4 ms·

I agree with a lot of this, but it's more than asking for money. You have to offer things of value in exchange for money and ONLY in exchange for money.

by cwyers 11y ago

toyg 11y ago
- Asking to fix a bug without submitting a patch (or with a crappy patch)? Money please. - Asking to fix a bug NAO NAO NAOOO? More money please. - Want to move some_lib to python 3? Money please. - Want to backport some_fix to unmantained_old_crap_runtime? Money please. - Want to discuss a particular choice in our roadmap? HUGE money please. - Want to support device_x before device_y? Money please, and testing equipment if you could be so kind. - Want me to help you with the conference you're paid to organize? Money, please. I'm sure that people can be quite creative if they really put their mind to it. We think nothing of paying hundreds of $cash_units for things like tyres and fuel and double-glazed windows, there is no shame in asking for some of that back to build the software that will actually make those companies run.
- tedunangst 11y ago
  The first time somebody demands I pay extra to fix a bug is the last time I use that project.
  - cwyers 11y ago
    Sure, and the first time someone insists that you triage a bugfix based on their priorities and not yours and they don't contribute to the project, you can let them leave as a user! Everybody is happy[1]. 1) Nobody is actually happy.
  - toyg 11y ago
    "Pay extra"? Like you were paying for it in the first place. At the end of the day, somebody gotta pay the ramen. Besides, a certain project you might be familiar with is basically monetizing automated security patching, so throwing stones is really not a great sport. (also, projects like requests are not desperate for users. One user paying to contribute to the well-being of the codebase is worth hundreds of users who won't even bother sending in a patch. Again, a certain project you might be familiar with is awfully aware of this state of things.)
    - enraged_camel 11y ago
      The problem with the "pay them to fix the bugs" model is that it turns bugs into a source of revenue and creates the wrong incentive for the developer. I'm much more inclined to agree to a "pay for additional features" model instead. Because then, by definition, you are paying for extra stuff, vs. fixing what should have been working correctly in the first place.
      - nickpsecurity 11y ago
        That's clever but wrong here: labor is what's being monetized. The people that they're asking probably require payment for their own labor and pay others w.r.t. other goods. Then, they OSS developers owe them free products and support of highest quality. Quite a double standard. Requiring pay for fixes only incentivizes pay for labor, which is rare for OSS.
  - gh02t 11y ago
    I think this applies more to companies requesting bugfixes as well as their scale and scope. For me at least, I don't mind fixing bugs in my projects if some random person is having trouble; heck that can be fun many times. On the other hand, a company using my project requesting that I drop everything and fix a bug that's only a problem for them? Seems perfectly reasonable to say "sure, it'll be 300$/hr" or whatever a reasonable rate might be. This is of course all a hypothetical though, since I don't have any projects that more than like 5 people use and I have to hold them at gunpoint to get them to submit a bug report T_T.
  - tomcam 11y ago
    I assume then that you work for no pay, give away everything you create, and make no errors at all.
    - tedunangst 11y ago
      Yes.
    - mappu 11y ago
      (For OpenBSD in particular.)
  - lambda 11y ago
    Hmm? Their time is valuable. You are being asked to pay for their time. If there's a broken traffic light in the city, do you expect some workers to come and spend their time fixing it just because it's broken and it's a good thing to do, or do you expect them to get paid to do it? Now, one could argue that fixing bugs in open source software is a public good, like the traffic lights in a city. So maybe the government should pay for it? Well, I could perhaps buy that argument, but getting increased public funding for that sort of thing is likely to be hard, and it's hard to tell where that money is best spent. But certain fixes, or new features, will help some people a lot more than others. If you would benefit from a particular bugfix, and someone else will need to do work for it, why not they ask you for money to fix it?
  - ddingus 11y ago
    Why? You are getting huge use value out of the project. And the real life blood of this OSS thing is the idea that the use value of the body of OSS software is greater than whatever got put into it in the first place. So we all scratch that itch, and together we get the shared use value. If people are investing very significant amounts of their time in the projects, that takes away from something they could be doing to make money, does it not? We only have so many waking hours each day, and we all need to eat too. So you submit the bug, and you get the answer, "thanks" and I'll put it on the list. Submitting the bug is a nice contribution. They need to be found. Creating documentation is a nice contribution. Teaching others how to use the OSS is a nice contribution too. Lots of ways to give back, but it really only works out when we are, in fact, giving back. Or more precisely, enough of us are giving back for the ongoing improvements to make sense. Now, you are going to think, "when will that be fixed?" Could be never! Could be next year. Most likely, it's "when time permits" and eating might get in the way of that time too. So you can wait it out, and hope somebody somewhere finds it worth it to scratch that itch. Or you yourself could go get it done and send a patch. But what if you need it now? Funding that effort clearly has a value to you, and they do need to eat. That money may well result in, "yeah, no problem. I can get this in a week."
rodgerd 11y ago
And the things of value are measured by the person with the money, not the person producing them. That's often a very direct conflict with the "scratch an itch" culture. Red Hat (for example) give me value (for which I pay them) by giving money to people to work on the 20% of free software (bugs, polish) that are apparently an anethma to many developers.

I agree with a lot of this, but it's more than asking for money. You have to offer things of value in exchange for money and ONLY in exchange for money.

by cwyers 11y ago

I agree with a lot of this, but it's more than asking for money. You have to offer things of value in exchange for money and ONLY in exchange for money.

toyg 11y ago

- Asking to fix a bug without submitting a patch (or with a crappy patch)? Money please. - Asking to fix a bug NAO NAO NAOOO? More money please. - Want to move some_lib to python 3? Money please. - Want to backport some_fix to unmantained_old_crap_runtime? Money please. - Want to discuss a particular choice in our roadmap? HUGE money please. - Want to support device_x before device_y? Money please, and testing equipment if you could be so kind. - Want me to help you with the conference you're paid to organize? Money, please. I'm sure that people can be quite creative if they really put their mind to it. We think nothing of paying hundreds of $cash_units for things like tyres and fuel and double-glazed windows, there is no shame in asking for some of that back to build the software that will actually make those companies run.

tedunangst 11y ago
The first time somebody demands I pay extra to fix a bug is the last time I use that project.
- cwyers 11y ago
  Sure, and the first time someone insists that you triage a bugfix based on their priorities and not yours and they don't contribute to the project, you can let them leave as a user! Everybody is happy[1]. 1) Nobody is actually happy.
- toyg 11y ago
  "Pay extra"? Like you were paying for it in the first place. At the end of the day, somebody gotta pay the ramen. Besides, a certain project you might be familiar with is basically monetizing automated security patching, so throwing stones is really not a great sport. (also, projects like requests are not desperate for users. One user paying to contribute to the well-being of the codebase is worth hundreds of users who won't even bother sending in a patch. Again, a certain project you might be familiar with is awfully aware of this state of things.)
  - enraged_camel 11y ago
    The problem with the "pay them to fix the bugs" model is that it turns bugs into a source of revenue and creates the wrong incentive for the developer. I'm much more inclined to agree to a "pay for additional features" model instead. Because then, by definition, you are paying for extra stuff, vs. fixing what should have been working correctly in the first place.
    - nickpsecurity 11y ago
      That's clever but wrong here: labor is what's being monetized. The people that they're asking probably require payment for their own labor and pay others w.r.t. other goods. Then, they OSS developers owe them free products and support of highest quality. Quite a double standard. Requiring pay for fixes only incentivizes pay for labor, which is rare for OSS.
- gh02t 11y ago
  I think this applies more to companies requesting bugfixes as well as their scale and scope. For me at least, I don't mind fixing bugs in my projects if some random person is having trouble; heck that can be fun many times. On the other hand, a company using my project requesting that I drop everything and fix a bug that's only a problem for them? Seems perfectly reasonable to say "sure, it'll be 300$/hr" or whatever a reasonable rate might be. This is of course all a hypothetical though, since I don't have any projects that more than like 5 people use and I have to hold them at gunpoint to get them to submit a bug report T_T.
- tomcam 11y ago
  I assume then that you work for no pay, give away everything you create, and make no errors at all.
  - tedunangst 11y ago
    Yes.
  - mappu 11y ago
    (For OpenBSD in particular.)
- lambda 11y ago
  Hmm? Their time is valuable. You are being asked to pay for their time. If there's a broken traffic light in the city, do you expect some workers to come and spend their time fixing it just because it's broken and it's a good thing to do, or do you expect them to get paid to do it? Now, one could argue that fixing bugs in open source software is a public good, like the traffic lights in a city. So maybe the government should pay for it? Well, I could perhaps buy that argument, but getting increased public funding for that sort of thing is likely to be hard, and it's hard to tell where that money is best spent. But certain fixes, or new features, will help some people a lot more than others. If you would benefit from a particular bugfix, and someone else will need to do work for it, why not they ask you for money to fix it?
- ddingus 11y ago
  Why? You are getting huge use value out of the project. And the real life blood of this OSS thing is the idea that the use value of the body of OSS software is greater than whatever got put into it in the first place. So we all scratch that itch, and together we get the shared use value. If people are investing very significant amounts of their time in the projects, that takes away from something they could be doing to make money, does it not? We only have so many waking hours each day, and we all need to eat too. So you submit the bug, and you get the answer, "thanks" and I'll put it on the list. Submitting the bug is a nice contribution. They need to be found. Creating documentation is a nice contribution. Teaching others how to use the OSS is a nice contribution too. Lots of ways to give back, but it really only works out when we are, in fact, giving back. Or more precisely, enough of us are giving back for the ongoing improvements to make sense. Now, you are going to think, "when will that be fixed?" Could be never! Could be next year. Most likely, it's "when time permits" and eating might get in the way of that time too. So you can wait it out, and hope somebody somewhere finds it worth it to scratch that itch. Or you yourself could go get it done and send a patch. But what if you need it now? Funding that effort clearly has a value to you, and they do need to eat. That money may well result in, "yeah, no problem. I can get this in a week."

rodgerd 11y ago

And the things of value are measured by the person with the money, not the person producing them. That's often a very direct conflict with the "scratch an itch" culture. Red Hat (for example) give me value (for which I pay them) by giving money to people to work on the 20% of free software (bugs, polish) that are apparently an anethma to many developers.