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Something I never understood is why don't more maintainers just post the rate at which they'd be willing to do the work other people want? I suspect very few o

Something I never understood is why don't more maintainers just post the rate at which they'd be willing to do the work other people want? I suspect very few open source maintainers are doing so well financially that there's NO rate they would accept to perform other people's requests for their own project. Whatever number it would take to motivate you to do the work, just put it out there. Aside from the fact that you might get paid, there's a hidden benefit: cheapskates who don't value your time as much as you do will quit asking for freebies.

bawolff 6y ago
Lots of people do this as a hobby - getting paid for a hobby is a very good way to make it not fun anymore. If its consistent $$$ that might be worth it. For a one shot thing, maybe not as much. I think it also can be difficult to mix volunteer stuff with money. Posting in a bug tracker that multiple people work from which anyone can take on a bug from, that you will do it for $x, can make it feel like you're using a community resource to spam your business. There's probably other places where that type of advertisement is ok, but it ads an extra element of difficulty in doing these sorts of things.
- ornornor 6y ago
  > Lots of people do this as a hobby - getting paid for a hobby is a very good way to make it not fun anymore. Not sure why your downvoted, this is very true in my experience.
- apatters 6y ago
  Sure, but for almost everyone, there's a dollar figure at which they're willing to stop having fun and start making money. Maybe that dollar figure is $1,000/hr for some open source maintainer out there (I bet it's much lower for most of them). Why not put a line in the readme which says, if you want to commission a specific change, send me an email to discuss, my consulting rate starts at $XXX/hr. Or there's a $YYYY project minimum, or whatever is meaningful to the maintainer. If that feels too aggressive then leave the dollar figures out. Hard to imagine this running afoul of any reasonable community norms, especially for a project which already has the problem of too many people asking for things. Maintainers can handle this problem however they like, but I have a hard time feeling sorry for someone who's not getting paid, if they've never asked to be paid. I think they would be better off asking. And again, if no one inquires - then nothing changes, it's still a 100% hobby project, with the bonus that the expectation to do other people's shit for free is gone.
  - strogonoff 6y ago
    If OSS project maintainer offers “fixes for money”, then could there be a conflict of interest? Merging a PR that scratches some obvious itch would be equivalent to robbing my family of money I could earn by charging a BigCo and doing it myself. IMO one of the best ways to contribute to OSS while making some living is to do product development and/or consulting work, and structure it so that you can methodically encapsulate and open up the components involved. Of course, this unfortunately does not apply to every project out there, but I believe Django was born and had been developed this way for example, as well as probably many well-known projects that we don’t know the precise origins of.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - Kinrany 6y ago
      This can probably be fixed by splitting the platforms/features into tiers. Tier 1 is always fixed ASAP, tier 2 means that good contributions will be merged, tier 3 changes will only happen if sponsored.
  - ritchiea 6y ago
    Maybe but I've reached out to open source maintainers to offer them contracting work focused on their library and they have pretty much unanimously replied that they are too busy. And we were willing to pay above market rates to work on a product that has a significant global user base. There's definitely culture, process & funding problems around open source but for the most part being an open source maintainer seems like it's very good for your career. I suspect being an open source project maintainer is a self selecting grind.
  - bawolff 6y ago
    I imagine if someone is willing to pay a maintainer $1000/hr (implying they are that desperate to hire someone), the maintainer wouldn't need a line in the readme to hear about it. As someone who tried their hand at doing paid "consulting" work on an open source project i contributed to (just very briefly when i was between jobs. I wasn't very succesful at it. Nobody offered me $1000/hr) most of the jobs were very small and there was a surprising amount of overhead between getting different jobs (maybe not that surprising, i was probably just naive). Decently big $$$/hr translated to less than i thought it would in practise. > Maintainers can handle this problem however they like, but I have a hard time feeling sorry for someone who's not getting paid What exactly are you feeling sorry for, and would $$$ alleviate the issue? People don't go into open source software to become millionaires, and money will not fix burnout. > with the bonus that the expectation to do other people's shit for free is gone. People will always try to get you to do shit for free, even if its a paid project by a company. Not being paid at least means you can tell off the people you don't like really easily.
- ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
  > Lots of people do this as a hobby - getting paid for a hobby is a very good way to make it not fun anymore. This is true, but I don’t particularly like having my work thought of as a “hobby.” In the last three years, I’ve worked harder than I ever did, for a paycheck. I also feel as if the result of that work is the finest-quality software I’ve ever written. My GitHub Activity Graph is solid green (and absolutely not “gamed”)[0]. I code every single day; often a lot of coding. It’s all been unpaid. The work I got paid for, never got into the public domain. I’m currently working in closed-source, but the main reason is for a marketing embargo that will eventually lift (might be awhile, though. It’s a not-small effort). Nothing particularly proprietary or extreme. Most of my work is fairly pedestrian. [0] https://github.com/ChrisMarshallNY#github-stuff https://github.com/ChrisMarshallNY#github-stuff
- toyg 6y ago
  > getting paid for a hobby is a very good way to make it not fun anymore. ... or, in theory, to turn your hobby into your work, which I'm sure somebody would like (i.e. me, but somehow in 20 years it has never happened).
raxxorrax 6y ago
I can only speak for my projects that maybe 5-10 people use because they are rather specialized and nothing special. I simply don't want to be hired. I have a job and my projects are for fun. I am no idealist on these issues and earning your keeps as a open source developer sounds really good. But there is a difference between hobby and job, even if you can bring it close together ideally. But for hobbies I prefer to set any obligations myself. Of course I could set my rate to a large number, but I think it is important that people understand the motivation behind some projects and that is learning, having fun coding, sharing or something else, depends on the individual I guess. Saying 'no' can still take time...
thinkingemote 6y ago
Why don't regular software consultants post their rate? Pretty much for the same reasons as open source developers are the same.
nadaviv 6y ago
> The overjustification effect occurs when an expected external incentive such as money or prizes decreases a person's intrinsic motivation to perform a task. Overjustification is an explanation for the phenomenon known as motivational "crowding out." The overall effect of offering a reward for a previously unrewarded activity is a shift to extrinsic motivation and the undermining of pre-existing intrinsic motivation. Once rewards are no longer offered, interest in the activity is lost; prior intrinsic motivation does not return, and extrinsic rewards must be continuously offered as motivation to sustain the activity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overjustification_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overjustification_effect

bawolff 6y ago

Lots of people do this as a hobby - getting paid for a hobby is a very good way to make it not fun anymore. If its consistent $$$ that might be worth it. For a one shot thing, maybe not as much. I think it also can be difficult to mix volunteer stuff with money. Posting in a bug tracker that multiple people work from which anyone can take on a bug from, that you will do it for $x, can make it feel like you're using a community resource to spam your business. There's probably other places where that type of advertisement is ok, but it ads an extra element of difficulty in doing these sorts of things.

ornornor 6y ago
> Lots of people do this as a hobby - getting paid for a hobby is a very good way to make it not fun anymore. Not sure why your downvoted, this is very true in my experience.
apatters 6y ago
Sure, but for almost everyone, there's a dollar figure at which they're willing to stop having fun and start making money. Maybe that dollar figure is $1,000/hr for some open source maintainer out there (I bet it's much lower for most of them). Why not put a line in the readme which says, if you want to commission a specific change, send me an email to discuss, my consulting rate starts at $XXX/hr. Or there's a $YYYY project minimum, or whatever is meaningful to the maintainer. If that feels too aggressive then leave the dollar figures out. Hard to imagine this running afoul of any reasonable community norms, especially for a project which already has the problem of too many people asking for things. Maintainers can handle this problem however they like, but I have a hard time feeling sorry for someone who's not getting paid, if they've never asked to be paid. I think they would be better off asking. And again, if no one inquires - then nothing changes, it's still a 100% hobby project, with the bonus that the expectation to do other people's shit for free is gone.
- strogonoff 6y ago
  If OSS project maintainer offers “fixes for money”, then could there be a conflict of interest? Merging a PR that scratches some obvious itch would be equivalent to robbing my family of money I could earn by charging a BigCo and doing it myself. IMO one of the best ways to contribute to OSS while making some living is to do product development and/or consulting work, and structure it so that you can methodically encapsulate and open up the components involved. Of course, this unfortunately does not apply to every project out there, but I believe Django was born and had been developed this way for example, as well as probably many well-known projects that we don’t know the precise origins of.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - Kinrany 6y ago
    This can probably be fixed by splitting the platforms/features into tiers. Tier 1 is always fixed ASAP, tier 2 means that good contributions will be merged, tier 3 changes will only happen if sponsored.
- ritchiea 6y ago
  Maybe but I've reached out to open source maintainers to offer them contracting work focused on their library and they have pretty much unanimously replied that they are too busy. And we were willing to pay above market rates to work on a product that has a significant global user base. There's definitely culture, process & funding problems around open source but for the most part being an open source maintainer seems like it's very good for your career. I suspect being an open source project maintainer is a self selecting grind.
- bawolff 6y ago
  I imagine if someone is willing to pay a maintainer $1000/hr (implying they are that desperate to hire someone), the maintainer wouldn't need a line in the readme to hear about it. As someone who tried their hand at doing paid "consulting" work on an open source project i contributed to (just very briefly when i was between jobs. I wasn't very succesful at it. Nobody offered me $1000/hr) most of the jobs were very small and there was a surprising amount of overhead between getting different jobs (maybe not that surprising, i was probably just naive). Decently big $$$/hr translated to less than i thought it would in practise. > Maintainers can handle this problem however they like, but I have a hard time feeling sorry for someone who's not getting paid What exactly are you feeling sorry for, and would $$$ alleviate the issue? People don't go into open source software to become millionaires, and money will not fix burnout. > with the bonus that the expectation to do other people's shit for free is gone. People will always try to get you to do shit for free, even if its a paid project by a company. Not being paid at least means you can tell off the people you don't like really easily.
ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
> Lots of people do this as a hobby - getting paid for a hobby is a very good way to make it not fun anymore. This is true, but I don’t particularly like having my work thought of as a “hobby.” In the last three years, I’ve worked harder than I ever did, for a paycheck. I also feel as if the result of that work is the finest-quality software I’ve ever written. My GitHub Activity Graph is solid green (and absolutely not “gamed”)[0]. I code every single day; often a lot of coding. It’s all been unpaid. The work I got paid for, never got into the public domain. I’m currently working in closed-source, but the main reason is for a marketing embargo that will eventually lift (might be awhile, though. It’s a not-small effort). Nothing particularly proprietary or extreme. Most of my work is fairly pedestrian. [0] https://github.com/ChrisMarshallNY#github-stuff https://github.com/ChrisMarshallNY#github-stuff
toyg 6y ago
> getting paid for a hobby is a very good way to make it not fun anymore. ... or, in theory, to turn your hobby into your work, which I'm sure somebody would like (i.e. me, but somehow in 20 years it has never happened).

raxxorrax 6y ago

I can only speak for my projects that maybe 5-10 people use because they are rather specialized and nothing special. I simply don't want to be hired. I have a job and my projects are for fun. I am no idealist on these issues and earning your keeps as a open source developer sounds really good. But there is a difference between hobby and job, even if you can bring it close together ideally. But for hobbies I prefer to set any obligations myself. Of course I could set my rate to a large number, but I think it is important that people understand the motivation behind some projects and that is learning, having fun coding, sharing or something else, depends on the individual I guess. Saying 'no' can still take time...

thinkingemote 6y ago

Why don't regular software consultants post their rate? Pretty much for the same reasons as open source developers are the same.

nadaviv 6y ago

> The overjustification effect occurs when an expected external incentive such as money or prizes decreases a person's intrinsic motivation to perform a task. Overjustification is an explanation for the phenomenon known as motivational "crowding out." The overall effect of offering a reward for a previously unrewarded activity is a shift to extrinsic motivation and the undermining of pre-existing intrinsic motivation. Once rewards are no longer offered, interest in the activity is lost; prior intrinsic motivation does not return, and extrinsic rewards must be continuously offered as motivation to sustain the activity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overjustification_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overjustification_effect