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> Eventually the users will learn to support developers without coercion, just as they have learned to support public radio and television stations. The crowd

> Eventually the users will learn to support developers without coercion, just as they have learned to support public radio and television stations. The crowd funding culture is evolving. In recent years I follow and donate to a couple of public initiatives in my country from free media, environment, and other public services. People are excited to donate and be members in projects that solve real problem, conduct transparency and communicate with the members. Its all about trust.

api 6y ago
That works at a small scale. When things get big, people start behaving badly... or alternately you could say that when things get big their surface area becomes sufficient so as to encompass a lot of bad behavior. The problem is that not all software tasks are small. There are many valuable problems and applications that are too difficult for a single individual or a very small group to address. As soon as you get more than one person involved you start to need the infrastructure of a business, and that's expensive. You quickly outgrow what voluntarist community scale systems can handle.
- number6 6y ago
  On the other hand there is Mastodon, there is KDE, there is the Linux Kernel. All varying in their level of infrastructure but all are communitys of volunteers. Most programming languages work this way too
  - api 6y ago
    All these things are used by nerds and have little chance of breaking into the mainstream. They're too labor intensive to use and deploy and impose too much cognitive load. 10% of the work is making it work. The user experience necessary for mass adoption is the other 90%, and it's mostly work that is not fun and that people must therefore be paid to do. If the goal is just to have a for-nerds-by-nerds ecosystem that's fine, though ultimately I think without mass market penetration it's likely that the hardware ecosystem will eventually close. We are seeing the encroachment of locked boot loaders everywhere. Eventually it may be hard to get a fast modern chip that can run the open stuff if the open stuff does not have sufficient mass in the economy to demand it. That and I for one think privacy and freedom for everyone is a worthy goal. For-nerds-by-nerds is elitist.
    - ghaff 6y ago
      Linux isn't mainstream? Sure, by consumers running as a desktop operating system but consumers are using Linux all the time; they just don't know it. (Android, Amazon, Chromebooks, many cars, etc.) Linux isn't like the two other things on that list.
      - api 6y ago
        Android and Chromebooks are usually pretty closed in spite if having a Linux kernel.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    >there is the Linux Kernel The Linux kernel is most certainly not a community of volunteers. It's overwhelmingly developers doing this as their day jobs. From the 2017 Linux Kernel Development Report: : "It is worth noting that, even if one assumes that all of the “unknown” contributors are working on their own time, well over 85 percent of all kernel development is demonstrably done by developers who are being paid for their work."
    - number6 6y ago
      > The Linux kernel is most certainly not a community of volunteers. This depends on the definition of community. While most of the developers are paid for their time. Someone voluntarily contributes this developer time to the kernel. Now you could argue that the companies don't do this voluntarily but are driven by market forces etc. On the other hand, these companies could just ignore the the Linux Environment; and some companies do this.
- anoplus 6y ago
  > When things get big, people start behaving badly Good point. As the sense of belonging is also important. I commented about it in another post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23414793 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23414793 > "Humans are tribal and their survival depends on teamwork of about ~100 people or so. This is natural on intimate scale." Readers suggested a couple of ideas on this. Maybe the scale is solved by having a network of small groups connected, where each group has a "representative" that is also a member in group of "representatives". And maybe members can also intentionally exchange groups periodically to build natural connections across groups.
nske 6y ago
From the perspective of user, it's not as simple, at least for some. a) At a personal level, it forces the user to make choices. Making choices is exhausting. Should I donate $1, $10, or $100? Should I donate based on my perception of how much each project lacks funds, based on how much value I extract out of the software -which is not easy to quantify anyway- or just send an amount that I wouldn't miss? Should I donate one-time and forget about it or set a recurring donation? If recurring, shouldn't I monitor the project's development to decide if a recurring donation should continue? Then would it not be fair to hunt down every single free software project I'm using and evaluate its needs and value in order to donate to that as well? Personally I admit that I rarely donate to free projects as an individual, unless they explicitly ask for a fixed amount that I find reasonable, because I dread the process of such decisions. 2) At a business level, usually there is a complete detachment between the value drawn out of a piece of a free software and the process of donations. The company is there to maximize its profits and minimize its costs, donations exist at a separate sphere that has more to do with financial/tax or PR incentives than the intrinsic value of the free software project, so all donations tend to get send to recognized charity organizations. Very often the people who understand the value that a piece of free software brings to the business, have the right mindset and want to donate, but there is no process to make it easy for them to do so (it would be awkward to put a purchase order to the finance department for a donation). For that reason, I would encourage every free software project that cares about funding to sell something at a fixed price, that can pass for a standard purchase in the eyes of a non-technical person -i.e. call it support/maintenance plan, or premium forum access. Even if in reality it adds nothing to the value of the software, it makes it easy for IT departments to support projects they are using that they would otherwise not be able to. Speaking from experience, it's very frustrating to see how much a company spends for bullshit and not be able to donate even a small amount to projects that bring much higher value to the company.
- phone8675309 6y ago
  >At a personal level, it forces the user to make choices. Making choices is exhausting. Should I donate $1, $10, or $100? Should I donate based on my perception of how much each project lacks funds, based on how much value I extract out of the software -which is not easy to quantify anyway- or just send an amount that I wouldn't miss? I can't speak for what society should do, but I adopt a "value for value" mindset. If software saves me time, I drop a donation that is in proportion to the value it has to me. This is sometimes hard to quantify, but as a rough estimate, if it's in a professional capacity, I start my hourly rate multiplied by the time it saved me, and if it's in a personal capacity (think used with hobby work), I start with half my hourly rate multiplied by the time it saved me. You should never feel like you should give more than you can comfortably give. > Should I donate one-time and forget about it or set a recurring donation? If recurring, shouldn't I monitor the project's development to decide if a recurring donation should continue? It depends on the project - often I'll ask the author. Some software is backed with recurring donators, so a one-time donation to help pay for some hardware or software the project needs is the most helpful, but some software is not backed by recurring donations, so a smaller, recurring donation will help sustain the project for longer (especially with hosting bills or other recurring expenses). My number one suggestion to free software authors that accept donations would be to specify whether one-time or recurring donations would be more helpful, and if one-time, if there are specific expenses/amounts that are needed that could have a high impact on the project. > Then would it not be fair to hunt down every single free software project I'm using and evaluate its needs and value in order to donate to that as well? Disabuse yourself of the notion that life is fair. For me, there is certain free software that I use almost constantly (Debian and Emacs, say), and some free software that I use one-off that saves me a large amount of time. Both are examples of projects that I would consider donate to. Something that I use once or twice a month for a short amount of time and has many alternatives I may not donate to.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
thomzane 6y ago
Becoming a member of the FSF https://my.fsf.org/join https://my.fsf.org/join is a great way to help free software.

api 6y ago

That works at a small scale. When things get big, people start behaving badly... or alternately you could say that when things get big their surface area becomes sufficient so as to encompass a lot of bad behavior. The problem is that not all software tasks are small. There are many valuable problems and applications that are too difficult for a single individual or a very small group to address. As soon as you get more than one person involved you start to need the infrastructure of a business, and that's expensive. You quickly outgrow what voluntarist community scale systems can handle.

number6 6y ago
On the other hand there is Mastodon, there is KDE, there is the Linux Kernel. All varying in their level of infrastructure but all are communitys of volunteers. Most programming languages work this way too
- api 6y ago
  All these things are used by nerds and have little chance of breaking into the mainstream. They're too labor intensive to use and deploy and impose too much cognitive load. 10% of the work is making it work. The user experience necessary for mass adoption is the other 90%, and it's mostly work that is not fun and that people must therefore be paid to do. If the goal is just to have a for-nerds-by-nerds ecosystem that's fine, though ultimately I think without mass market penetration it's likely that the hardware ecosystem will eventually close. We are seeing the encroachment of locked boot loaders everywhere. Eventually it may be hard to get a fast modern chip that can run the open stuff if the open stuff does not have sufficient mass in the economy to demand it. That and I for one think privacy and freedom for everyone is a worthy goal. For-nerds-by-nerds is elitist.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    Linux isn't mainstream? Sure, by consumers running as a desktop operating system but consumers are using Linux all the time; they just don't know it. (Android, Amazon, Chromebooks, many cars, etc.) Linux isn't like the two other things on that list.
    - api 6y ago
      Android and Chromebooks are usually pretty closed in spite if having a Linux kernel.
- ghaff 6y ago
  >there is the Linux Kernel The Linux kernel is most certainly not a community of volunteers. It's overwhelmingly developers doing this as their day jobs. From the 2017 Linux Kernel Development Report: : "It is worth noting that, even if one assumes that all of the “unknown” contributors are working on their own time, well over 85 percent of all kernel development is demonstrably done by developers who are being paid for their work."
  - number6 6y ago
    > The Linux kernel is most certainly not a community of volunteers. This depends on the definition of community. While most of the developers are paid for their time. Someone voluntarily contributes this developer time to the kernel. Now you could argue that the companies don't do this voluntarily but are driven by market forces etc. On the other hand, these companies could just ignore the the Linux Environment; and some companies do this.
anoplus 6y ago
> When things get big, people start behaving badly Good point. As the sense of belonging is also important. I commented about it in another post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23414793 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23414793 > "Humans are tribal and their survival depends on teamwork of about ~100 people or so. This is natural on intimate scale." Readers suggested a couple of ideas on this. Maybe the scale is solved by having a network of small groups connected, where each group has a "representative" that is also a member in group of "representatives". And maybe members can also intentionally exchange groups periodically to build natural connections across groups.

nske 6y ago

From the perspective of user, it's not as simple, at least for some. a) At a personal level, it forces the user to make choices. Making choices is exhausting. Should I donate $1, $10, or $100? Should I donate based on my perception of how much each project lacks funds, based on how much value I extract out of the software -which is not easy to quantify anyway- or just send an amount that I wouldn't miss? Should I donate one-time and forget about it or set a recurring donation? If recurring, shouldn't I monitor the project's development to decide if a recurring donation should continue? Then would it not be fair to hunt down every single free software project I'm using and evaluate its needs and value in order to donate to that as well? Personally I admit that I rarely donate to free projects as an individual, unless they explicitly ask for a fixed amount that I find reasonable, because I dread the process of such decisions. 2) At a business level, usually there is a complete detachment between the value drawn out of a piece of a free software and the process of donations. The company is there to maximize its profits and minimize its costs, donations exist at a separate sphere that has more to do with financial/tax or PR incentives than the intrinsic value of the free software project, so all donations tend to get send to recognized charity organizations. Very often the people who understand the value that a piece of free software brings to the business, have the right mindset and want to donate, but there is no process to make it easy for them to do so (it would be awkward to put a purchase order to the finance department for a donation). For that reason, I would encourage every free software project that cares about funding to sell something at a fixed price, that can pass for a standard purchase in the eyes of a non-technical person -i.e. call it support/maintenance plan, or premium forum access. Even if in reality it adds nothing to the value of the software, it makes it easy for IT departments to support projects they are using that they would otherwise not be able to. Speaking from experience, it's very frustrating to see how much a company spends for bullshit and not be able to donate even a small amount to projects that bring much higher value to the company.

phone8675309 6y ago
>At a personal level, it forces the user to make choices. Making choices is exhausting. Should I donate $1, $10, or $100? Should I donate based on my perception of how much each project lacks funds, based on how much value I extract out of the software -which is not easy to quantify anyway- or just send an amount that I wouldn't miss? I can't speak for what society should do, but I adopt a "value for value" mindset. If software saves me time, I drop a donation that is in proportion to the value it has to me. This is sometimes hard to quantify, but as a rough estimate, if it's in a professional capacity, I start my hourly rate multiplied by the time it saved me, and if it's in a personal capacity (think used with hobby work), I start with half my hourly rate multiplied by the time it saved me. You should never feel like you should give more than you can comfortably give. > Should I donate one-time and forget about it or set a recurring donation? If recurring, shouldn't I monitor the project's development to decide if a recurring donation should continue? It depends on the project - often I'll ask the author. Some software is backed with recurring donators, so a one-time donation to help pay for some hardware or software the project needs is the most helpful, but some software is not backed by recurring donations, so a smaller, recurring donation will help sustain the project for longer (especially with hosting bills or other recurring expenses). My number one suggestion to free software authors that accept donations would be to specify whether one-time or recurring donations would be more helpful, and if one-time, if there are specific expenses/amounts that are needed that could have a high impact on the project. > Then would it not be fair to hunt down every single free software project I'm using and evaluate its needs and value in order to donate to that as well? Disabuse yourself of the notion that life is fair. For me, there is certain free software that I use almost constantly (Debian and Emacs, say), and some free software that I use one-off that saves me a large amount of time. Both are examples of projects that I would consider donate to. Something that I use once or twice a month for a short amount of time and has many alternatives I may not donate to.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

thomzane 6y ago

Becoming a member of the FSF https://my.fsf.org/join https://my.fsf.org/join is a great way to help free software.