5 ms·

What in the... You could donate to the FSF, OSI, or directly to the developers of most projects. Did you even bother looking?

jackweirdy 8y ago
A donation doesn’t reasonably entitle you to expect anything. A purchase does
- cup-of-tea 8y ago
  Does it? In either case the code is already written. Your payment doesn't mean there will be new features.
jcrben 8y ago
If you donate, there's no guarantee that everyone else is donating. So you end up supporting the free riders (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-rider_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-rider_problem). Which is a disincentive to donate.
- vertexFarm 8y ago
  That problem seems to me like it isn't telling a whole story. There have always been free riders of many kinds in society. But society isn't built around a single variable. People who get a free ride in some way often are supporting other free riders in other enterprises. Basically if you are strict about trying to eliminate all free riders, you're going to break society in a vain effort to maximize fairness in lieu of effectiveness. Society works because everyone assumes that even if some things are unfair, most will manage and the ups and downs will average out over time. In the example given on the wiki page, people who swoop in and take the last minutes left on a parking meter that someone else paid for but didn't stay long enough to use are supposedly able to break the system. But I think that trying to lock the system down tight and completely prevent that behavior could feasibly be more damaging to the health of the system than simply tolerating it as an occasional but mostly harmless exploit. There's a few studies which show that some piracy and other free usage might actually help an industry's profits. Key word is "some"--there is obviously a threshold past which would become very damaging. But nonetheless, if one can set aside their outrage over unfairness (which is very understandable for somebody who has poured their life and soul into working on an IP or paid a lot to license it legitimately) then one can probably stand to benefit even from the thieves and freeloaders if they manage it correctly. https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/06/13/does-online-piracy-help-boost-sales.aspx https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/06/13/does-onlin...
- gkya 8y ago
  No, you support the person you donate to. That the "free-riders" are supported too is only a secondary thing. The main aim of FOSS is to share intellectual effort with the world anyways.
- dingaling 8y ago
  I conducted dozens of software evaluation and procurement rounds for a ${BIGCORP} One of the factors that made FOSS much more promotable was a sticker-price for acquisition and / or support. The actual amount didn't matter, psychologically though it needed to show that it had 'worth'. Ifnitnwas free, the business was worried thatvit was just someone's weekend hack. If it cost $5 per user then it was great value. Not once did anyone raise the free-rider problem when we paid for FOSS. Frankly businesses are so focused on getting stuff done internally that the fact that someone else might indirectly benefit is irrelevant.
voidwtf 8y ago
With the exception of bounties, donations do not translate to fixing an obscure big or adding a feature. I’ve even had some features which I’ve implemented fail to make it into the upstream because it’s not the way the maintainer(s) would have implemented it, despite it being highly requested and following their development patterns as much as possible. The attitude in the opensource community about pull requests and donations is sometimes frustrating when you realize that a contribution you’ve made may never benefit the community.
CJefferson 8y ago
For many businesses, and at universities (where I work), there isn't an easy way to donate, particularly to random people. However, it would be easy for me to spend, say £50-£100, for a support licence for software I frequently use. I would love it if Microsoft added this to GitHub -- opt in of course.
afarrell 8y ago
I am well aware I can do that. But I don't have enough money to ensure that there is enough donation to ensure that there is enough support for those working on the projects to focus on it full time. The systems-level change of allowing developers to use copyright to require people to pay for their work comes much closer to ensuring that. > "did you even bother looking?" Also, when someone is building a product for money, it incentivizes them to proactively look for feedback on the quality of their product and to value the feedback of frustrated users. When someone is building a product without a business goal focused on pleasing someone else, they are far more likely to be either passive in waiting for people to report things on mailing lists or to be actively annoyed with the reports and to occasionally express that frustration in a way that belittles users.
- justinclift 8y ago
  > When someone is building a product without a business goal focused on pleasing someone else, they are far more likely to be either passive in waiting for people to report things on mailing lists or to be actively annoyed with the reports and to occasionally express that frustration in a way that belittles users. This seems (to me) like a cultural thing. In this instance, by "cultural" I'm meaning it depends on the culture of the Open Source project. Many projects do seem to have developers that aren't really hmm... "user friendly" might be correct description. But not ever project is like that. The PostgreSQL, SQLite, and DB Browser for SQLite Communities are all pretty user friendly. As in, it's pretty rare to see a display of bad attitude towards someone reporting a bug, asking a simple question, or doing pretty much anything else in good faith.

jackweirdy 8y ago

A donation doesn’t reasonably entitle you to expect anything. A purchase does

cup-of-tea 8y ago
Does it? In either case the code is already written. Your payment doesn't mean there will be new features.

jcrben 8y ago

If you donate, there's no guarantee that everyone else is donating. So you end up supporting the free riders (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-rider_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-rider_problem). Which is a disincentive to donate.

vertexFarm 8y ago
That problem seems to me like it isn't telling a whole story. There have always been free riders of many kinds in society. But society isn't built around a single variable. People who get a free ride in some way often are supporting other free riders in other enterprises. Basically if you are strict about trying to eliminate all free riders, you're going to break society in a vain effort to maximize fairness in lieu of effectiveness. Society works because everyone assumes that even if some things are unfair, most will manage and the ups and downs will average out over time. In the example given on the wiki page, people who swoop in and take the last minutes left on a parking meter that someone else paid for but didn't stay long enough to use are supposedly able to break the system. But I think that trying to lock the system down tight and completely prevent that behavior could feasibly be more damaging to the health of the system than simply tolerating it as an occasional but mostly harmless exploit. There's a few studies which show that some piracy and other free usage might actually help an industry's profits. Key word is "some"--there is obviously a threshold past which would become very damaging. But nonetheless, if one can set aside their outrage over unfairness (which is very understandable for somebody who has poured their life and soul into working on an IP or paid a lot to license it legitimately) then one can probably stand to benefit even from the thieves and freeloaders if they manage it correctly. https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/06/13/does-online-piracy-help-boost-sales.aspx https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/06/13/does-onlin...
gkya 8y ago
No, you support the person you donate to. That the "free-riders" are supported too is only a secondary thing. The main aim of FOSS is to share intellectual effort with the world anyways.
dingaling 8y ago
I conducted dozens of software evaluation and procurement rounds for a ${BIGCORP} One of the factors that made FOSS much more promotable was a sticker-price for acquisition and / or support. The actual amount didn't matter, psychologically though it needed to show that it had 'worth'. Ifnitnwas free, the business was worried thatvit was just someone's weekend hack. If it cost $5 per user then it was great value. Not once did anyone raise the free-rider problem when we paid for FOSS. Frankly businesses are so focused on getting stuff done internally that the fact that someone else might indirectly benefit is irrelevant.

voidwtf 8y ago

With the exception of bounties, donations do not translate to fixing an obscure big or adding a feature. I’ve even had some features which I’ve implemented fail to make it into the upstream because it’s not the way the maintainer(s) would have implemented it, despite it being highly requested and following their development patterns as much as possible. The attitude in the opensource community about pull requests and donations is sometimes frustrating when you realize that a contribution you’ve made may never benefit the community.

CJefferson 8y ago

For many businesses, and at universities (where I work), there isn't an easy way to donate, particularly to random people. However, it would be easy for me to spend, say £50-£100, for a support licence for software I frequently use. I would love it if Microsoft added this to GitHub -- opt in of course.

afarrell 8y ago

I am well aware I can do that. But I don't have enough money to ensure that there is enough donation to ensure that there is enough support for those working on the projects to focus on it full time. The systems-level change of allowing developers to use copyright to require people to pay for their work comes much closer to ensuring that. > "did you even bother looking?" Also, when someone is building a product for money, it incentivizes them to proactively look for feedback on the quality of their product and to value the feedback of frustrated users. When someone is building a product without a business goal focused on pleasing someone else, they are far more likely to be either passive in waiting for people to report things on mailing lists or to be actively annoyed with the reports and to occasionally express that frustration in a way that belittles users.

justinclift 8y ago
> When someone is building a product without a business goal focused on pleasing someone else, they are far more likely to be either passive in waiting for people to report things on mailing lists or to be actively annoyed with the reports and to occasionally express that frustration in a way that belittles users. This seems (to me) like a cultural thing. In this instance, by "cultural" I'm meaning it depends on the culture of the Open Source project. Many projects do seem to have developers that aren't really hmm... "user friendly" might be correct description. But not ever project is like that. The PostgreSQL, SQLite, and DB Browser for SQLite Communities are all pretty user friendly. As in, it's pretty rare to see a display of bad attitude towards someone reporting a bug, asking a simple question, or doing pretty much anything else in good faith.