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Paying people to work on open source is good

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Re: Paying people to work on open source is good

#91

Post by samatman »

sanderjd wrote: post #81
samatman wrote: post #30

A note to writers: when you find yourself writing a paragraph defensively justifying alienating your intended audience, take a walk around the block and think really hard about whether doing so is a good idea. I will never compromise on the definition of open source. I'm not particularly hard-nosed about proprietary software, or source available software either, they're fine, with some caveats I'll leave out. But it'…

> A note to writers: when you find yourself writing a paragraph defensively justifying alienating your intended audience, take a walk around the block and think really hard about whether doing so is a good idea. I really dislike this kind of "geez, read the room!" thinking. Not everybody needs to have the same opinion about everything. Not everybody should . The opinion of "the room" or in your terminology, the "inte…

I think you missed a fine point in my comment. Seeking to avoid offending absolutely everyone who reads your article is fruitless. Sometimes the point is to offend, and that, too, has its time and place.

It's when you start adding a paragraph defending your decision to offend your audience that you should give some thought to whether that is, in fact, why you're writing. If it isn't, don't. The author wasn't writing to piss off the FOSS community, that wasn't the topic, just the outcome. Why would I give credence to someone's opinions about open source if they flagrantly refer to things which aren't open source using that term? If you can't get the basics right, you have nothing to say which I want to hear.

Re: Paying people to work on open source is good

#92

Post by lolinder »

Ferret7446 wrote: post #85
hardcopy wrote: post #51

A few weeks ago a wrote in to my Senator on the complete lack of government funding for independent engineers/small projects building FOSS (USA). NLNet in the EU is awesome. We really should have something like the NLNet in the USA.

[flagged]

As an alternative perspective—the government currently spends ridiculous amounts of money* on proprietary software, often having chosen the vendor before the bidding process even begins, shaping the RFP to suit only the chosen vendor. The resulting software produced in these contracts remains entirely proprietary even though it was paid for by taxpayer dollars, so the company that built it is effectively guaranteed a perpetual stream of taxpayer funds since only they are legally able to maintain it.

I would love to see a world in which these gargantuan vendors are put out of business because the government is only allowed to buy software whose source code is released to the taxpayers who funded it.

* EDIT: To quantify "ridiculous":

> Each year, the U.S. government spends over $100 billion on information technology. Most of that will be used to operate and maintain existing systems, including aging—or "legacy"—systems.

https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-23-106821

Re: Paying people to work on open source is good

#93

Post by wil421 »

Ferret7446 wrote: post #85
hardcopy wrote: post #51

A few weeks ago a wrote in to my Senator on the complete lack of government funding for independent engineers/small projects building FOSS (USA). NLNet in the EU is awesome. We really should have something like the NLNet in the USA.

[flagged]

Why would I donate to open source? The company work for and my Country’s government spend amounts of money I can barely comprehend. Yet, they use an absurd amount of open source tech.

A better question would be how can I convince the company I work for or my government to spend money on open source?

Re: Paying people to work on open source is good

#94

Post by hardcopy »

Ferret7446 wrote: post #85
hardcopy wrote: post #51

A few weeks ago a wrote in to my Senator on the complete lack of government funding for independent engineers/small projects building FOSS (USA). NLNet in the EU is awesome. We really should have something like the NLNet in the USA.

[flagged]

Oh boy, where do I start.

First of all, I do donate to multiple projects monthly.

Secondly, why should I (a tech enthusiast) foot the bill for software that benefits all of society?

Thirdly, an organization like NLNet is much more equipped to determine value to the European Union of funding an open source project, than a random European tech enthusiast is.

Lastly, it's pretty amazing what NLNet does with its VERY limited funding. NGI Zero Core, for example, is $11 million euro over 3 years. With that they fund a huge number of open source projects.

https://doi.org/10.3030/101092990

Re: Paying people to work on open source is good

#95

Post by gavinhoward »

Shameless plug, but I already came up with two terms describing the author's vision of open source.

https://gavinhoward.com/2023/12/is-source-available-really-t...

I also think that forcing companies to accept liability would fund FOSS.

https://gavinhoward.com/2023/11/how-to-fund-foss-save-it-fro...

Do it right, and the most important projects would be the ones flush with cash.

Re: Paying people to work on open source is good

#96

Post by acdha »

debo_ wrote: post #87

Did anyone following this in Mastodon-land specifically see any reaction to "luxury automated gay space communism?" I would be surprised if he wasn't blasted for that. This article came across as much less ranty than I expected based on his disclaimer. I think he pretty much perfectly articulated the noise around funded open source.

It’s been quieter there than here other than done licensing derails. I think most people are desensitized to it after a decade of memes:

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/cultures/fully-automated-luxu...

Re: Paying people to work on open source is good

#97

Post by sanderjd »

samatman wrote: post #91
sanderjd wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A note to writers: when you find yourself writing a paragraph defensively justifying alienating your intended audience, take a walk around the block and think really hard about whether doing so is a good idea. I really dislike this kind of "geez, read the room!" thinking. Not everybody needs to have the same opinion about everything. Not everybody should . The opinion of "the room" or in your terminology, the "inte…

I think you missed a fine point in my comment. Seeking to avoid offending absolutely everyone who reads your article is fruitless. Sometimes the point is to offend, and that, too, has its time and place. It's when you start adding a paragraph defending your decision to offend your audience that you should give some thought to whether that is, in fact, why you're writing. If it isn't, don't. The author wasn't writing…

Ah! I do see your more subtle point now, and I think it's a reasonable one.

It reminds me of the common writing advice to not hedge statements with a lot of "I think" and "I believe", because that's redundant, if it wasn't what you think, then you wouldn't be writing it, and it weakens statements, making it sound like the writer lacks conviction in the statement, and if you lack conviction in what you're writing then you definitely shouldn't write it.

That has always sounded right to me, but in the final accounting, I'm skeptical of it. Certainty just isn't all that natural, ambivalence is common, and I think hedging captures that reality more accurately in the tone of the writing.

And I think this case is the same. That paragraph is acknowledging a reality that many or most people reading the article will know, to the point that omitting any mention of it at all will seem notable. I think it is relatable and tactful to say "I know this isn't a popular view, but I care about it so here goes anyway". It doesn't imply that they are writing in order to offend. It only implies that they are aware of the situation.

I don't really get the thing about whether or not it impacts the credence with which you should take the opinions of the author... And frankly, I don't think it is the important thing; the important thing is the argument they are making. But FWIW, if it were the important thing, this particular author has an enormous amount of credibility in the space of working on a successful open source project...

Re: Paying people to work on open source is good

#98

Post by mixologic »

benatkin wrote: post #79
sanderjd wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a pretty good microcosm of the whole debate in this one sentence where you say: > It's not OSI approved because it isn't open source, ... > ... as the community defined it long ago, ... Yep, definitely! Nobody disagrees that the OSI defined this long ago. > ... and as it still makes sense for it to be defined. Maybe! But that's where the debate is. Is that the most sensible definition? Perhaps, even p…

The debate would be for a new meaning of the term open source , which has already been established. People can create a new meaning but it doesn't change the original meaning of it, which I like to call the true meaning . The license is far from being the only thing about open source. What makes open source what it is are its triumphs, such as the popularity of Linux and how many developers prefer open source tools a…

> What makes open source what it is are its triumphs

If you define triumphs to include only 'popularity' and developer preferences, then sure, its triumphant.

> using a license like the Business Source License indicates a lack of belief in the vision of open source

The issue is that the vision of open source itself is lacking, because it doesn't recognize that it fails to provide a pathway to being compensated and rewarded, tangibly, for building, contributing, and maintaining open source software and the infrastructure that supports it.

Re: Paying people to work on open source is good

#99

Post by acdha »

samatman wrote: post #30

A note to writers: when you find yourself writing a paragraph defensively justifying alienating your intended audience, take a walk around the block and think really hard about whether doing so is a good idea. I will never compromise on the definition of open source. I'm not particularly hard-nosed about proprietary software, or source available software either, they're fine, with some caveats I'll leave out. But it'…

You’re talking about someone who’s been working in open source for decades, on pretty successful projects. He knew with absolute certainty that mentioning licensing will lead to pedantic rancor, and that’s unavoidable: there is literally no way to raise this topic in a way someone will not passionately disagree with, and that’s going to distract from the more important topic he wanted to discuss.

For example:

> But it's important to have a term for software which is unencumbered by use restrictions, and we do: open source.

This phrasing means the GPL and MIT licenses are not open source. I doubt that’s what you meant, but simply raising the topic means that we’ll be debating exactly which use restrictions can dance on the head of a pin rather than the real substance of this essay: we all use open source software, we should be talking about how to make it pay a decent living!

Re: Paying people to work on open source is good

#100

Post by palata »

simonw wrote: post #83
palata wrote: post #70

Did the author actually want to rant about the "paying people to work on " part, or was it just an excuse to be controversial about the very definition of open source? Not clear to me. But if it was the former, what a way to shoot oneself in the foot!

The author was fed up of people saying "well actually your achievement in getting paid to work on open source shouldn't be celebrated because of " - one of which was license definition arguments. That's why he chose to be controversial about that.

I read the article again. Twice. To me the point is really that he is fed up of people criticizing the people instead of the system. And there are interesting discussions to be had around that, e.g.: is it fine to work on open source projects at Meta, or is it bad because Meta is bad?

Instead, for some reason he just spends a whole section redefining concepts instead of just admitting that he may have used them wrongly in his toot. Which is not only completely uninteresting but also confusing.

If he had spent as much time redacting his toot than he did writing the "definitions" section, chances are that he would not have been pissed off by the reactions to his toot and would not have had to go on a crusade explaining why whoever disagrees with his poor formulation is a jerk.

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