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Slight nit: when you open source something, you're not even volunteering to write code. There is no obligation on your part to continue supporting it at that po

Slight nit: when you open source something, you're not even volunteering to write code. There is no obligation on your part to continue supporting it at that point. You're simply giving out something that cost you some time (no materials). Which may explain why people can feel entitled to getting paid for their efforts; we tend to feel that if we give something to others they owe us something back (this is why we have a bunch of laws against giving and accepting gifts in certain situations, because of the societal pressure to make it an equitable exchange), and it sometimes takes intentional reminding of ourselves that that's not how giving works, and that there is no actual quid pro quo obligation.

bonoboTP 7y ago
> Slight nit: when you open source something, you're not even volunteering to write code. There is no obligation on your part to continue supporting it at that point. You're simply giving out something that cost you some time (no materials). Whether you offer paid support or not has no bearing on whether you release your code under an open source license. Many companies offer support contracts for their open source software. Many paid employees work on open source software, not only volunteers (Google, Facebook, Canonical, Red Hat, SchedMD and so on). Open source and commercial are not antonyms.
- lostcolony 7y ago
  You misunderstand what I'm saying. I'm saying when something is open sourced, -the work is done-. You are not necessarily volunteering to work any more. The act of open sourcing something involves no volunteering; it involves giving something away. Likewise any patches you choose to release. When I say 'support', I mean "Oh, this person filed a bug; I'll go fix it". I was not saying support with an implication of financial remuneration.
  - bonoboTP 7y ago
    > I'm saying when something is open sourced, -the work is done-. You are not necessarily volunteering to work any more. The act of open sourcing something involves no volunteering; it involves giving something away. Likewise any patches you choose to release. Open sourcing something is also not equal to distributing something for free. I'm sorry for nitpicking, but there's a lot of genuine confusion about this out there. You can release something with an open source license without distributing it yourself. The free software movement regards it as a moral imperative to license all software with free / open source licenses, even if you just give the software to your client and never upload it to Github or release it publicly online. Even if you distribute it, you don't even have to have a bug tracking interface. Open sourcing is simply attaching a free/open source license to a piece of software. Nothing more nothing less. Not participation in the community, not Github, not issue tracking, not upstream or downstream patch contributions, or volunteering or zero-price distribution or anything else.
    - lostcolony 7y ago
      How does "even if you just give the software to your client and never upload it to Github or release it publicly online" in any way conflict with what I said? I said "It's like giving it away" - I never said the size of the audience. I didn't say anything about widespread distribution. And your point...is identical to the one I was making, that licensing something as open source is not volunteering to do anything from here on out, but instead just giving away the work you've already done. You're nit picking where there are no nits.

bonoboTP 7y ago

> Slight nit: when you open source something, you're not even volunteering to write code. There is no obligation on your part to continue supporting it at that point. You're simply giving out something that cost you some time (no materials). Whether you offer paid support or not has no bearing on whether you release your code under an open source license. Many companies offer support contracts for their open source software. Many paid employees work on open source software, not only volunteers (Google, Facebook, Canonical, Red Hat, SchedMD and so on). Open source and commercial are not antonyms.

lostcolony 7y ago
You misunderstand what I'm saying. I'm saying when something is open sourced, -the work is done-. You are not necessarily volunteering to work any more. The act of open sourcing something involves no volunteering; it involves giving something away. Likewise any patches you choose to release. When I say 'support', I mean "Oh, this person filed a bug; I'll go fix it". I was not saying support with an implication of financial remuneration.
- bonoboTP 7y ago
  > I'm saying when something is open sourced, -the work is done-. You are not necessarily volunteering to work any more. The act of open sourcing something involves no volunteering; it involves giving something away. Likewise any patches you choose to release. Open sourcing something is also not equal to distributing something for free. I'm sorry for nitpicking, but there's a lot of genuine confusion about this out there. You can release something with an open source license without distributing it yourself. The free software movement regards it as a moral imperative to license all software with free / open source licenses, even if you just give the software to your client and never upload it to Github or release it publicly online. Even if you distribute it, you don't even have to have a bug tracking interface. Open sourcing is simply attaching a free/open source license to a piece of software. Nothing more nothing less. Not participation in the community, not Github, not issue tracking, not upstream or downstream patch contributions, or volunteering or zero-price distribution or anything else.
  - lostcolony 7y ago
    How does "even if you just give the software to your client and never upload it to Github or release it publicly online" in any way conflict with what I said? I said "It's like giving it away" - I never said the size of the audience. I didn't say anything about widespread distribution. And your point...is identical to the one I was making, that licensing something as open source is not volunteering to do anything from here on out, but instead just giving away the work you've already done. You're nit picking where there are no nits.