4 ms·

> This sounds like a great way to lose all your real contributors. The article mentions "get paid for your time" over and over again, yet who is paying me for t

> This sounds like a great way to lose all your real contributors. The article mentions "get paid for your time" over and over again, yet who is paying me for the time to write the code for the PR? You expect me to both dedicate my time to writing the code for a PR, and then pay you for the privilege. It certainly sounds absurd on the face of it. On the other hand, I can think of at least three cases where I'd do the work of submitting a PR if the project in question required me to pay. In each case I can't currently gauge accurately enough whether these projects have a well-functioning development process. I could easily end up with a bitrotting PR with the project lead making a not unreasonable argument about why it's rotting (their time is limited, something else is taking priority, etc.). I imagine I'm not the only person who's ever been in such a "holding pattern." On the other hand, if a reputable project says they'll take money in order to merge a branch I want, things become less amorphous very quickly. A project lead is not going to get away with blowing off a bitrotting merge request, at least not without their project's reputation (and future income from PR's) taking a hit. edit: clarification

sverhagen 9y ago
Reading this makes me wonder, though... These maintainers are often well-paid professionals. If their lifes outside of their day jobs put the pressure to limit the open source work, what is a little money going to do? If money was their main motivator to compromise their personal life, would they not already have gotten a second job (like a part-time consulting gig), maybe instead of the whole open source thing? Makes me feel as if this article misunderstands the motivations of maintainers.
- sundvor 9y ago
  Not every developer is a highly paid superstar in Silicon Valley. When needing to juggle family / life, I'm sure this proposed model would make it a lot easier to explain to the wife/husband/partner why they need to stay up a bit longer at night to work on their (previously) non-paying projects.
  - xfer 9y ago
    You need to show income to justify your hobby?
    - jancsika 9y ago
      As a potential contributor I need to know whether there's a professional process or a guy "playing with trains" on the other end of the wire. The problem is that the FLOSS ecosystem doesn't give you an easy way to tell. So if I misjudge and hit a wall of dysfunction, the general response would be, "Well, the maintainer just wants to play with trains. Leave them alone and fork the project if you want it to be some other way." At least with paying to contribute, it would force the FLOSS ecosystem general response to be, "Those maintainers are just playing with trains, but they're taking money as if they are professional engineers. That's bad." Of course that's worst case scenario-- best case is that they really are engineers and I'm funding their development. Either way, it's potentially better than the status quo which is that you have no idea until you submit the patch.
  - sverhagen 9y ago
    I'm not saying that's what they are, but somehow I got the impression that maintainers of projects that are good enough to attract payments for pulls, would have marketable skills, and be ahead, regardless of the market they live in.

sverhagen 9y ago

Reading this makes me wonder, though... These maintainers are often well-paid professionals. If their lifes outside of their day jobs put the pressure to limit the open source work, what is a little money going to do? If money was their main motivator to compromise their personal life, would they not already have gotten a second job (like a part-time consulting gig), maybe instead of the whole open source thing? Makes me feel as if this article misunderstands the motivations of maintainers.

sundvor 9y ago
Not every developer is a highly paid superstar in Silicon Valley. When needing to juggle family / life, I'm sure this proposed model would make it a lot easier to explain to the wife/husband/partner why they need to stay up a bit longer at night to work on their (previously) non-paying projects.
- xfer 9y ago
  You need to show income to justify your hobby?
  - jancsika 9y ago
    As a potential contributor I need to know whether there's a professional process or a guy "playing with trains" on the other end of the wire. The problem is that the FLOSS ecosystem doesn't give you an easy way to tell. So if I misjudge and hit a wall of dysfunction, the general response would be, "Well, the maintainer just wants to play with trains. Leave them alone and fork the project if you want it to be some other way." At least with paying to contribute, it would force the FLOSS ecosystem general response to be, "Those maintainers are just playing with trains, but they're taking money as if they are professional engineers. That's bad." Of course that's worst case scenario-- best case is that they really are engineers and I'm funding their development. Either way, it's potentially better than the status quo which is that you have no idea until you submit the patch.
- sverhagen 9y ago
  I'm not saying that's what they are, but somehow I got the impression that maintainers of projects that are good enough to attract payments for pulls, would have marketable skills, and be ahead, regardless of the market they live in.