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Man. I can relate. Open source projects are roller coasters. It's great when loads of people start using it... and terrible at the same time. It's validating to

by mholt 7y ago

Man. I can relate. Open source projects are roller coasters. It's great when loads of people start using it... and terrible at the same time. It's validating to see people using your work, but sometimes you just want to submit your paper to NIPS rather than deal with what you think in the moment (and, frankly, in hindsight too) is a dumb issue: https://github.com/mholt/caddy/issues/1680#issuecomment-302719323 https://github.com/mholt/caddy/issues/1680#issuecomment-3027... I wrote up my experience from one wave of negativity a couple years ago: https://caddy.community/t/the-realities-of-being-a-foss-maintainer/2728 https://caddy.community/t/the-realities-of-being-a-foss-main... It still haunts me to this day, but my attitudes are finally trending more positive about the whole thing.

kbenson 7y ago
One of the major benefits of Open Source is that the user doesn't need to get a hold of the developer. It's always possible (or should be, if they're leveraging open source well) to patch a problem locally and build a fixed version their self. If they don't have the ability to do so, they really should at least have someone they can contact and pay (probably an exorbitant amount if it's an emergency) to do that for them. It's the open source equivalent of an application support contract or warranty.
- voltagex_ 7y ago
  How would you go about finding someone to contract and pay for say, Firefox?
  - mathnmusic 7y ago
    Some folks I know are building polyglot.network as a FOSS-only software development agency. Early stages but you might wanna check them out.
    - voltagex_ 7y ago
      Site's down / unresolvable. Sounds good - I'd work for them.
    - pabs3 7y ago
      There are a few such agencies out there: RedHat, Igalia, Credativ come to mind. There are some more listed on employers and freelancing sections of the FOSSjobs wiki: https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources#employment https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources#employme... https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources#freelancing https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources#freelanc...
    - drieddust 7y ago
      They seems to be insanely Cheap at $1999 for 160 hours of Dev work. How do the make money?
      - mathnmusic 7y ago
        They only pick up FOSS tasks for which they can find multiple customers.
  - wolco 7y ago
    I worked with people who were patching a firefox version for an embedded device. Put out an ad... these people exist.
    - nsomaru 7y ago
      Putting together people for a project and don’t have the advantage of a strong network for the technologies I’m interested in. Could you suggest where one might go about putting this ad? Facebook? Freelancer sites?
      - wolco 7y ago
        Depends on the quality / budget. Go cheap put out a project on upwork. Go big and put an ad on weworkremotely. Put an ask hn question with contact details and people will connect.
  - kbenson 7y ago
    If you've got a business that requires Firefox as some component (in a way that isn't easily swapped out for some other browser), you really should have someone on staff or available that knows how to build and change stuff in it. That said, it's odd for Firefox to be used this way, to my knowledge, which is nice because it's on the short list of open source projects that are so large and complex that depending on the problem your only recourse is likely outsourcing help. In other words, if Firefox is integral to your business, befriend and get some consultancy retainers from some Firefox devs if you don't have one on staff. Not doing so is probably irresponsible from a business perspective.
    - majewsky 7y ago
      > If you've got a business that requires Firefox as some component (in a way that isn't easily swapped out for some other browser), you really should have someone on staff or available that knows how to build and change stuff in it. That's incredibly excessive. If a website design agency runs Wordpress on Linux servers, that certainly doesn't justify having a kernel developer on staff.
      - rocmcd 7y ago
        That's taking it a bit far, no? A more charitable allegory would be a website design agency that relies on Wordpress for websites, so they have Wordpress developers on staff (or on retainer). That doesn't seem unreasonable.
      - kbenson 7y ago
        Linux wouldn't be integral to their business. They could also easily run wordpress on BSD, or a Solaris derivative (Illumos), or Windows. Either Apache or Nginx specifically also wouldn't be integral, as they could use one or the other, or some other web server that works with PHP. PHP is integral to their business, but they're not using any special feature of it that others aren't, most likely (and it's not a small community, so there are plenty of people that would be affected by any one problem). Wordpress is integral to their business. If they run into a WordPress bug, it would be useful for them to have access to someone that could track it down and diagnose it. Any heavily used WordPress plugins, or custom WordPress plugins might be integral to their business. They maybe should have someone that can look into problems with those. If a million other people are using the same feature as you that might cause problems, you're probably safe letting the community provide a fix. If 1000 other people are using the feature, who knows how long that fix will take in coming? If the developer is busy, it could be days. It's a function of how important it is to a business and how rare/replacable it is.
nerdbaggy 7y ago
I feel for you guys. People lobe to get upset when open source projects try to make money.
- Crinus 7y ago
  That is because users are increasingly getting used to not paying for the work of others, be it because of open source software (do not be deluded, for the vast vast majority of users free software=free shit), because of freemium software, because of adware or because of we-mine-you-to-death-and-you-like-it software.
  - TAForObvReasons 7y ago
    People and companies are ready and willing to pay. The resistance comes from open source projects doing unscrupulous things like changing the license terms of the original project. As a contributor to some projects which eventually removed the open source option and went full proprietary, it's hard not to feel slighted. I didn't sign a CLA and wasn't consulted in the unilateral decision. The damages aren't large enough to justify taking legal action, but it hurts to watch your contributions essentially stolen from you.

by mholt 7y ago

kbenson 7y ago

One of the major benefits of Open Source is that the user doesn't need to get a hold of the developer. It's always possible (or should be, if they're leveraging open source well) to patch a problem locally and build a fixed version their self. If they don't have the ability to do so, they really should at least have someone they can contact and pay (probably an exorbitant amount if it's an emergency) to do that for them. It's the open source equivalent of an application support contract or warranty.

voltagex_ 7y ago
How would you go about finding someone to contract and pay for say, Firefox?
- mathnmusic 7y ago
  Some folks I know are building polyglot.network as a FOSS-only software development agency. Early stages but you might wanna check them out.
  - voltagex_ 7y ago
    Site's down / unresolvable. Sounds good - I'd work for them.
  - pabs3 7y ago
    There are a few such agencies out there: RedHat, Igalia, Credativ come to mind. There are some more listed on employers and freelancing sections of the FOSSjobs wiki: https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources#employment https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources#employme... https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources#freelancing https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources#freelanc...
  - drieddust 7y ago
    They seems to be insanely Cheap at $1999 for 160 hours of Dev work. How do the make money?
    - mathnmusic 7y ago
      They only pick up FOSS tasks for which they can find multiple customers.
- wolco 7y ago
  I worked with people who were patching a firefox version for an embedded device. Put out an ad... these people exist.
  - nsomaru 7y ago
    Putting together people for a project and don’t have the advantage of a strong network for the technologies I’m interested in. Could you suggest where one might go about putting this ad? Facebook? Freelancer sites?
    - wolco 7y ago
      Depends on the quality / budget. Go cheap put out a project on upwork. Go big and put an ad on weworkremotely. Put an ask hn question with contact details and people will connect.
- kbenson 7y ago
  If you've got a business that requires Firefox as some component (in a way that isn't easily swapped out for some other browser), you really should have someone on staff or available that knows how to build and change stuff in it. That said, it's odd for Firefox to be used this way, to my knowledge, which is nice because it's on the short list of open source projects that are so large and complex that depending on the problem your only recourse is likely outsourcing help. In other words, if Firefox is integral to your business, befriend and get some consultancy retainers from some Firefox devs if you don't have one on staff. Not doing so is probably irresponsible from a business perspective.
  - majewsky 7y ago
    > If you've got a business that requires Firefox as some component (in a way that isn't easily swapped out for some other browser), you really should have someone on staff or available that knows how to build and change stuff in it. That's incredibly excessive. If a website design agency runs Wordpress on Linux servers, that certainly doesn't justify having a kernel developer on staff.
    - rocmcd 7y ago
      That's taking it a bit far, no? A more charitable allegory would be a website design agency that relies on Wordpress for websites, so they have Wordpress developers on staff (or on retainer). That doesn't seem unreasonable.
    - kbenson 7y ago
      Linux wouldn't be integral to their business. They could also easily run wordpress on BSD, or a Solaris derivative (Illumos), or Windows. Either Apache or Nginx specifically also wouldn't be integral, as they could use one or the other, or some other web server that works with PHP. PHP is integral to their business, but they're not using any special feature of it that others aren't, most likely (and it's not a small community, so there are plenty of people that would be affected by any one problem). Wordpress is integral to their business. If they run into a WordPress bug, it would be useful for them to have access to someone that could track it down and diagnose it. Any heavily used WordPress plugins, or custom WordPress plugins might be integral to their business. They maybe should have someone that can look into problems with those. If a million other people are using the same feature as you that might cause problems, you're probably safe letting the community provide a fix. If 1000 other people are using the feature, who knows how long that fix will take in coming? If the developer is busy, it could be days. It's a function of how important it is to a business and how rare/replacable it is.

nerdbaggy 7y ago

I feel for you guys. People lobe to get upset when open source projects try to make money.

Crinus 7y ago
That is because users are increasingly getting used to not paying for the work of others, be it because of open source software (do not be deluded, for the vast vast majority of users free software=free shit), because of freemium software, because of adware or because of we-mine-you-to-death-and-you-like-it software.
- TAForObvReasons 7y ago
  People and companies are ready and willing to pay. The resistance comes from open source projects doing unscrupulous things like changing the license terms of the original project. As a contributor to some projects which eventually removed the open source option and went full proprietary, it's hard not to feel slighted. I didn't sign a CLA and wasn't consulted in the unilateral decision. The damages aren't large enough to justify taking legal action, but it hurts to watch your contributions essentially stolen from you.