides were either hugely out of date or just assumed you understood what GUID you should be using and if it was important or not to change the example they gave. Quickly gave up. :(

Re: Open Source Maintenance Fee

#193

Post by bayindirh »

orochimaaru wrote: post #49
trjordan wrote: post #31

I love the innovation. The basic idea here appears to be: - Nobody wants this to be closed source. The code is freely available, and you may do with it as you want. The marginal cost to distribute the code is 0, after all. - The maintainers, as people, don't want to do charity work for companies. Their time is limited, and if they're going to support revenue-generating activities, they want a cut of the revenue. So e…

I have mixed feelings about this. I’m not a Wix user so this is a general comment on the substance of this. As an open source project no one is forcing you to maintain it. Every fix you put in is something that you do of your own volition. No company can force you to accept a PR or work on it. I think FOSS developers often get stressed about this but unless you personally have financial motivations around what you’ve…

> The sponsorship seems to introduce a business model around what is FOSS, then it’s not FOSS anymore.

No major F/OSS license (MIT, (A)GPL, Apache) talks about money. You can sell the software, sell the support, and sell the source code (GPL requires bundling code with the software, not putting it everywhere).

When it comes to Free and Open Source Software, everybody talks about sustainability rightfully, and many people say "sell support, or priority support".

I think this is the right way and balance. Code is there, free. If you earn money from this, help us. If you use it personally, please enjoy.

RedHat does in a more heavy handed way, says "Pay to play", which works for them (because of the missing parts are filled with Rocky and Alma). Proxmox and Nextcloud does this, and says, "Pay if you need help from us".

IIRC, libpcsc requires a fee for "testing card readers for compliance". Library is GPLv3, on the other hand.

Many Free Software libraries get sponsorships to be able to survive. Even curl has a "bulletproof" version for enterprises which you can't download without paying.

"Free Software" doesn't mean "no charge", "open source" software doesn't mean you can take it, run with it, and drag the developers behind you as you please.

As a Free Software fan and advocate, I think Wix's balance is perfect. If you earn money, please help us. That's perfectly fine, and makes sense in their case.

Kudos for hitting the right balance. They got a "+1" from me.

Re: Open Source Maintenance Fee

#194

Post by kindkang2024 »

jononor wrote: post #190
kindkang2024 wrote: post #173

Open-source projects often function like a system of charity and honor. The honor goes to the contributors, while the charitable benefits flow to those who can use it to generate revenue. This model works well for both parties and indirectly benefits humanity. However, I personally believe—perhaps naively—that the charity could be directed toward all humans in a more direct and obvious way. For example, when a projec…

I like the idea. But it is missing something to actually get money out of companies, I think? Because even when there are people in a company that are nominally willing to pay, there is usually so much friction/hassle to actually get money out of a company - that it most often ends up not happening for open source. Unless there is something that "forces" them.

[dead]

Re: Open Source Maintenance Fee

#195

Post by auggierose »

So how does this play out for large companies? Let's say Alphabet, they pay $60 once per month, no many how many of their developers use the product? Probably large companies should introduce some sort of registry to keep track of this.

Re: Open Source Maintenance Fee

#196

Post by wosined »

So what guarantees I get as a consumer of this product? Since I'm paying for it, then all the consumer protection laws should apply and in case of a faulty product I can sue. Is that not the case?

Re: Open Source Maintenance Fee

#197

Post by agent327 »

I feel what we need is not this, but rather a cultural change among the corporate consumers of open source. I'm arguing for this at my employer: that we set up a fund to support open source libraries that we rely on for our products, with a regular payout for products that we are using.

So far it isn't easy going: what reason is there for paying developers who already give us their work for free? Who do we even pay, if there are multiple maintainers? etc. So far I've come up with "goodwill" and "responsible citizenship" (i.e. maintain the ecosystem that sustains you), and I'm drawing a blank on that last question...

Re: Open Source Maintenance Fee

#198

Post by speerer »

agent327 wrote: post #197

I feel what we need is not this, but rather a cultural change among the corporate consumers of open source. I'm arguing for this at my employer: that we set up a fund to support open source libraries that we rely on for our products, with a regular payout for products that we are using. So far it isn't easy going: what reason is there for paying developers who already give us their work for free? Who do we even pay,…

For me the most compelling argument here is that you are paying to continue to rely on the stated assumption.

It is assumed that the developers will continue to give something for free, but that will not be true forever. With support, it will be true for longer.

Re: Open Source Maintenance Fee

#199

Post by vehemenz »

agent327 wrote: post #197

I feel what we need is not this, but rather a cultural change among the corporate consumers of open source. I'm arguing for this at my employer: that we set up a fund to support open source libraries that we rely on for our products, with a regular payout for products that we are using. So far it isn't easy going: what reason is there for paying developers who already give us their work for free? Who do we even pay,…

Some open source projects have paid benefits for donors, like a private chat and/or issue tracker. Combine that with a very basic EULA/SLA, and it becomes nore easily justifiable as a business expense.

Re: Open Source Maintenance Fee

#200

Post by aetherspawn »

I’m sorry but I can’t help to hate it. It feels like the start of a kind of capitalist cancer, eating its way through the ecosystem, taking away the freedom of maintainers and turning them into slaves for maintenance fee-payers, and eventually goodware into crapware.

How can one simultaneously be paid for maintenance and also be free of liability? And should someone forking an open source project now be treated as a criminal for interrupting someone’s livelihood?

Finally, it feels that paying a recurring subscription is against the ethos of the “open source forefathers” so to speak. Open source software originated from a world where we paid once for software, like DVDs, not like Netflix. And I would have hoped the world has realised this was a bad idea and is trying to circle back, not undo the path backwards.

Post reply on HN