5 ms·

Is the idea that "foundational work" (in any field) can be done without "huge sacrifices" widely accepted? It sounds a tad unrealistic to me, unsupported by hi

by Radim 9y ago

Is the idea that "foundational work" (in any field) can be done without "huge sacrifices" widely accepted? It sounds a tad unrealistic to me, unsupported by history. It's as if people want to have it both ways: Create innovative SW, but also don't take risks or make sacrifices. Offer software "for free" (and belligerently oppose even something like GPL), but also get paid (preferably by the government, so the people actually footing the bill have no say in it) and be long-term sustainable. What's next: get paid, but also don't pay income taxes? Give away project control, but also keep it? :) All understandable desires, but a little schizophrenic. Disclaimer: I am a big fan of open source and NumPy in particular. I mentor students and OSS newcomers, I even pay one full-time dev to work only on OSS. It's just that I try not to kid myself about where the time&money comes from and where it goes, and I try not to have random people pay for my hobbies. Extremely relevant previous HN conversion on this topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14551355 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14551355

coldtea 9y ago
Who said people want to do "foundational work"? The just want to write some specific software they enjoy writing together. The question rather is: after said software has been proven valuable and widely used by companies, and when there remain some hard and/or non-enjoyable parts to be done to complete it/enhance it (specific drivers, documentation, advanced features, etc), why don't any of the users donate some money to help?
- Radim 9y ago
  That's an easy one -- because they don't have to :-) In some cases, "paying extra" without being asked to might even be compromising your fiduciary duties. I feel the open source movement has spoilt its "user base" a little. There's very little expectation of reciprocity. Sometimes even outright hostility toward OSS modes that try work with reciprocity (check out the linked HN thread above). This mindset might be hard to reverse at this point. As with all "communal sharing" experiments, the true crunch time comes as the economic reality sets in.
- dagw 9y ago
  Donating company money is really hard, especially if you're just some manager of some department, and double so if it's not to a registered charity. Much easier to actually buy something like a support contract or a license where you get a purchase order and a receipt from a registered organization. People at companies simply cannot just give company money to random people with paypal accounts even if they think it's the right thing do to.
  - coldtea 9y ago
    >Donating company money is really hard, especially if you're just some manager of some department, and double so if it's not to a registered charity. Maybe the open source communities should register as charities then? They do charitable work after all...
    - numfocusfnd 9y ago
      This is the function of the fiscal sponsorship program at NumFOCUS. All fiscally sponsored projects basically come under the umbrella of NumFOCUS' nonprofit status, so that the projects can receive tax-deductible contributions, etc.
mattkrause 9y ago
I think you're missing the point. The authors of NumPy (and other scientific software) have made it possible for many, many people to do better, faster research, and their career trajectory ought to reflect that contribution. Right now, it does not. The NSF will certainly give you money to develop asymptotically faster matrix multiplication algorithms. They are much less interested in funding efforts that save an equal amount of researcher time by writing clearer documentation. Tenure committees would rather see 10 papers or 100 citations than a thousand pull requests, even if the last has a much bigger impact on the state of the entire field. If the authors of NumPy were totally rational, they would have written just enough code and documentation to publish something like "NumPy: A Python library for linear algebra" in the Journal of Statistical Software (or something), then moved on to something else entirely. All the work beyond that (assuming it's not supporting a future paper) comes at the expense of their academic careers. People certainly do it anyway--sometimes out of pride, or a sense of helpfulness--but they're certainly not rewarded for it. They could be though. Funding agencies could give grants for the on-going development and maintenance of software that helps their grantees. Universities could consider contributions to the broader community as part of their hiring and promotion process, and so on. The odd part is that this would probably be more cost-effective too. Even a $10M/5 year grant is just a drop in the bucket compared to what all NIH/NSF/etc grantees pay for Matlab or Prism licenses.
- Radim 9y ago
  With all due respect, the career trajectory of Travis Oliphant (&co) has been nothing but spectacular! He's extremely accomplished, respected and (I hope) compensated. You're kinda undermining your own point there :-) In any case: "force other people to finance my hobbies" is not my favourite ideology. I find the idea of some "tenure committee" deciding what I should do with my money mildly disgusting. You're very cavalier throwing millions around, but you do realize this is money other people had to earn and tax first, right? And that these people might have preferred to contribute and support a different cause instead, perhaps something closer to their own heart and interests?
  - mattkrause 9y ago

by Radim 9y ago

coldtea 9y ago

Who said people want to do "foundational work"? The just want to write some specific software they enjoy writing together. The question rather is: after said software has been proven valuable and widely used by companies, and when there remain some hard and/or non-enjoyable parts to be done to complete it/enhance it (specific drivers, documentation, advanced features, etc), why don't any of the users donate some money to help?

Radim 9y ago
That's an easy one -- because they don't have to :-) In some cases, "paying extra" without being asked to might even be compromising your fiduciary duties. I feel the open source movement has spoilt its "user base" a little. There's very little expectation of reciprocity. Sometimes even outright hostility toward OSS modes that try work with reciprocity (check out the linked HN thread above). This mindset might be hard to reverse at this point. As with all "communal sharing" experiments, the true crunch time comes as the economic reality sets in.
dagw 9y ago
Donating company money is really hard, especially if you're just some manager of some department, and double so if it's not to a registered charity. Much easier to actually buy something like a support contract or a license where you get a purchase order and a receipt from a registered organization. People at companies simply cannot just give company money to random people with paypal accounts even if they think it's the right thing do to.
- coldtea 9y ago
  >Donating company money is really hard, especially if you're just some manager of some department, and double so if it's not to a registered charity. Maybe the open source communities should register as charities then? They do charitable work after all...
  - numfocusfnd 9y ago
    This is the function of the fiscal sponsorship program at NumFOCUS. All fiscally sponsored projects basically come under the umbrella of NumFOCUS' nonprofit status, so that the projects can receive tax-deductible contributions, etc.

mattkrause 9y ago

I think you're missing the point. The authors of NumPy (and other scientific software) have made it possible for many, many people to do better, faster research, and their career trajectory ought to reflect that contribution. Right now, it does not. The NSF will certainly give you money to develop asymptotically faster matrix multiplication algorithms. They are much less interested in funding efforts that save an equal amount of researcher time by writing clearer documentation. Tenure committees would rather see 10 papers or 100 citations than a thousand pull requests, even if the last has a much bigger impact on the state of the entire field. If the authors of NumPy were totally rational, they would have written just enough code and documentation to publish something like "NumPy: A Python library for linear algebra" in the Journal of Statistical Software (or something), then moved on to something else entirely. All the work beyond that (assuming it's not supporting a future paper) comes at the expense of their academic careers. People certainly do it anyway--sometimes out of pride, or a sense of helpfulness--but they're certainly not rewarded for it. They could be though. Funding agencies could give grants for the on-going development and maintenance of software that helps their grantees. Universities could consider contributions to the broader community as part of their hiring and promotion process, and so on. The odd part is that this would probably be more cost-effective too. Even a $10M/5 year grant is just a drop in the bucket compared to what all NIH/NSF/etc grantees pay for Matlab or Prism licenses.

Radim 9y ago
With all due respect, the career trajectory of Travis Oliphant (&co) has been nothing but spectacular! He's extremely accomplished, respected and (I hope) compensated. You're kinda undermining your own point there :-) In any case: "force other people to finance my hobbies" is not my favourite ideology. I find the idea of some "tenure committee" deciding what I should do with my money mildly disgusting. You're very cavalier throwing millions around, but you do realize this is money other people had to earn and tax first, right? And that these people might have preferred to contribute and support a different cause instead, perhaps something closer to their own heart and interests?
- mattkrause 9y ago