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Paying for Open Source Contributions

formidable.com

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Re: Paying for Open Source Contributions

#91

Post by dblock »

bhousel wrote: post #45
jevakallio wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author of the post here. Realistically, we can't pay people full engineering salaries to do random OSS. Our team can already contribute to OSS on their work time when it relates to their work, or our own projects, but for the personal interest/passion projects without direct benefit for us as a company, it doesn't scale. Doubly so when we have a pretty strict "no overtime" policy of working no more than 40 hours a we…

> Realistically, we can't pay people full engineering salaries to do random OSS. Why can't you? Professors get paid full professor salaries to do "random research". Doctors get paid full doctor salaries to treat "random illnesses". I expect if you looked a bit closer, you'll find that "Random OSS" is maintenance that makes the entire ecosystem possible. Would love to hear from some of your engineers what they are doi…

Right on.

Re: Paying for Open Source Contributions

#92

Post by austincheney »

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…

I have had employers hire me and then not give me work to do leaving me with large swaths of time to work on my unpaid open source that they are using internally. It’s probably an ethical violation to use their office, time, and equipment to work on code they are not paying for (since it’s free and liberally licensed), but they absolutely know I’m doing it.

Re: Paying for Open Source Contributions

#93

Post by nwsm »

austincheney wrote: post #92
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…

I have had employers hire me and then not give me work to do leaving me with large swaths of time to work on my unpaid open source that they are using internally. It’s probably an ethical violation to use their office, time, and equipment to work on code they are not paying for (since it’s free and liberally licensed), but they absolutely know I’m doing it.

Your situation may not be serious enough to care, but you could be fired and the company could claim ownership of all your work, screwing over you and any project with a dependency to your OSS.

Re: Paying for Open Source Contributions

#94

Post by meheleventyone »

exogen wrote: post #87
peterwwillis wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also devalues open source work, while at the same time taking away the potential for others to get paid a salary for it. From an economics standpoint, this is bad for developers in the long run, but good for Formidable.

Before (the status quo): $0. Now: $20/hour. If that's devaluing something, I would like to devalue my worth by several orders of magnitude please. :)

The problems more related to a fear of anchoring the price.

Before: This costs nothing but I’m avoiding paying for the engineering time that is $$$.

After: $20 an hour is the going rate for developing this sort of software.

Re: Paying for Open Source Contributions

#96

Post by 127 »

Only thing different for me in doing open source for free and asking money for it, is that for the paid products, the audience participation goes through the roof and I actually know that someone values my work as they are paying for it. Plus, money is always nice.

Re: Paying for Open Source Contributions

#97

Post by chaostheory »

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…

I have a few open source projects that I contribute $5 monthly for each project on https://opencollective.com/. I view my contribution as a subsidy and not as a salary. Might be wrong but Formidable probably views it the same way.

Re: Paying for Open Source Contributions

#98

Post by majikandy »

Benefit for employee: recognition for out of hours coding, learning and contribution to society.

Benefit for company: employees reporting hours working which would normally be invisible (Spotting burnout, keeping company project focus etc)

Sounds like a brave but sensible move and an idea I hadn’t heard before. Also makes business sense to that company.

Re: Paying for Open Source Contributions

#99

Post by saagarjha »

anderspitman wrote: post #80
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…

I partially agree. I work for a public university and 100% of our code is MIT licensed. But I spend a ton of time outside of work on other open source projects. I'd love an extra 20USD/hr for that work. Heck I'd probably even open source a few more of my private repos.

> I work for a public university and 100% of our code is MIT licensed.

Shouldn't federally-funded work be placed in the public domain, or something like that?

Re: Paying for Open Source Contributions

#100

Post by exogen »

meheleventyone wrote: post #94
exogen wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before (the status quo): $0. Now: $20/hour. If that's devaluing something, I would like to devalue my worth by several orders of magnitude please. :)

The problems more related to a fear of anchoring the price. Before: This costs nothing but I’m avoiding paying for the engineering time that is $$$. After: $20 an hour is the going rate for developing this sort of software.

There's a big difference in paying for something because you need it done and paying for something you don't even necessarily want but someone did anyway. If you're thinking about "what did this software cost?" and engineering time, then it sounds like the software is already a business need and is being considered from a business perspective.

If I'm furnishing my new empty home and don't have a couch, I'm going to shell out approx. $2,000 for a couch because I need one.

If my house is completely furnished and someone shows up at the door with a couch, I'd either turn them away completely or possibly offer them a small amount after evaluating whether I can even accept it.

IMO claiming that rewarding people for doing any random OSS work they'd do anyway devalues software development in general is concern-trolling.

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