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Paying for Open Source Contributions

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Re: Paying for Open Source Contributions

#21

Post by antt »

sktrdie wrote: post #19
jsbaby608 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Expenses like paying their employees.

I will never understand how so many people in tech think that not for profit means never make a profit, or pay anyone for their time. But somehow spending money on corporate funded machinery is fine.

When a local maker space wasted thousands of dollars for a license of some cam software, but didn't want to pay a member $10 for cleaning up after everyone else (and keep them from being homeless) I had to seriously reconsider supporting a place that was so anti-people and pro corporation.

Re: Paying for Open Source Contributions

#22

Post by onion2k »

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…

That formula doesn't make individuals want to work more on open-source.

Looking at the team profiles on Formidable's site it looks like a lot of them were working on open source projects anyway, so this isn't a way of manipulating them to do something they weren't already doing. It's just a way of rewarding them.

Re: Paying for Open Source Contributions

#23

Post by sktrdie »

sktrdie wrote: post #19
jsbaby608 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

@antt, no they don't pay the employess. In fact they don't have employees: "With no employees and 2663 volunteers, it spent $270,846 on infrastructure, $92,364 on public relations, and $17,891 on two ApacheCons." - from wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Apache_Software_Foundation

ps: I'm getting downvoted for linking facts :D

Re: Paying for Open Source Contributions

#24

Post by chronogram »

jevakallio wrote: post #5
jaden wrote: post #3

I'm a fan of anything that helps open source, but in my experience it's more effective if the employee is able to work on open source projects as part of their job. Then again, maybe that's just my current evening burnout talking.

Author of the post here. Realistically, we can't pay people full engineering salaries to do random OSS. Our team can already contribute to OSS on their work time when it relates to their work, or our own projects, but for the personal interest/passion projects without direct benefit for us as a company, it doesn't scale. Doubly so when we have a pretty strict "no overtime" policy of working no more than 40 hours a we…

> Doubly so when we have a pretty strict "no overtime" policy of working no more than 40 hours a week.

Is HR ready for this increase in applications from this post and the comments?

Re: Paying for Open Source Contributions

#26

Post by jevakallio »

antt wrote: post #20

>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 $1…

This is a great idea. I don't know if it's even a starter, tax code wise, but would be amazing if it could be done.

For the time being, we are happy with $20 for the reasons outlined in the post itself. It's not an incentive, it's a reward, and a purely optional one. Many people in the company (I'm the author) do work on Open Source and don't make use of the benefit, because they don't care about the money. This, for us, is fine.

Re: Paying for Open Source Contributions

#27

Post by nickjj »

I like the idea, but I'm concerned about the $20 / hour.

Since this is done on the employees' own time (after hours), isn't this basically saying, "hey, go help make our app's dependencies better in an overtime scenario but we're going to pay you $20 / hour instead of 1x to 2x your usual salary"?

I know at the bottom it clears that up but I dunno, it just feels weird to me. It seems like a concealed way to mainly benefit the company and potentially exploit the good will of its employees.

Re: Paying for Open Source Contributions

#29

Post by mcintyre1994 »

jevakallio wrote: post #5
jaden wrote: post #3

I'm a fan of anything that helps open source, but in my experience it's more effective if the employee is able to work on open source projects as part of their job. Then again, maybe that's just my current evening burnout talking.

Author of the post here. Realistically, we can't pay people full engineering salaries to do random OSS. Our team can already contribute to OSS on their work time when it relates to their work, or our own projects, but for the personal interest/passion projects without direct benefit for us as a company, it doesn't scale. Doubly so when we have a pretty strict "no overtime" policy of working no more than 40 hours a we…

> Doubly so when we have a pretty strict "no overtime" policy of working no more than 40 hours a week.

The post mentions an exact clockout time as well - 5pm. Out of interest is it a strict 9-5 schedule, or is it flexible but 40 hours a week? Have you written anything about the no overtime policy or 9-5 schedule (if that's enforced) and how you find that?

Re: Paying for Open Source Contributions

#30

Post by jevakallio »

nickjj wrote: post #27

I like the idea, but I'm concerned about the $20 / hour. Since this is done on the employees' own time (after hours), isn't this basically saying, "hey, go help make our app's dependencies better in an overtime scenario but we're going to pay you $20 / hour instead of 1x to 2x your usual salary"? I know at the bottom it clears that up but I dunno, it just feels weird to me. It seems like a concealed way to mainly ben…

I agree this could be the case, except that there is no pressure to work on anything work-related. You can literally contribute to any OSS project, whether it's your own video game side hustle, a learning project in a language we don't use, or, if the mood strikes, also one of our projects' dependencies.
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