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The things nobody wants to pay for

lwn.net

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Re: The things nobody wants to pay for

#31

Post by Workaccount2 »

huijzer wrote: post #10

I once compared Linus Torvalds' net worth to Warren Buffett's net worth. I think they are both extremely capable individuals in their fields. Torvalds earns about 10 million per year. With that income, it would take Torvalds 12k years to reach the same net worth as Buffett (about 124 billion). Put differently, Buffett could personally fund 10k open source contributors 200k per year for their lifetime (60 years) if he…

If Torvalds wants to earn more, he should focus on making Linux more user friendly rather than more Linux-geek friendly.

Linux could get dramatically more resources if they could just drop their big-ego'd "CLI is god" mentality. Yes, Linux is a powerhouse OS, but it only appeals to a tiny slice of the population.

Re: The things nobody wants to pay for

#32

Post by Dr_Birdbrain »

jorvi wrote: post #30
roenxi wrote: post #4

Markets approximate an algorithm where you line up everyone who can do a job by willingness to do it, then pick the cheapest if someone is willing to pay that much. In the case of open source, that algorithm usually identifies volunteers. Sometimes it identifies businesses. Sometimes people come up with clever ways of funding projects (Red Hat the enterprise was genius from this perspective, they organised a solution…

> I suspect there does need to be a regular social renewal to resolve the tragedy of the commons problem. Wouldn’t the solution offered on LWN work great? Just excise a tax (well, I guess a licensing cost) for open source use to any corporation that is above x$ amounts of revenue. Make it a tiny percentage (0.1%?). 2022 revenue: - $400 billion, Apple - $200 billion, Microsoft - $120 billion, Meta - $80 billion, AWS $…

Or, give a tax deduction for contributions to open source.

This is America, new taxes are nearly impossible to pass, tax cuts are much easier to pass.

Re: The things nobody wants to pay for

#33

Post by mooreds »

jorvi wrote: post #30
roenxi wrote: post #4

Markets approximate an algorithm where you line up everyone who can do a job by willingness to do it, then pick the cheapest if someone is willing to pay that much. In the case of open source, that algorithm usually identifies volunteers. Sometimes it identifies businesses. Sometimes people come up with clever ways of funding projects (Red Hat the enterprise was genius from this perspective, they organised a solution…

> I suspect there does need to be a regular social renewal to resolve the tragedy of the commons problem. Wouldn’t the solution offered on LWN work great? Just excise a tax (well, I guess a licensing cost) for open source use to any corporation that is above x$ amounts of revenue. Make it a tiny percentage (0.1%?). 2022 revenue: - $400 billion, Apple - $200 billion, Microsoft - $120 billion, Meta - $80 billion, AWS $…

> Just excise a tax (well, I guess a licensing cost)

I think you are missing the actor there. Who is going to enact and enforce this tax? I can't think of any entity that could and would.

Re: The things nobody wants to pay for

#35

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC »

Open source is the biggest voluntary transfer of wealth from the working class to the business/investor class ever.

Software in the modern economy is the "means of production" and software developers have given it away free to the business/investor class.

The investor class, happily funds software startup gambles that people pour their lives into knowing that most will fail but they will still statistically make bank.

Companies making billions of profits lay off people who have made massive contributions of open source ( see for example Ben Collins-Sussman https://social.clawhammer.net/blog/posts/2024-01-10-GoogleEx...) knowing that the software will still maintained by volunteers without them having to pay for it.

Re: The things nobody wants to pay for

#36

Post by ToucanLoucan »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #31
huijzer wrote: post #10

I once compared Linus Torvalds' net worth to Warren Buffett's net worth. I think they are both extremely capable individuals in their fields. Torvalds earns about 10 million per year. With that income, it would take Torvalds 12k years to reach the same net worth as Buffett (about 124 billion). Put differently, Buffett could personally fund 10k open source contributors 200k per year for their lifetime (60 years) if he…

If Torvalds wants to earn more, he should focus on making Linux more user friendly rather than more Linux-geek friendly. Linux could get dramatically more resources if they could just drop their big-ego'd "CLI is god" mentality. Yes, Linux is a powerhouse OS, but it only appeals to a tiny slice of the population.

How goes greater userbase intrinsically mean more resources and not simply a much larger pool of angry emails from users encountering issues with their hardware?

Re: The things nobody wants to pay for

#37

Post by ninkendo »

jorvi wrote: post #30
roenxi wrote: post #4

Markets approximate an algorithm where you line up everyone who can do a job by willingness to do it, then pick the cheapest if someone is willing to pay that much. In the case of open source, that algorithm usually identifies volunteers. Sometimes it identifies businesses. Sometimes people come up with clever ways of funding projects (Red Hat the enterprise was genius from this perspective, they organised a solution…

> I suspect there does need to be a regular social renewal to resolve the tragedy of the commons problem. Wouldn’t the solution offered on LWN work great? Just excise a tax (well, I guess a licensing cost) for open source use to any corporation that is above x$ amounts of revenue. Make it a tiny percentage (0.1%?). 2022 revenue: - $400 billion, Apple - $200 billion, Microsoft - $120 billion, Meta - $80 billion, AWS $…

Who will receive the funding from this tax? What criteria would you use to distribute funding? Windfall for the NPM leftpad module I guess.

Re: The things nobody wants to pay for

#38

Post by jorvi »

ninkendo wrote: post #37
jorvi wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I suspect there does need to be a regular social renewal to resolve the tragedy of the commons problem. Wouldn’t the solution offered on LWN work great? Just excise a tax (well, I guess a licensing cost) for open source use to any corporation that is above x$ amounts of revenue. Make it a tiny percentage (0.1%?). 2022 revenue: - $400 billion, Apple - $200 billion, Microsoft - $120 billion, Meta - $80 billion, AWS $…

Who will receive the funding from this tax? What criteria would you use to distribute funding? Windfall for the NPM leftpad module I guess.

I’m sure you could set up a non-profit organization with smart people that are passionate (but not dogmatic) about open source, that could selectively fund projects or even just GitHub sponsoring / bug bounties.

Re: The things nobody wants to pay for

#39

Post by bruce511 »

jorvi wrote: post #30
roenxi wrote: post #4

Markets approximate an algorithm where you line up everyone who can do a job by willingness to do it, then pick the cheapest if someone is willing to pay that much. In the case of open source, that algorithm usually identifies volunteers. Sometimes it identifies businesses. Sometimes people come up with clever ways of funding projects (Red Hat the enterprise was genius from this perspective, they organised a solution…

> I suspect there does need to be a regular social renewal to resolve the tragedy of the commons problem. Wouldn’t the solution offered on LWN work great? Just excise a tax (well, I guess a licensing cost) for open source use to any corporation that is above x$ amounts of revenue. Make it a tiny percentage (0.1%?). 2022 revenue: - $400 billion, Apple - $200 billion, Microsoft - $120 billion, Meta - $80 billion, AWS $…

Wouldn't any OSS license that requires this, then by definition not be open source?

Plus, when you're asking for a tax on say Apple, where they get to cough up multiple billions, then expect them to invest plenty in lobbying and lawyers.

In other words this plan falls into the category of "sure, that sounds great, but there is simply no path for this to become reality."

Re: The things nobody wants to pay for

#40

Post by jorvi »

mooreds wrote: post #33
jorvi wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I suspect there does need to be a regular social renewal to resolve the tragedy of the commons problem. Wouldn’t the solution offered on LWN work great? Just excise a tax (well, I guess a licensing cost) for open source use to any corporation that is above x$ amounts of revenue. Make it a tiny percentage (0.1%?). 2022 revenue: - $400 billion, Apple - $200 billion, Microsoft - $120 billion, Meta - $80 billion, AWS $…

> Just excise a tax (well, I guess a licensing cost) I think you are missing the actor there. Who is going to enact and enforce this tax? I can't think of any entity that could and would.

Hence my mention of setting it up more like a licensing thing, where the code remains free for personal and small commercial use, but you have to pay once you hit X$ amount of revenue.

Are there companies that are gonna try to dodge it? Sure. Same happens with companies that refuse to open source modified GPL code. But the majority plays ball. Same with this funding, we wouldn’t be looking for perfection but for an improvement on the current situation.

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