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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

#891

Post by richrichardsson »

orangeshark wrote: post #577
richrichardsson wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd go as far as saying that the term "free software" is a complete an utter fail. In my mind "free speech" is speech that is entirely unrestricted. Almost all FOSS licenses come with "restrictions", such as you must leave the copyright notice in place, you must add the "PROVIDED AS IS" spiel somewhere the end user can read it, you must release your derivative work's source code under the same license etc., so it is…

the freedom part is not for the software developer, it is for the end user running the software.

I've obviously missed something here, what are the freedoms the end user is afforded?

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

#892

Post by darkwater »

marcinzm wrote: post #513
darkwater wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even in that case is the WRONG solution to a problem.

Then what is the better solution? Saying it's wrong without giving alternatives isn't a very useful comment imho. edit: And the solution needs to apply to the US, with all it's brokenness, not some other country with different social structures.

> Then what is the better solution?

That police should not make people disappear from their families without proper noticing, it would be a starter. I'm not from the USA but I think I can already guess who usually suddenly go missing because the police got them.

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

#893

Post by andrey_utkin »

jlbnjmn wrote: post #727
andrey_utkin wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it’s extra hard when you get no additional value. I believe this, the identification and the articulation of additional value, is the problem with FOSS sustainability, and it's urgent that we resolve that. I hope I am onto something with the idea of crowdfunding specific commitments, as I have sketched there: https://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-project/message/3735cd917... The mental model behind this is quite simpl…

> I am keen to help others to adopt this approach, so everybody is most welcome to reach out to me with any questions. I'll take you up on this. How far have you gotten? What surprises have you uncovered? Are you blogging or tweeting the project?

Thanks for your interest. Do you maintain something yourself? Do you have some projects on your mind which could adopt such approach?

I am currently just beginning my research of the current state of things in Linux distributions with regard to the distribution (pun not intended) of bugticket time to resolution. I am doing this to get a fine grasp of actual state, and be able to articulate the additional value of such userbase-funded commitments.

I aspire to tracking my commitments up to full deployment in SDLC terms, but it seems this information is too hard to consistently get with the existing bugticket handling practices of Linux distros, so now I am going to start with measuring how much time it takes to mark the ticket "closed" or "resolved", whatever that means (seems to mean mostly "integration completed" in SDLC terms).

I sketch some of my thoughts here, but the notes are somewhat outdated: https://github.com/userbase-funded/wiki/wiki

I have also contacted the current maintainer of one valuable but neglected project, but got no response so far. That project is vdirsyncer, it has been not actively maintained for a year and a bit until recently, but has many consumers, and I think such projects are a good fit for my idea. https://github.com/pimutils/vdirsyncer/issues/790

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

#894

Post by kls »

chii wrote: post #855
mrskitch wrote: post #774

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how we framed it at browserless.io. Libraries generally aren't a product, and even though some of them do a lot, it's hard to charge folks for an `npm i`-style product. I tried a lot to look into this and it just didn't pan out. I think there's an opportunity for a library marketplace that does all of the curation, security checks, and other validation as it would provide a lot of value to organizations so th…

> Libraries generally aren't a product That's not true - look at the games industry, the vfx/cinematic rendering industry and all that ; their middleware libraries are all paid products.

You are correct but so is the parent of your post, the key term they used is "generally" and I would say that is a correct observation. General problem libraries tend to not sell. There are specialty markets where one can make money from licencing libraries or frameworks as you highlighted game/cinematic there is also some areas in medical and legal but for the most part if one is building a general purpose library or one that appeals to a broad market, they tend to not be commercially viable. Those that provide specific solutions for a vertical tend to have more success in commercial licencing.

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

#895

Post by fierarul »

Veserv wrote: post #801
fierarul wrote: post #662

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Developers are the toughest customers because we all think: "that's just a small script and a cron job" done in a weekend and basically worth $0. All the while staying each day in a meeting costing a cumulative $xx(x) just to announce what the job for today is.

I agree that is part of the problem, but I think the real problem is that even if you accept the premise that it would take just a weekend it is still the wrong analysis for the company. Even a job that you can complete in an hour is easily $100-200 worth of direct engineering costs. I think the real problem is that most developers naturally plug in the value of their time on a hobby project/in school (which is ~$0/h…

Indeed, this is visible at personal and corporate level. I've seen companies balk at a Total Commander license which is negligible.

I've also had corporate procurement waste my time on a project for a potential $200 sale which never materialized.

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

#896

Post by kls »

monoideism wrote: post #857
monoideism wrote: post #724

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're talking sales and marketing, not software packaging and delivery (which most software devs can do just fine).

I should add that I got excited for a moment at the thought of some one-stop shop for sales and marketing for software devs building a product. But no, just packaging and delivery. Which is cool, and probably useful for some people. But it doesn't help address the biggest weak spot for solo devs, or small teams: sales and marketing.

Back in the days before the internet became a distribution platform, there actually used to be software distributors that acted like this, they would publish in hobbyist magazines as well as send out their own catalogs. Some were better than others and would get the small shops they represented to collaborate to make complementary products work better together. In those days you could be a one person shop and just write the software. I don't know how one would recreate that model in todays realities.

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

#897

Post by kls »

WalterSear wrote: post #690
AntiImperialist wrote: post #602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OR, - release it under a permissive license - wait until it reaches reaches a significant level of popularity for your purposes (see below) - flex it to get a good job at a good company - abandon the original project altogether or find new maintainers - focus on your new job, build skills and connections - invest most of your income in bonds and experiment with profitable side ventures which don't require much econom…

No interviewer has demonstrated anything but perfunctory interest in my open source work, popular or not. It's a myth, like 'nobody cares where you went to school so long as you can do the work'.

Seems to me, if a project is successful enough, one could leverage that network to get a job if they needed it. In many companies developers have an outsized influence on which other developers get hired. If I were in this gentlemens shoes that is the angle I would have taken (and maybe he tried). I would have posted a message to the fellow contributors that basically stated:

I had an apartment fire, I am in a jam and am looking for employment as such my contributions to this project may diminish while I focus on my finances, if anyone has any leads at their company please let me know.

Unless one is looking to only work at a FAANG, I suspect something to that effect would net leads for a top developer of a successful project.

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

#898

Post by alexellisuk »

I can sympathise with this on so many levels having dozens of large companies using OpenFaaS as part of their product or internally and not paying a dollar in sponsorships or for custom development.

I wrote up my experiences last year and the options for building OSS projects in terms of funding.

https://blog.alexellis.io/the-5-pressures-of-leadership/

Since writing that I think that building an indie company is possible, even funding it with a micro-SaaS as seems to be the trend.

The core lesson here is: if you want to have people pay, then make them. Either hold features back, create a managed version, try to sell them support (good luck), or create a product based-upon your project which is not free.

You can hear a little about how that's going for me here -> https://kubernetespodcast.com/episode/116-independent-open-s...

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

#900

Post by kls »

growse wrote: post #883
chii wrote: post #856

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It really isn't. You don't need to know what a b-tree is to do most modern software engineering. if you're hiring a car driver, then yes, the driver doesn't need to know the innards of how an engine would work. But if you're hiring a car mechanic, surely you expect them to understand the innards of the engine.

This is not a good analogy. Most cars work in roughly the same way. Most software does not. Software engineering is a diverse enough topic that you can have two "software engineers" who, aside from very broad general concepts like control flow and modularity, have very little overlap in their areas of expertise. Developing microcontroller firmware requires a very different set of skills and knowledge to building an M…

It's actually not a good analogy because most mechanics nowadays specialize. You don't have an engine guy do an automatic transmission rebuild and you don't have your local car dealer do a coil-over 4 link suspension upgrade on your Jeep.

This is exactly analogous to software in that you don't need to know deep algorithms to build CRUD web apps. They are a different part of the machine and closer to the business domain. Looking for deep CS over skills like requirement gathering, collaboration, information theory gives false signals on competency for the task at hand.

The reality is front end, backend, embedded, desktop etc. etc. all have different requirements on the skill sets they need to be successful. People gain the skills they need via the process of working, then we have this ritual of interviewing where we act like all these things that never get used in their trade are so so important to know.

The direct analogy is I am hiring an engine guy,he will never touch a transmission. The guy knows fuel maps, timing and compression ratios like the back of his hand, but I keep insisting that he tell me how the sun gear of the transmission engages the planetaries and in what sequence because he has to know this to be any good as an engine guy and come to the conclusion in my head that if he does not know transmissions it is a signal that he is not fit to be an engine guy.

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