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> I think one of the biggest problems with many free and open source projects is that they don't have viable business plans. This is fine if what you are hoping
by catdog 10y ago
> I think one of the biggest problems with many free and open source projects is that they don't have viable business plans. This is fine if what you are hoping to get out of your project is a hobby. But it's not fine when taken in the context that I think you are using it in (wrt to getting nothing).
Especially true with widely used but rarely noticed "infrastructure" projects which provide a high value to many organizations and there should be a high incentive to ensure their continued development and maintenance but not at lot of money or outside contributions reaches them.
- angry_octet 10y agoI think this was highlighted quite well by the recent awareness of OpenSSL and GPG funding problems. They can at least get some publicity because of the security context. There are heaps of smaller projects which are absolutely critical, arcane and sometimes invisible. The syslinux and pxeboot tools for example. https://www.buzzfeed.com/chrisstokelwalker/the-internet-is-being-protected-by-two-guys-named-st https://www.buzzfeed.com/chrisstokelwalker/the-internet-is-b... https://www.propublica.org/article/the-worlds-email-encryption-software-relies-on-one-guy-who-is-going-broke https://www.propublica.org/article/the-worlds-email-encrypti...