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Right all this talk of "what it takes to be a success in OSS" ... programma please! "Success" in the OSS world is putting code out that others can use. Either

Right all this talk of "what it takes to be a success in OSS" ... programma please! "Success" in the OSS world is putting code out that others can use. Either they find it useful, or they don't. If they don't that's not failure. That's ... someone else put out something better, or that your user community is small or just not out there. OSS is not a business model. It's a SHARING model. God it's just like the music scene these days. Did you get into it for the Art? Cool you're gonna be ok. Did you get into it wanting to be a rock star? Might as well buy a lottery ticket. Your chances are better. OSS success is providing something of use to a community that contributes back to it. Yeah, maybe you can find a way to make a nickel off that, but that's not what it's FOR. It's not a marketplace, it's a public library. This celebrity/glamor seeking is so apparent on github. Every single project's readme.md reads like marketing copy these days. Just like the music scene again. Reminds me of the 90's when the record labels still had money and steamrolled the alternative scene looking for a cash grab.

staticassertion 8y ago
What if I want to open source my code so that people can use it, but also I want to make money from it? Why is that nothing something we should reconcile? Why is that not "sharing"?
- ricardobeat 8y ago
  Then find a way to make money of it? These are not exclusive.
- mindcrime 8y ago
  Making software open source doesn't mean you can't make money from it. Depending on the details of what you build, who uses it, how you license it, etc., it may be harder to make money from it than if you made it proprietary. But that certainly isn't something you can just take as a given. You also can't take it as a given that the project would make money if it was closed source either. Maybe you made something nobody needs. Or they need it, but there are better alternatives out there (possibly some that are Open Source). Who's to say? Somebody yesterday (maybe DannyBee, not sure) made a very insightful comment in saying that sometimes the value created by Open Source software is created exactly because it's Open Source. Anyway, you can always charge for software even if the code is Open Source. You can stick it on the web and make it a SaaS app, or you can make the source available but charge to download binaries (ala JBoss back in the day), or you can make source and binaries freely available and sell subscriptions, etc. Aaah, wait, I know, you're asking "who would buy a subscription for something that's free to download?" Companies. Companies will, for things that are mission critical, because they typically need for their to be a contractual relationship (eg, somebody to sue) in place. Or you have a manager who needs to spend her budget or lose it, and she understands that you need to make a profit in order to stay alive and keep enhancing the software. Etc., etc, yadda, yadda, ad infinitum. My point is, it's not as simple as "Oh, I made this Open Source, so there's no way to profit from it".
  - severine 8y ago
    I think you mean this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17818407#17819123 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17818407#17819123 Quote at the end: The underlying issue they are trying to solve is that developers believe they should be able to extract some of the wealth they feel they created. In open source, that wealth is often only created because the software was free. Otherwise, people would have used something else that was free but worked well enough. Developers like to often argue this isn't true, but history shows it to be true basically always :) So saying you should be able to extract this wealth is probably wrong. Saying you should be able to get paid a reasonable amount of money is not.
zapita 8y ago
> It's not a marketplace, it's a public library. That’s the problem: we all take this particular public library for granted, but there isn’t a sustainable model for paying the librarians. Then a librarian tries a creative way to continue serving us without starving, and we tell them “you’re just doing it for fun, if you wanted to make money you shouldn’t have been a librarian!”. This is an ignorant response, because it places on the librarian’s shoulders the responsibility for solving a problem that concerns all of us - because we all benefit from open-source more than we contribute to it. That’s not sustainable.
- plurgid 8y ago
  Nope. OSS was here long before redhat and everyone else, and it will be here long after. Because, in your analogy, the librarians are all volunteers. That’s how we got here. If the pain of not having a problem solved is great enough the volunteers will fix it. Or they won’t. If you feel like the pain level is high enough. Hey maybe YOU should try volunteering to solve it. This is what makes OSS powerful. It is a community service. If you aren’t happy with the service p become a member of the community and contribute.
  - zapita 8y ago
    All open-source contributors are certainly not volunteers! Open-source contributors come in all shapes and sizes, and how much they get paid for it has no incidence on the quality or authenticity of their work. It does, however, have a huge impact on who can contribute, and how much. Since we as a society rely on open-source enormously, it seems to make sense to try and allow as many people as possible to contribute as much as possible. And that requires giving up on antiquated notions that “only unpaid open-source is real open-source!”. Wouldn’t you agree?
    - luord 8y ago
      > Since we as a society rely on open-source enormously, it seems to make sense to try and allow as many people as possible to contribute as much as possible. We already do, anyone can do it and we shouldn't restrict that; that's the point. > And that requires giving up on antiquated notions that “only unpaid open-source is real open-source!”. Wouldn’t you agree? Not GP, but I most certainly don't, nor is it antiquated. For that matter, calling volunteer work "antiquated" is... A bit cynical, to say the least. I also don't see how this follows from what you said before, could you walk me through your reasoning?

staticassertion 8y ago

What if I want to open source my code so that people can use it, but also I want to make money from it? Why is that nothing something we should reconcile? Why is that not "sharing"?

ricardobeat 8y ago
Then find a way to make money of it? These are not exclusive.
mindcrime 8y ago
Making software open source doesn't mean you can't make money from it. Depending on the details of what you build, who uses it, how you license it, etc., it may be harder to make money from it than if you made it proprietary. But that certainly isn't something you can just take as a given. You also can't take it as a given that the project would make money if it was closed source either. Maybe you made something nobody needs. Or they need it, but there are better alternatives out there (possibly some that are Open Source). Who's to say? Somebody yesterday (maybe DannyBee, not sure) made a very insightful comment in saying that sometimes the value created by Open Source software is created exactly because it's Open Source. Anyway, you can always charge for software even if the code is Open Source. You can stick it on the web and make it a SaaS app, or you can make the source available but charge to download binaries (ala JBoss back in the day), or you can make source and binaries freely available and sell subscriptions, etc. Aaah, wait, I know, you're asking "who would buy a subscription for something that's free to download?" Companies. Companies will, for things that are mission critical, because they typically need for their to be a contractual relationship (eg, somebody to sue) in place. Or you have a manager who needs to spend her budget or lose it, and she understands that you need to make a profit in order to stay alive and keep enhancing the software. Etc., etc, yadda, yadda, ad infinitum. My point is, it's not as simple as "Oh, I made this Open Source, so there's no way to profit from it".
- severine 8y ago
  I think you mean this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17818407#17819123 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17818407#17819123 Quote at the end: The underlying issue they are trying to solve is that developers believe they should be able to extract some of the wealth they feel they created. In open source, that wealth is often only created because the software was free. Otherwise, people would have used something else that was free but worked well enough. Developers like to often argue this isn't true, but history shows it to be true basically always :) So saying you should be able to extract this wealth is probably wrong. Saying you should be able to get paid a reasonable amount of money is not.

zapita 8y ago

> It's not a marketplace, it's a public library. That’s the problem: we all take this particular public library for granted, but there isn’t a sustainable model for paying the librarians. Then a librarian tries a creative way to continue serving us without starving, and we tell them “you’re just doing it for fun, if you wanted to make money you shouldn’t have been a librarian!”. This is an ignorant response, because it places on the librarian’s shoulders the responsibility for solving a problem that concerns all of us - because we all benefit from open-source more than we contribute to it. That’s not sustainable.

plurgid 8y ago
Nope. OSS was here long before redhat and everyone else, and it will be here long after. Because, in your analogy, the librarians are all volunteers. That’s how we got here. If the pain of not having a problem solved is great enough the volunteers will fix it. Or they won’t. If you feel like the pain level is high enough. Hey maybe YOU should try volunteering to solve it. This is what makes OSS powerful. It is a community service. If you aren’t happy with the service p become a member of the community and contribute.
- zapita 8y ago
  All open-source contributors are certainly not volunteers! Open-source contributors come in all shapes and sizes, and how much they get paid for it has no incidence on the quality or authenticity of their work. It does, however, have a huge impact on who can contribute, and how much. Since we as a society rely on open-source enormously, it seems to make sense to try and allow as many people as possible to contribute as much as possible. And that requires giving up on antiquated notions that “only unpaid open-source is real open-source!”. Wouldn’t you agree?
  - luord 8y ago
    > Since we as a society rely on open-source enormously, it seems to make sense to try and allow as many people as possible to contribute as much as possible. We already do, anyone can do it and we shouldn't restrict that; that's the point. > And that requires giving up on antiquated notions that “only unpaid open-source is real open-source!”. Wouldn’t you agree? Not GP, but I most certainly don't, nor is it antiquated. For that matter, calling volunteer work "antiquated" is... A bit cynical, to say the least. I also don't see how this follows from what you said before, could you walk me through your reasoning?