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Open Source Maintenance Fee

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Re: Open Source Maintenance Fee

#251

Post by robmensching »

kvemkon wrote: post #249
robmensching wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This can make it harder to recruit further contributors as there is a two-clays system of contributors. We'll see. I haven't seen any reduction in contributions (not that the project gets lots of contributions because we're the same as every other Open Source project, most consumers just consume). Also, note that the fee is just for maintenance. I've seen near 0% contribution rate for all Open Source projects to "m…

Free software community participants, contributors, can feel discouraged with the diving the whole community in strictly 2 class of only Maintainers vs. Consumers and then demand something like an Open Source Contributors Fee. All those investigative and reporting work about software behavior issues, hard to reproduce issues, bugs only in specific environment or specific circumstances, sharing experience, helping eac…

There aren't 2 classes of participants. The OSMF only talks about two but there are plenty of spaces for contributors to participate. And it's possible people will choose to participate less, but I haven't seen that happening yet. Contributors that like working on a project just work on a project. I've not seen any complaints about maintainers getting the paid because the contributors just drop in and drop out when they feel like it. They don't work on all the "chores" in the project to keep it running. If a contributor does do "chores" then they are probably more like a maintainer and probably should be part of the maintenance fee. But... this hasn't been a problem.

Re: Open Source Maintenance Fee

#252

Post by robmensching »

kvemkon wrote: post #248
robmensching wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. The EULA is an extremely elegant solution to activate an organization's legal team to help their procurement team sponsor Open Source projects.

Keeping downloads/installation behind EULA seems controversial (with all the discussed pros and cons). But prohibiting (or even making it illegal?) to open an issue seems to disrupt how free software communities work. Of course you are free to delay feedback for e.g. 2 weeks (see free access to lwn.net) or not to answer at all or to mark such an issue and move it to discussions but not to limit feedback to your proje…

You should read the EULA. You'll find it doesn't say anything about the issue tracker.

The EULA is actually a very standard software license that basically says if you use the software and you make revenue, you need to pay the fee.

Re: Open Source Maintenance Fee

#253

Post by robmensching »

kvemkon wrote: post #247
robmensching wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that the package.lock file is not the place to look for your OSMF dependencies. That file will list your project's dependencies and all of their dependencies and so on and so on. You want to look at the list of packages in your package.json file. That will almost certainly be an order of magnitude (or two) smaller. For example, IIRC, GitHub (all of GitHub) calculated they had 660 direct dependencies. That's stil…

OSMF could got name like WiX Toolset Maintenance Fee. Similar to how the Apache License got its name.

Why? It's not specific to the WiX Toolset at all. Other projects can (and some have) adopt the Open Source Maintenance Fee with no changes (or they can change if if they want).

WiX is just the first project to use the OSMF because I need a project to "debug" an issues in OSMF system. As we get all the issues resolved, we may see the OSMF be adopted widely... or not.

Re: Open Source Maintenance Fee

#254

Post by account42 »

robmensching wrote: post #140
constantcrying wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They totally have the wrong approach. The EULA is completely bizarre and the implementation even worse. What they should have done is saying "If you aren't a sponsor we do not care about your issues." Right now clicking the download button is a violation of their EULA, which is probably something you want to avoid when trying to get companies to give you money.

I disagree. The EULA is an extremely elegant solution to activate an organization's legal team to help their procurement team sponsor Open Source projects.

Anything that activates an organization's legal team is a great way to get developers to look for alternatives. No one wants to involve legal.

Re: Open Source Maintenance Fee

#255

Post by robmensching »

account42 wrote: post #254
robmensching wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. The EULA is an extremely elegant solution to activate an organization's legal team to help their procurement team sponsor Open Source projects.

Anything that activates an organization's legal team is a great way to get developers to look for alternatives. No one wants to involve legal.

We used to say the same thing about Open Source licenses, and that changed. The long-term hope is that enough projects adopt the Open Source Maintenance Fee, or something like it, that it becomes the norm for companies to support the Open Source projects they depend upon.

And you can say that will never happen. But the only way it will _definitely_ never happen is if we don't try... and choose to keep burning out Open Source maintainers.

Re: Open Source Maintenance Fee

#256

Post by AndyNemmity »

robmensching wrote: post #243
AndyNemmity wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

right, we wouldn't mention it at all. no way legal would approve it, so we'd just move to something else.

Legal in many companies of different sizes, from Microsoft to tiny ones, have all evaluated and approved of the OSMF EULA. Now, it's fine if someone says I don't want to deal with the EULA. But, in that case, my project didn't mean that much to them in the first place. I'm listening to concerns and adapting. As noted above, so far, it's gone very well.

I'm not criticizing, mostly complaining about how poorly legal teams still perform in this capacity

Re: Open Source Maintenance Fee

#257

Post by qwery »

robmensching wrote: post #158
qwery wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For one thing, I don't think they think they have a silver bullet here. I think they want some financial support and if some users of the project pay the fee that will be some success. To the specifics, it's not a software license fee -- they aren't selling access to the software. It's a "maintenance fee", to fund the project . So the license of the code isn't a problem, you can (still) choose to license that under w…

> I don't think they think they have a silver bullet here. I don't think there is a silver bullet. But I do think we can do better than we are today supporting the sustainability of Open Source projects. The OSMF is an attempt to do just that.

Hi, I realise I'm replying to a comment from over a week ago, but I happened across this and now I'm here.

I don't think you got what I intended with my comment. You may have missed the "they think" in the sentence you quoted, it was a bit dense. In any case, it sounds like you agree with me, if not what my comment conveyed. I agree with you.

(I also think my bullet metaphors might have touched and I merged 'bulletproof contract' with 'silver bullet'.)

Re: Open Source Maintenance Fee

#258

Post by robmensching »

qwery wrote: post #257
robmensching wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think they think they have a silver bullet here. I don't think there is a silver bullet. But I do think we can do better than we are today supporting the sustainability of Open Source projects. The OSMF is an attempt to do just that.

Hi, I realise I'm replying to a comment from over a week ago, but I happened across this and now I'm here. I don't think you got what I intended with my comment. You may have missed the " they think" in the sentence you quoted, it was a bit dense. In any case, it sounds like you agree with me, if not what my comment conveyed. I agree with you. (I also think my bullet metaphors might have touched and I merged 'bulletp…

Ahh, in that case, I think we are in "violent agreement". :)

Re: Open Source Maintenance Fee

#259

Post by robmensching »

AndyNemmity wrote: post #256
robmensching wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Legal in many companies of different sizes, from Microsoft to tiny ones, have all evaluated and approved of the OSMF EULA. Now, it's fine if someone says I don't want to deal with the EULA. But, in that case, my project didn't mean that much to them in the first place. I'm listening to concerns and adapting. As noted above, so far, it's gone very well.

I'm not criticizing, mostly complaining about how poorly legal teams still perform in this capacity

I hear you. This feels very similar to the early days of OSS licenses. They were terrible and scary until a few big companies finally came out and said OSS licenses weren't (all) terrible or scary. Then accepting OSS licenses became a norm. I'm hoping the OSMF or something like it can change the norm for Open Source sustainability.

I'm not saying it'll happen, but many people told me Microsoft would never accept Open Source, and I proved them wrong. :)

Re: Open Source Maintenance Fee

#260

Post by AndyNemmity »

robmensching wrote: post #259
AndyNemmity wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not criticizing, mostly complaining about how poorly legal teams still perform in this capacity

I hear you. This feels very similar to the early days of OSS licenses. They were terrible and scary until a few big companies finally came out and said OSS licenses weren't (all) terrible or scary. Then accepting OSS licenses became a norm. I'm hoping the OSMF or something like it can change the norm for Open Source sustainability. I'm not saying it'll happen, but many people told me Microsoft would never accept Open…

I hope you continue to prove them wrong. It takes people taking a stand to do that, I admire that.
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