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No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

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Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#761
post #728

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not so sure. By his own admission homebrew is not that great a piece of software. There's a lot more that goes into popularity than being good. Being first, marketing and network effects are as or more important than being good.

He - acknowledges and understands the problems and - could certainly fix them if paid a Google-sized salary But he won't dance to the tune of the "Cracking the Coding Interview" juggernaut so to heck with him. Better to spend time memorizing the Floyd Cycle Detection algorithm than produce useful code. ( OK, I may be a bit bitter )

I mean he says he doesn't really know what a b-tree is. That's a pretty basic data structure and kind of table stakes for being a software engineer. Even then, Google gave him a good look with 7 interviews. Just speculating here, but they probably would have given him a chance if he wasn't "often a dick" and "often difficult".

Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#762

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also probably distance between the arm of the company that donates to open source and the developers who are opening issues when they spot a bug. And that distance probably gets longer for companies with the most money to donate too.

This is not exactly so. Those developers who are opening issues belong to a team, that team has access to a budget. If the company has a lot of money, as you say, they themselves have some say over where this budget gets spent.

And they can use that budget to pay an invoice from an approved vendor. (Beyond something small that can be put on an expense report.)

Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#763

Not limited to software but modern society has a REALLY serious entitlement problem. (To the point where if I see a video on Reddit of someone screaming at a retail employee, it is not even surprising anymore.) I’ve had free and open projects for years, with evidence of thousands of users. Yet I could count on one hand the number of times anyone has bothered to thank me, much less donate. I do occasionally get E-mail…

This is par for the course with open source, and I knew that when I switched to doing all open source. On the other hand, it does attract collaborators, and D would not have been possible without the great people who have joined in an volunteered their time.

Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#764

Not limited to software but modern society has a REALLY serious entitlement problem. (To the point where if I see a video on Reddit of someone screaming at a retail employee, it is not even surprising anymore.) I’ve had free and open projects for years, with evidence of thousands of users. Yet I could count on one hand the number of times anyone has bothered to thank me, much less donate. I do occasionally get E-mail…

Why go socialist when freemium doesn't raise your taxes? If advertisers would pay for tattoos, we probably wouldn't have to worry about healthcare anymore.

Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#765

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the question was supposed to illustrate that if you have that approach to language, then communication is impossible. There needs to be a shared notion of what certain words and concepts mean. You claimed that they mean whatever some person claims them to mean. So the question to you was what do your words mean, since with that entirely freewheeling approach to language, nobody here can know what you meant.

My claim was a response to an assertion which has now been edited, so... meh. You win teh Internets.

> My claim was a response to an assertion which has now been edited, so...

This is certainly something I sometimes do, but not here. What are you talking about?

Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#766
post #52

I've been noticing more push back against the open source bargain lately. Years ago software was fully build on the backs of a multitude of giants within their niche domain. But for a while now large companies have been adopting a model of taking from open source contributions and raking in billions. The original social bargain of "pay it on" has been broken by the Bezos of the world raking in billions. And yes, as o…

you mean the good ole days when Microsoft paid 50k for quickdos before making billions from it?

But MS hired Tim Patterson and gave him equity. How is that not fair?

Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#767
post #737

Not limited to software but modern society has a REALLY serious entitlement problem. (To the point where if I see a video on Reddit of someone screaming at a retail employee, it is not even surprising anymore.) I’ve had free and open projects for years, with evidence of thousands of users. Yet I could count on one hand the number of times anyone has bothered to thank me, much less donate. I do occasionally get E-mail…

I just released an app in Apple's app store a week ago and am seeing this attitude as well. I'm charging for it and don't provide a trial since I think it's worth the price for what you get (maybe even priced too low). A few people immediately ask if I'm planning on open sourcing it or else act disappointed that it's not open source/free. It's frustrating to work on something and have somebody just come along and say…

I obviously don't know what your users were thinking, or even what your application does, but for my part I use open source stuff because that means I know if I become dependent on it, and the original author drops it (or goes in a direction I don't like) I have options. The price is pretty much orthogonal. Just saying it's not necessarily just about entitlement and getting stuff for free.

Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#768
post #599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Significant part of open source development is paid for by companies. I don't know why the myth of its being done mostly for free persists, but maybe we should stop pretending it.

Depends on how you define "part". Maybe the visible part like MySQL or the Linux kernel or Android. But I'd say open source has a long tail mostly unpaid. From where I'm staying there is also a myth that companies pay for all the open source I use.

I don't know what open source you use. But yes, the big ones are mostly done by people who are paid for it. They are not after work occasional effort.

The smaller ones are also often done a part of university research or on clock. Not necessary because companies are altruistic, but because they need something and because open source developers need to eat.

Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#769

Not limited to software but modern society has a REALLY serious entitlement problem. (To the point where if I see a video on Reddit of someone screaming at a retail employee, it is not even surprising anymore.) I’ve had free and open projects for years, with evidence of thousands of users. Yet I could count on one hand the number of times anyone has bothered to thank me, much less donate. I do occasionally get E-mail…

I was seriously thinking of contributing to open source this past week when I started going over all the articles I've read from open source authors about entitled users and wealthy companies that don't donate but make profits off the projects. It's beco0me clear to me that large corporations like Microsoft have jumped into open source whole heartedly in a big part because they get tons of free labor. Not only that,…

It pleases me when corporations use D to make money with, even if they don't contribute. After all, D is licensed to specifically allow this - I have no business complaining about it.

Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#770

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The ridiculous treadmill of people saying UBI is going to work despite all evidence to the contrary, apparently a long, long time..

Citizens of rich oil sheikhdoms in the Gulf have had de-facto UBI, and a high one, for a long time, even though the formalities were a bit muddled. In practice, if you were lucky enough to be born as a Saudi or Qatari citizen, your needs would be covered.

It did not lead to any explosion of creativity, arts and science there. People are morbidly obese and spend their money on gambling, drugs and sex.

I am not very optimistic about human nature when exposed to easy life.

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