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Thank you for this in depth discussion about sponsoring open source. I think there aren’t great solutions out there and it was definitely worth trying something

by gvkhna 7y ago

Thank you for this in depth discussion about sponsoring open source. I think there aren’t great solutions out there and it was definitely worth trying something new. I remember reading the original post proposing this concept. Is it possible the system is working fine as-is and has been for decades? Although maintainers do not get great funding, the community is constantly proposing new solutions, improving standards and disseminating breakthroughs. If companies were all privately building their own stacks, then they would all maintain their IP as a competitive advantage but won’t be able to share common solutions that they could feasibly replicate as well given time and direction. Only by everyone contributing do we have such a great community. Unfortunately companies that sit on top of open source code don’t derive all of their value from just the code, although it’s definitely a part of it. They provide usually more than just a technology implementation, including support staff, communication strategy and so on that their stack doesn’t provide them. I wish more maintainers were better funded, it could definitely help but I think also it’s amazing to see what we’ve collectively been able to accomplish so quickly by people contributing for free and permissively for the general good.

netsensei 7y ago
I suppose the entire point of open sourcing software is to take a step back from generating revenue through IP. That doesn't exclude charging for the hours one put in solving specific issues or requests raised by third parties. Open source only provides a legal framework that defines the terms by which one distributes code. It was never intended to be a business model in the first place. Not does the entire concept claim to be a business model. As such, all software projects being equal, choosing a permissive or proprietary license is just a fork in the road. The bigger picture here is the intent and motivation of developers that drives them to build software and share it with the world. Sadly, the hard truth is that there's no such thing as a free lunch. If you provide the output and the labour for free, discussing that such efforts are unsustainable is a bit of a cognitive dissonance on the part of the maintainers. It's totally valid to write code, release it for free and then charge users for the maintenance of the tool. That is, put a figure to issues and only solve them as a maintainer when enough users care to chip in the hard currency to cover the time. Sure, many FOSS maintainers don't do it for the money. They simply want to have a positive impact on the world. Share something cool with the world. Assert their identity as the author of their own creative vision. But if history teaches anything, great artists have always walked this tight rope between covering living costs through patronage and finding freedom and artistic license to actualise their own vision.

by gvkhna 7y ago

netsensei 7y ago

I suppose the entire point of open sourcing software is to take a step back from generating revenue through IP. That doesn't exclude charging for the hours one put in solving specific issues or requests raised by third parties. Open source only provides a legal framework that defines the terms by which one distributes code. It was never intended to be a business model in the first place. Not does the entire concept claim to be a business model. As such, all software projects being equal, choosing a permissive or proprietary license is just a fork in the road. The bigger picture here is the intent and motivation of developers that drives them to build software and share it with the world. Sadly, the hard truth is that there's no such thing as a free lunch. If you provide the output and the labour for free, discussing that such efforts are unsustainable is a bit of a cognitive dissonance on the part of the maintainers. It's totally valid to write code, release it for free and then charge users for the maintenance of the tool. That is, put a figure to issues and only solve them as a maintainer when enough users care to chip in the hard currency to cover the time. Sure, many FOSS maintainers don't do it for the money. They simply want to have a positive impact on the world. Share something cool with the world. Assert their identity as the author of their own creative vision. But if history teaches anything, great artists have always walked this tight rope between covering living costs through patronage and finding freedom and artistic license to actualise their own vision.