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GitHub stars won’t pay your rent

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Re: GitHub stars won’t pay your rent

#61

Post by lr4444lr »

kstenerud wrote: post #30

I'm closing in on 100 public, nontrivial, nonforked repos on github. Since github's inception, I've received a total of $200 in donations for my OSS stuff, 1 job from a company that uses a product of mine as the foundation of their business, and many job offers from people who are familiar with my work. I don't make money off OSS, and never have (at least not directly). But I just. can't. stop. I can't. I've tried su…

I would just like to say, as someone who will probably never be as much a net contributor as you but has probably benefitted monetarily from your impulses, thank you.

Re: GitHub stars won’t pay your rent

#62

Post by ghaff »

tannhaeuser wrote: post #60
ghaff wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leave aside the ideology of restricted use in open source. What's commercial use? Creative Commons has been messing around with this question for something like decade and has never come to a resolution. So, sure, advocate for changes to the open source definition if you like. But there are reasons that a lot of people are resistant.

Idk what is so difficult about defining "commercial use". It is a concept even a child can understand. I acknowledge the goals others have for their licensing choices, and hold RMS in high esteem for his principled stance and achievements; I even release software under LGPL and other licenses. But I don't think OSI have an answer for the new software crisis where F/OSS developers are doing all the work, just to line…

It was, in fact, so difficult to define "commercial use" 10 years ago and nothing has changed, e.g. https://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/defining-non-commer...

You can always release your software under the AGPL (which is an OSI-approved license)--which would effectively prohibit its use by cloud providers. Probably very few others will use it either but that's the tradeoff you make.

Re: GitHub stars won’t pay your rent

#63

Post by pjc50 »

cameronbrown wrote: post #38
TheRealSteel wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe Apple and Google need to give in and let us have free time-limited trials? Nobody wants to go back to the 90s software "You have 22 of 30 days remaining" popups every time you start an app, but is what we have now any better?

Problem is the long tail user retention story is incredibly bleak on mobile. It's considered an achievement to get them to last a week, never mind a month.

That sounds like the "free trial" system working. Someone looking for an app for X purpose installs 10 of them and deletes all but one - giving very low average metrics.

Re: GitHub stars won’t pay your rent

#64

Post by tannhaeuser »

ghaff wrote: post #62
tannhaeuser wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Idk what is so difficult about defining "commercial use". It is a concept even a child can understand. I acknowledge the goals others have for their licensing choices, and hold RMS in high esteem for his principled stance and achievements; I even release software under LGPL and other licenses. But I don't think OSI have an answer for the new software crisis where F/OSS developers are doing all the work, just to line…

It was, in fact, so difficult to define "commercial use" 10 years ago and nothing has changed, e.g. https://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/defining-non-commer... You can always release your software under the AGPL (which is an OSI-approved license)--which would effectively prohibit its use by cloud providers. Probably very few others will use it either but that's the tradeoff you make.

Careful with AGPL. It has yet to stand in court, and is actually the license mongodb has left behind in favour of their own SSPL because it turned out not strong enough, and not preventing eg. AWS to sell mongodb as a sevice without releasing any of their provisioning and monitoring sw (though I'm not sure AWS actually uses mongo or, like Azure with CosmosDB, a proprietary API-compatible product instead). The amount of confusion regarding AGPL shows in eg. [1], and I've also heard the opinion it might not be enforcable because it wants to restrict third-party software. IANAL, but I wouldn't rely on AGPL, and not many people would use AGPL software anyway.

[1]: https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/1078...

Re: GitHub stars won’t pay your rent

#65

Post by tjholowaychuk »

GitHub stars will pay your rent if you sell out the hype to a VC instead of building a real company. I can definitely name a few startups that have almost no product, certainly not technically challenging or particularly well built ones, but they've made many millions in VC funding solely from GH star hype.This industry is a bit of a joke that way, but it works.

Re: GitHub stars won’t pay your rent

#66

Post by ghaff »

tannhaeuser wrote: post #64
ghaff wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was, in fact, so difficult to define "commercial use" 10 years ago and nothing has changed, e.g. https://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/defining-non-commer... You can always release your software under the AGPL (which is an OSI-approved license)--which would effectively prohibit its use by cloud providers. Probably very few others will use it either but that's the tradeoff you make.

Careful with AGPL. It has yet to stand in court, and is actually the license mongodb has left behind in favour of their own SSPL because it turned out not strong enough, and not preventing eg. AWS to sell mongodb as a sevice without releasing any of their provisioning and monitoring sw (though I'm not sure AWS actually uses mongo or, like Azure with CosmosDB, a proprietary API-compatible product instead). The amount…

I don't really disagree. No one knows how "viral" (to use a loaded term) the AGPL is. But non-commercial is the same problem. I've chosen to be comfortable with using NC CC-licensed media for anything I'm not being directly compensated for. I won't use it if I'm being paid directly to give a talk or produce a marketing document but I will for a conference talk I'm giving for "free" even if it's a conference I'm attending as part of my job.

But I know other people who think that using NC content even on a personal blog that uses Adwords is a strict no-go. Or you try to define NC in terms of US tax code which is fraught for a lot of reasons.

ADDED: Personally I think the latest round of the licensing wars is overblown. If you want to use a more restrictive license, go for it. Just don't expect the development model benefits of open source software. Of course, most open source doesn't reap those benefits either because vibrant communities are relatively rare.

Re: GitHub stars won’t pay your rent

#67

Post by scarface74 »

tannhaeuser wrote: post #64
ghaff wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was, in fact, so difficult to define "commercial use" 10 years ago and nothing has changed, e.g. https://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/defining-non-commer... You can always release your software under the AGPL (which is an OSI-approved license)--which would effectively prohibit its use by cloud providers. Probably very few others will use it either but that's the tradeoff you make.

Careful with AGPL. It has yet to stand in court, and is actually the license mongodb has left behind in favour of their own SSPL because it turned out not strong enough, and not preventing eg. AWS to sell mongodb as a sevice without releasing any of their provisioning and monitoring sw (though I'm not sure AWS actually uses mongo or, like Azure with CosmosDB, a proprietary API-compatible product instead). The amount…

AWS doesn’t sell Mongo as a service. They didn’t use any of Mongo’s code. They created a NoSql database with the same API.

Re: GitHub stars won’t pay your rent

#68

Post by enneff »

I wonder how many open source projects the author uses and donates to? If the answer is zero, then I wonder why he thought people would donate to him? Open source software is not a good way to make money. It never has been.

Re: GitHub stars won’t pay your rent

#69

Post by dspillett »

icebraining wrote: post #13
tannhaeuser wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By giving it away for free only for personal rather than commercial use, as lots of software used to be in the last millenium? But of course what's going to happen is a certain F/OSS advocacy org will shout "this isn't F/OSS as it doesn't obey our no-purpose-limitation criterion" and you and your software will be treated as a pariah and avoided like the plague and even more than pure closed-source software.

Fine, so you write a bunch of code, and release it under an NC license and a paid commercial license, no problem. Then someone comes along and submits a PR. What now? Will you accept their code and monetize it, despite the fact that you still deny that person the right to monetize your code, or will you refuse all PRs? The problem with these proposals is that it creates an unequal relationship; some developers have m…

I have a few things that I plan to release at some point. Small stuff, commercial use probably isn't a big issue, and I have no real plans for monetisation as this is hobby/interest stuff not the day job.

My intent is to go for full-on AGPLv3 and not accept PRs initially. If someone sees a bug they can tell me "if these options are picked there is an infinite loop" or "you've missed input sanitisation here" and I'll put together a fix for it. That way all the code is mine, I have full control, and I don't have to worry about treading on someone else's toes if I relicense later. When/if I later decide upon a more permissive license, or to try monetise through commercial licensing, or if I chose another route entirely, then changing will be frictionless.

In the meantime anyone wanting to work on it themselves because I'm too slow, they don't want to work my way, or "just because", are free to fork (assuming they are happy with AGPL), or contact me to negotiate other terms, or write something themselves from scratch to deal with the itch (again: these are not Big Things, I certainly don't expect to be releasing the NextBigThing™).

Re: GitHub stars won’t pay your rent

#70

Post by louthy »

kstenerud wrote: post #30

I'm closing in on 100 public, nontrivial, nonforked repos on github. Since github's inception, I've received a total of $200 in donations for my OSS stuff, 1 job from a company that uses a product of mine as the foundation of their business, and many job offers from people who are familiar with my work. I don't make money off OSS, and never have (at least not directly). But I just. can't. stop. I can't. I've tried su…

I feel exactly the same (with ~300 forks, ~3000 stars - not that it means anything). It's a creative urge, like writing music (which I also do, and I feel the passion for both is very similar).

I've received some donations, but nothing that could pay for anything significant, but I don't really see the donations as something that might eventually pay, but instead I see them as "thank you for the work", which is always appreciated.

However, I have seen some upsides, which are hard to put a dollar value on:

* Found staff for my company

* Been asked to be a technical proofer on a Manning book

* Made great connections with smart people

* A powerful sense that I'm contributing to humanity (even if it's in a relatively small way), rather than just being a consumer

There are probably other things that I've forgotten, but there's more value to OSS than just cash.

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