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You seem to be reacting against the term "privileged" in a way I didn't intend. I don't mean to say that they have some unfair advantage. They just have a more

You seem to be reacting against the term "privileged" in a way I didn't intend. I don't mean to say that they have some unfair advantage. They just have a more foundational role in the tech stack of the products built on top of them, so companies have a bigger incentive to keep the wheels turning.

deleted 6y ago
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jart 6y ago
I'd love to learn more specific details about your leveraging strategy. Keep in mind even someone like Torvalds only serves at the pleasure of big corporations. Let's keep gift economies in alignment with public interest folks. It's difficult to imagine a competent developer needing to squeeze people, for cash money to pay rent, considering how much coders get paid.
- aspenmayer 6y ago
  Two-thirds of projects on GitHub have 1-2 maintainers, as of 2015.[1][2] I’m sure many of those people are in other areas or occupations, or in other countries, where these high-paying jobs may not exist. Some people simply don’t wish to work at a company, and those folks still may produce value to those other than themselves. Let’s not appeal to productivity too hard; learners and those of lesser coding capability also create value in the form of skills and knowledge. It’s hard to identify and quantify those whose contributions helped most, but I feel all contributions are worthwhile. Not all code may be tip-worthy, but I don’t feel chagrin toward those collecting, however they do so. > Only three projects—less than 3 percent of the study’s sample—had more than 50 contributors.[1] [1] https://increment.com/open-source/the-rise-of-few-maintainer-projects/ https://increment.com/open-source/the-rise-of-few-maintainer... [2] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308894462 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308894462
  - musingsole 6y ago
    > those folks still may produce value to those other than themselves. They may, but my point here is that the reason a corporate SWE's code is so valuable isn't because of the code itself. It's because of the ecosystem that the SWE and corp are a part of. That ecosystem serves to multiply a meaningless block of code into a couple million dollars that can be split nicely with all the non-coders who made it useful. Without that ecosystem, an open source project can never hope to monetize to the same level. That big open source projects have substantial funding is an effect of being so imminently usable in those million dollar ecosystems that the forgotten scraps of the corporations are enough to sustain them.
    - aspenmayer 6y ago
      I generally agree with your interpretation, but I don’t see what you’re advocating for. What do you think are the flaws/benefits of big open source projects receiving the lion’s share of open source donations? What funding model makes sense for those smaller projects? For many groups doing fundraising, the work of doing the fundraising itself is extremely labor and time intensive compared to the actual work the group does. Fundraising costs incentivize projects to become bigger and higher-profile to enhance their fundraising ability, but this increase in size and reach may not be helpful to all projects in all ways equally. More bugs may be squashed from more eyes; more cooks in the kitchen may make for lower quality standards of releases. It’s all a double-edged sword. I’m curious about your thoughts on this conundrum.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

jart 6y ago

I'd love to learn more specific details about your leveraging strategy. Keep in mind even someone like Torvalds only serves at the pleasure of big corporations. Let's keep gift economies in alignment with public interest folks. It's difficult to imagine a competent developer needing to squeeze people, for cash money to pay rent, considering how much coders get paid.

aspenmayer 6y ago
Two-thirds of projects on GitHub have 1-2 maintainers, as of 2015.[1][2] I’m sure many of those people are in other areas or occupations, or in other countries, where these high-paying jobs may not exist. Some people simply don’t wish to work at a company, and those folks still may produce value to those other than themselves. Let’s not appeal to productivity too hard; learners and those of lesser coding capability also create value in the form of skills and knowledge. It’s hard to identify and quantify those whose contributions helped most, but I feel all contributions are worthwhile. Not all code may be tip-worthy, but I don’t feel chagrin toward those collecting, however they do so. > Only three projects—less than 3 percent of the study’s sample—had more than 50 contributors.[1] [1] https://increment.com/open-source/the-rise-of-few-maintainer-projects/ https://increment.com/open-source/the-rise-of-few-maintainer... [2] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308894462 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308894462
- musingsole 6y ago
  > those folks still may produce value to those other than themselves. They may, but my point here is that the reason a corporate SWE's code is so valuable isn't because of the code itself. It's because of the ecosystem that the SWE and corp are a part of. That ecosystem serves to multiply a meaningless block of code into a couple million dollars that can be split nicely with all the non-coders who made it useful. Without that ecosystem, an open source project can never hope to monetize to the same level. That big open source projects have substantial funding is an effect of being so imminently usable in those million dollar ecosystems that the forgotten scraps of the corporations are enough to sustain them.
  - aspenmayer 6y ago
    I generally agree with your interpretation, but I don’t see what you’re advocating for. What do you think are the flaws/benefits of big open source projects receiving the lion’s share of open source donations? What funding model makes sense for those smaller projects? For many groups doing fundraising, the work of doing the fundraising itself is extremely labor and time intensive compared to the actual work the group does. Fundraising costs incentivize projects to become bigger and higher-profile to enhance their fundraising ability, but this increase in size and reach may not be helpful to all projects in all ways equally. More bugs may be squashed from more eyes; more cooks in the kitchen may make for lower quality standards of releases. It’s all a double-edged sword. I’m curious about your thoughts on this conundrum.