Paying for Open Source Contributions • Hacker News Board

Re: Paying for Open Source Contributions

#61

Post by DoctorOetker » Fri, May 03, 2019, 3:44 PM UTC

habnds wrote: post #33

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…

agreed, additionally, there's an interesting behavioral phenomenon where people are perfectly willing to help strangers on the street when asked for free, but the willingness rate drops dramatically when someone offers them a small amount of money because it reframes the conversation. Once people see open source as a way to make money, it becomes a very different thought process.

>Once people see open source as a way to make money, it becomes a very different thought process.

I think it's less about a different thought process, but about a set of potential legal implications or ramifications.

Re: Paying for Open Source Contributions

#62

Post by anon1m0us » Fri, May 03, 2019, 3:47 PM UTC

sktrdie wrote: post #55

bhousel wrote: post #40

As a professional full-time open source maintainer and developer, initiatives like this bother me a lot. The work we do is worth much more than $20/hr. Ideally I'd like to see open source developers in stable, tenured positions that pay fair salaries with benefits. Anything that normalizes the idea that open source should be funded on tips, patreons, or spare time goodwill is embarrassing to all of us. We can do bett…

But why though? Of course giving a well-payed salary to people is something great and I have nothing against it. But the whole "cool" thing about open-source is that it showed that it can do pretty amazing things without capitalism. Instead here we are trying to push the same mentality we use for everything else into open-source. Why not continue the experiment as it has for the last 30 years (without any major econo…

It's still capitalism. It works because business folks sell valuable software acquired at a zero dollar cost of goods for billions of dollars.

And there are a ton of crappy open source projects out there, so it hasn't "only produced amazing pieces of work" it's also produced amazingly terrible software that has proliferated because it's free, but the sales people don't know or care.

Re: Paying for Open Source Contributions

#63

Post by Aeolun » Fri, May 03, 2019, 3:57 PM UTC

bhousel wrote: post #40

As a professional full-time open source maintainer and developer, initiatives like this bother me a lot. The work we do is worth much more than $20/hr. Ideally I'd like to see open source developers in stable, tenured positions that pay fair salaries with benefits. Anything that normalizes the idea that open source should be funded on tips, patreons, or spare time goodwill is embarrassing to all of us. We can do bett…

Of course. It seems that that’s exactly what’s happening here. These people are being paid a salary to do a bunch of open source and other work.

The company just recognizes that people that continue contributing at home still bring them some form of value, and it is very nice to see that this is recognized and rewarded, regardless of the amount.

Maybe we’ll get to a point where this will be the norm, and companies will have to go further to stand out, but right now this is pretty amazing.

Re: Paying for Open Source Contributions

#64

Post by andyrichardson » Fri, May 03, 2019, 3:59 PM UTC

onion2k wrote: post #22

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.

^^ This guy gets it

Re: Paying for Open Source Contributions

#65

Post by Aeolun » Fri, May 03, 2019, 4:00 PM UTC

smusumeche wrote: post #47

habnds wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

agreed, additionally, there's an interesting behavioral phenomenon where people are perfectly willing to help strangers on the street when asked for free, but the willingness rate drops dramatically when someone offers them a small amount of money because it reframes the conversation. Once people see open source as a way to make money, it becomes a very different thought process.

A lot of us in this industry are very fortunate to have high salaries. At the risk of sounding crass, $20/hour is not much money to me. So this is really just a show of support. I'm going to donate the money anyway. (disclaimer: I work at Formidable)

It sounds like just enough to be nice, and not nearly enough to move the needle, to me.

I guess that’s why I think it’s great.

If it was a smaller token amount, it would feel sad.

If it was more, it would feel exploitative (like a number of people in this thread already said).

Re: Paying for Open Source Contributions

#66

Post by crysin » Fri, May 03, 2019, 4:01 PM UTC

I wish I was rich enough to view getting a bonus of $20.00 an hour for fun-time work as being more offensive than receiving nothing at all.

Re: Paying for Open Source Contributions

#67

Post by Aeolun » Fri, May 03, 2019, 4:04 PM UTC

orliesaurus wrote: post #59

There are a bunch of companies that give back to open source maintainers through a better approach...tidelift [1] is one that comes to mind. Has anyone been on their open source programme? Does it operate well? [1] https://tidelift.com

I’m not sure I’d consider this a better approach. If everyone used tidelift open source would become a popularity contest, and basically about the money.

Re: Paying for Open Source Contributions

#68

Post by Boygirl » Fri, May 03, 2019, 4:14 PM UTC

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…

Disclaimer- formidable employee and open source maintainer

Formidable does pay folks their full engineering salaries to make targeted contributions to open source during work hours. We can't afford to do a ton of this, so it mostly happens when folks are between projects. The extra $20/hour is extra. It's meant to be fun and encouraging. It's basically the "buy me a beer" license, but Formidable actually buys us a beer.

Re: Paying for Open Source Contributions

#69

Post by SequoiaHope » Fri, May 03, 2019, 4:18 PM UTC

kylecesmat wrote: post #42

bhousel wrote: post #40

As a professional full-time open source maintainer and developer, initiatives like this bother me a lot. The work we do is worth much more than $20/hr. Ideally I'd like to see open source developers in stable, tenured positions that pay fair salaries with benefits. Anything that normalizes the idea that open source should be funded on tips, patreons, or spare time goodwill is embarrassing to all of us. We can do bett…

Formidable employee here: To be quite honest we are compensated very fairly for our industry already and this program is not meant to ‘provide a living wage’ by any means. Instead, this is a ‘fair nod’ at the work some of us feel compelled and motivated to do after work hours. Not saying your perspective is wrong, just hopefully providing a bit more context about what this program means for someone who uses it.

I get that. I work ten hours a week or so for free on my open source passion projects. If that turned in to an extra $200 a week that would be cool - I’m doing the work anyway.

I haven’t read the article yet but my only fear with crowd funding is what happens when I want to take a month off of technical work.

Re: Paying for Open Source Contributions

#70

Post by theWheez » Fri, May 03, 2019, 4:21 PM UTC

bhousel wrote: post #40

As a professional full-time open source maintainer and developer, initiatives like this bother me a lot. The work we do is worth much more than $20/hr. Ideally I'd like to see open source developers in stable, tenured positions that pay fair salaries with benefits. Anything that normalizes the idea that open source should be funded on tips, patreons, or spare time goodwill is embarrassing to all of us. We can do bett…

In the link, this is addressed:

It’s well known that nominal compensation isn’t the most effective incentive to get people to do things, and compared to engineer salaries in our US and UK tech hubs, $20/hr isn’t exactly a windfall.

This is intentional. We don’t want people to log on after hours to earn money. Instead, we think of the Sauce bonus as a recognition of the work people want to do anyway, and the compensation is aimed to be meaningful enough to do something fun with, but not so high that it would skew their priorities to stare at their computer screens instead of spending time with their hobbies, families, and friends.