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Sunsetting Jazzband

jazzband.co

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Re: Sunsetting Jazzband

#21

Post by bdcravens »

mentalgear wrote: post #13
iqihs wrote: post #6

is it unrealistic to think the companies that benefit from orgs such as this could donate a fraction of a percent of their wealth to keep them going? the responsibility always seems to fall most on those with the least resources.

It seems the open-source experiment has failed. Hundreds of billion-dollar companies have been built on millions of hours of free labor, on the backs of ten thousands of now-burnt-out maintainers. Yet, apart from token gestures, these exploiting entities have never shared substantial or equitable profits back. For the next generation of OSS, it would be wise to stand together and introduce a new licensing model: if a…

Without teeth (and the resources to initiate the bite), companies will just freeload. Any attempts to monitor will require some degree of telemetry or proprietary solutions, with the associated blowback that generates.

The only model I've seen work in reality is open core (aside from the very few projects that have been successful with patronage)

Re: Sunsetting Jazzband

#22

Post by indymike »

mentalgear wrote: post #13
iqihs wrote: post #6

is it unrealistic to think the companies that benefit from orgs such as this could donate a fraction of a percent of their wealth to keep them going? the responsibility always seems to fall most on those with the least resources.

It seems the open-source experiment has failed. Hundreds of billion-dollar companies have been built on millions of hours of free labor, on the backs of ten thousands of now-burnt-out maintainers. Yet, apart from token gestures, these exploiting entities have never shared substantial or equitable profits back. For the next generation of OSS, it would be wise to stand together and introduce a new licensing model: if a…

> It seems the open-source experiment has failed

People have been saying this since the 80s. Reality is that without open source, this industry would be tiny compared to what it is. So many times open source has enabled an entire sub industry (i.e. ISPs in the 90s, Database, SaaS in the 2010s, now AI). And most of it is someone solving a problem that was worth solving for their own use, and for whatever reason made no sense to commercialize by selling licenses.

> on the backs of ten thousands of now-burnt-out maintainers.

Money isn't the motivation for most "free" open source. If it was, the authors would release as commercial software and maybe as "source available". That someone can use open source to build businesses has been the engine for the entire industry. In other words, the thought that maintainers quitting maintaining is some problem that can be fixed if we only paid them is non-sequitur. A lot of it is that people age out, get bored with their project, or simply want to do something else. Not accepting money for maintaining open source is a good way to ensure it stays something you can walk away from and something where the people attached to the money have zero leverage.

I do think that a lot of maintainers struggle with pushy and sometimes nasty people that take the fun out of what is a "labor of love."

> exploiting entities have never shared substantial or equitable profits back.

If I want to make money, I sell commercial software, SaaS or PaaS.

> they must compensate the creators proportional to the library's footprint in their codebase and/or its execution during daily operations

One of the more interesting uses of open source is to level the playing field. For example, there was a time when database was silly expensive. Several open source products emerged that never would have been viable commercially without the long term promise of "free" and the assurance of having source code. To have a license with a cost bomb on it would just ensure that people would use another choice.

Re: Sunsetting Jazzband

#23

Post by indymike »

doublerabbit wrote: post #16
indymike wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now companies selling LLM coding agents enter the scene, promising to eliminate their customers' dependence on the commons, and whatever minimal obligations they had to support it. This is misguided. Maintenance of LLM code has a far greater cost than generating it. > They prefer a future where computer programs are purchased by the token from model providers to one where they might have to unintentionally help out…

> This is misguided. Maintenance of LLM code has a far greater cost than generating it. In corporate reality they don't care. They have their product, requirement. As it starts to rot it's easier to rebuild than to maintain. If you can ask for an LLM with a skeleton crew team now they can do it all again in five years time with the next level of LLMs.

Yes, it is precisely misguided, and will be in five years, too. Software lasts way longer than people think it does.

Re: Sunsetting Jazzband

#24

Post by Eridrus »

mentalgear wrote: post #13
iqihs wrote: post #6

is it unrealistic to think the companies that benefit from orgs such as this could donate a fraction of a percent of their wealth to keep them going? the responsibility always seems to fall most on those with the least resources.

It seems the open-source experiment has failed. Hundreds of billion-dollar companies have been built on millions of hours of free labor, on the backs of ten thousands of now-burnt-out maintainers. Yet, apart from token gestures, these exploiting entities have never shared substantial or equitable profits back. For the next generation of OSS, it would be wise to stand together and introduce a new licensing model: if a…

This mostly just sounds like a poison pill that commercial entities wouldn't use, and if you want that you can already use AGPL.

Especially as the cost of producing code drops, the value of libraries decreases.

Re: Sunsetting Jazzband

#25

Post by johncolanduoni »

japhyr wrote: post #15
zahlman wrote: post #2

Unfortunate. > 60% of maintainers are still unpaid. That's actually not as bad as I would have guessed.

I'd be curious to know what portion of that 40% makes any meaningful income from their open source work. I would guess that most of those people are being paid a small appreciation amount for the work they're doing, not something resembling a living wage.

They may be including maintainers who are explicitly employed to maintain the respective projects (e.g. some RedHat employees). This is not common, but not vanishingly rare either.

Re: Sunsetting Jazzband

#27

Post by satvikpendem »

mentalgear wrote: post #13
iqihs wrote: post #6

is it unrealistic to think the companies that benefit from orgs such as this could donate a fraction of a percent of their wealth to keep them going? the responsibility always seems to fall most on those with the least resources.

It seems the open-source experiment has failed. Hundreds of billion-dollar companies have been built on millions of hours of free labor, on the backs of ten thousands of now-burnt-out maintainers. Yet, apart from token gestures, these exploiting entities have never shared substantial or equitable profits back. For the next generation of OSS, it would be wise to stand together and introduce a new licensing model: if a…

There are licenses like that, just don't call them open source. They're just another form of proprietary software albeit sometimes also being source available.

If you want to make money, make commercial software and sell it. It's funny to see people complain about people taking what they gave out for free, it's like having a lemonade stand with a huge sign saying "free" and being surprised people take the lemonade.

Re: Sunsetting Jazzband

#28

Post by satvikpendem »

colesantiago wrote: post #18
mentalgear wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems the open-source experiment has failed. Hundreds of billion-dollar companies have been built on millions of hours of free labor, on the backs of ten thousands of now-burnt-out maintainers. Yet, apart from token gestures, these exploiting entities have never shared substantial or equitable profits back. For the next generation of OSS, it would be wise to stand together and introduce a new licensing model: if a…

Good idea. The MIT license and other "pushover" licenses was built in the pre-LLM era. I don't think it is fit for purpose anymore since now maintainers are getting burnt out and most code is now being generated from OSS. A new OSS license for the AI age must be made for newer libraries, projects and existing projects that want to change licenses.

What new license would you make that isn't already covered by existing ones?

Re: Sunsetting Jazzband

#29

Post by benatkin »

slopinthebag wrote: post #14
benatkin wrote: post #5

The Register post about the Slopocalypse to me feels tongue in cheek while this post seemingly takes it at face value. What's happening on GitHub is a mixed bag. I love what AI is doing to Ghostty.

You mean when AI caused the Ghostty maintainer to close PRs to outsiders?

Exactly, and open them back up with a vouching system.

Re: Sunsetting Jazzband

#30

Post by benatkin »

righthand wrote: post #12
BeefySwain wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is happening with Ghostty?

https://github.com/ghostty-org/ghostty/tree/main/.agents/com... Is my best guess. The GP is perhaps referring to ghostty repo adding helper files for Llm agents to operate as a cursory look at issues to placate issue submitters.

No, that Ghostty is improving much more rapidly than it would be without agentic coding, In spite of a painful transition.
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