Companies should probably pay $2k per person for open source (2017)

Post by matheusmoreira » Wed, Sep 29, 2021, 7:34 PM UTC

vlunkr wrote: post #14

axegon_ wrote: post #6

Overall this is a good idea but with too many options to turn ugly fast. You need to carefully examine the situation: For instance at an old job my contract contained the following sentence: "all intellectual property and code, developed during or outside working hours, regardless of it's nature or purpose belongs to {COMPANY_NAME}". Somehow if my employer pays me extra for working on personal(albeit open source) pro…

That's a good point, and also, what a horrendous thing to have in your contract. I wonder if it's even legal for them to claim ownership of unrelated code done outside work hours.

Post by uncomputation » Wed, Sep 29, 2021, 7:39 PM UTC

sam0x17 wrote: post #33

uncomputation wrote: post #8

I think this is good will for sure, and 2k is a rounding error to the cost of most enterprise software, but the real problem with (most) FOSS is the lack of clear structure or organization in terms of payment. Not only who gets paid, but also how much to pay, how to quantity roles and work, spending if necessary, etc. That’s the real problem/opportunity for someone like Gratipay.

Worst case scenario, I guarantee you if you open an issue on a repo (especially a small / one-person repo) saying you want to donate $1k/yr, or some non-trivial amount, you'll get a meaningful response. True though that for larger projects there can be a lack of ownership problem. The conversation could become "hey we'd like to lend you our legal resources to help you set up a foundation for this project, and then we…

Post by whit537 » Wed, Sep 29, 2021, 7:45 PM UTC

whit537 wrote: post #62

tyingq wrote: post #37

I can't tell what "Person" in the headline maps to. Like, for a non-tech company, is that every employee, every employee in the IT org, or every developer in the IT org?

IC engineer. That's the brightest line for comparison across companies (dim though it may be), as well as the primary role whose productivity is materially multiplied due to open source (i.e., imagine if the engineer had to build everything they get from open source).

Post by malwarebytess » Wed, Sep 29, 2021, 7:59 PM UTC

uncomputation wrote: post #8

I think this is good will for sure, and 2k is a rounding error to the cost of most enterprise software, but the real problem with (most) FOSS is the lack of clear structure or organization in terms of payment. Not only who gets paid, but also how much to pay, how to quantity roles and work, spending if necessary, etc. That’s the real problem/opportunity for someone like Gratipay.

Post by curryst » Wed, Sep 29, 2021, 8:19 PM UTC

malwarebytess wrote: post #77

uncomputation wrote: post #8

I think this is good will for sure, and 2k is a rounding error to the cost of most enterprise software, but the real problem with (most) FOSS is the lack of clear structure or organization in terms of payment. Not only who gets paid, but also how much to pay, how to quantity roles and work, spending if necessary, etc. That’s the real problem/opportunity for someone like Gratipay.

There's several 100+ million dollar businesses where I live that make their money on phone support/installation/deployment of open source software they maintain. Nobody pays for the software, but they'll pay out the nose on a yearly basis for support.