4 ms·

I find it obscene that there are some important software tools that are often developed by one guy in his rented basement and big corporations make billions on

I find it obscene that there are some important software tools that are often developed by one guy in his rented basement and big corporations make billions on the back of it without sharing a penny. We need a royalty system for open source software, so that these companies will have to start paying fair share to the developers they exploit. This will also ensure the overall safety as developers will have funds to do audits or hire staff to fix security issues or there will be an incentive for people to contribute as successful PRs would be eligible for royalties. Such system could be embedded in GitHub and other VCS. Individuals and companies with a revenue below certain threshold would be exempt from paying. There should be no opt out - in many countries a worker cannot legally work for free, even if they agree to it - they have to be paid at least a minimum wage and in the same vein companies using open source software without payment are circumventing this rule. This will also level the playing field for developers from poor backgrounds - some developers cannot afford to work for free, so they cannot contribute to open source even if they wanted to do, because they have bills to pay. This way open source wouldn't be only reserved for privileged developers who can afford to commit their spare time.

O5vYtytb 6y ago
This would be the end of open source software as we know it.
- varispeed 6y ago
  In a way yes, but currently it is not sustainable. I think we can do much better.
gonzo41 6y ago
As usual, https://xkcd.com/2347/ https://xkcd.com/2347/ The contributors to oss are in a tricky spot. Look at what happened with AWS forking Elasticsearch, sure there were reasons, but it seems like there's a gap in the licenses at the moment, that doesn't account for the scale things like ssl play in modern life. Whatever legal terms you'd use, you'd want to aim to not scare small companies in the hope of anchoring a income stream when the scale and find our the oss clause kicks in.
numpad0 6y ago
The fact is technical sophistication and commercial value do not correlate well. Currency is a medium to solve meat world conflicts and there is none for well-written pieces of software.
rjknight 6y ago
A different approach might be insurance markets. If I want to use component X, but the use of that component creates a risk (however small) that my business will be hacked, then my business could buy an insurance policy to cover that risk. If the software is maintained by an unpaid guy in a basement, the insurance is likely to be relatively expensive. The insurance company then has a strong incentive to pay basement guy to do maintenance of the software so as to reduce the risk of an insurance claim. This is grossly over-simplified, but if we accept the notion that businesses can have real liabilities if they get hacked, then they're going to want insurance and the insurance companies are going to want to drive rapid improvements in quality in order to reduce the number of claims. This effect has been a significant factor in improvements in safety in a wide range of other industries.
- yowlingcat 6y ago
  I like this approach more because it incentivizes fulfillment of the risk interface without precluding flexibility in how that might be accomplished. I agree with your conclusion that a significant factor in improvements in safety have been seen in other industries with this approach -- align the incentive of not externalizing the risk and I think you'll see a lot of the misbehavior disappear because it's no longer profitable.
  - varispeed 6y ago
    This is not a bad idea, but I am thinking whether this will only shift who is making money off the software from one big corporation to another. Maybe a combination of both - royalties to ensure developers are paid and insurance to ensure big corporations become conscious of their responsibilities.
    - rjknight 6y ago
      The ultimate point of the insurance market is to provide an incentive for quality. Use of components which the insurer regards as low-risk will be cheaper to insure. What would the insurer regard as low-risk? Typically, they would use two things: 1) Past experience - have they seen this piece of software regularly exploited? 2) Formal assessment in an underwriters' lab - do relevant experts consider the software to be well-constructed? Here open-source software has a real advantage, because the underwriters can review the source code directly, or pay others to do so. They have access to any automated tests and code coverage assessments, and so might assign a lower risk score to a project with more tests. They might even assign lower risk to projects written in languages that are known to produce safer code, so with all other things being equal a Rust codebase would be cheaper to insure than a C++ one. This is entirely compatible with a system of bounties or rewards for anyone who moves the project in the direction of safety and high-quality maintenance. By concentrating the risk associated with poor software quality on the insurer, we get around the problem where many different companies use the software but are unwilling to pay for its maintenance. The insurer has a greater incentive to care than they do, and so would be more willing to pay developers. I admit that this is a back-of-a-napkin sketch, but the incentives do seem to line up correctly.
JohnJamesRambo 6y ago
> developed by one guy in his rented basement and big corporations make billions on the back of it without sharing a penny. We need a royalty system I mean isn’t this what a software patent is for? And you guys hate those. It’s how you are properly compensated for your inventions.
- pessimizer 6y ago
  It has absolutely nothing to do with software patents, which are garbage, it's simple copyright. It's literally the way all proprietary software is distributed, sprinkled randomly with "open source spirit", with a vaguely specified micropayments system bolted on. Giving away your software to small business and individuals has nothing to do with Open Source, Microsoft (among others) does it with some of its biggest products that it later charges your firstborn for after you get past a certain size. If you want to do this, just do it.
- the_optimist 6y ago
  No, this is what copyrights and licensing are for. Patents were/are merely a silly exercise in language, exploitable primarily within the legal community.
pessimizer 6y ago
That's not Open Source software, that's proprietary software whose source you let people read. If you want to force people to contribute back if they distribute, make your software Free, if you want to force people to pay you, make your software proprietary.
- Shared404 6y ago
  Free as in Speech, not Free as in Beer. It is perfectly possible to charge for open source software.
vls-xy 6y ago
I agree, but only to an extent. From my perspective OSS contributors are not "privileged developers" who can afford to commit their spare time. Yes, software development is a privileged career, but the privilege is not really pay, but education. Anybody in the world with access to the internet and a decent education can become a software developer. It is a highly competitive global market. My suggestion to any developer who is working something crazy like a 996 schedule is to look for opportunities elsewhere.
- varispeed 6y ago
  My point is that there are many developers who would love to contribute to open source projects, but they don't have wealthy parents who pay bills, didn't inherit a flat, have families to feed and so on, so for them only viable option is to seek employment or work on their own business. People who can commit their time to work on open source are privileged and by giving their work away for free they create a situation that there is less work for people who cannot afford that. For example a company instead of hiring developers, paying salaries and taxes to create a tool they need, will instead use open source project for free and that means other developers are missing out. Ensuring that everyone gets paid levels the playing field. This is the same situation as you have with free internships - there are people whose families have money, so they can afford to get experience working for a company for free and that puts people from poor background into a disadvantage - that's why in many places unpaid internships are illegal.

O5vYtytb 6y ago

This would be the end of open source software as we know it.

varispeed 6y ago
In a way yes, but currently it is not sustainable. I think we can do much better.

gonzo41 6y ago

As usual, https://xkcd.com/2347/ https://xkcd.com/2347/ The contributors to oss are in a tricky spot. Look at what happened with AWS forking Elasticsearch, sure there were reasons, but it seems like there's a gap in the licenses at the moment, that doesn't account for the scale things like ssl play in modern life. Whatever legal terms you'd use, you'd want to aim to not scare small companies in the hope of anchoring a income stream when the scale and find our the oss clause kicks in.

numpad0 6y ago

The fact is technical sophistication and commercial value do not correlate well. Currency is a medium to solve meat world conflicts and there is none for well-written pieces of software.

rjknight 6y ago

A different approach might be insurance markets. If I want to use component X, but the use of that component creates a risk (however small) that my business will be hacked, then my business could buy an insurance policy to cover that risk. If the software is maintained by an unpaid guy in a basement, the insurance is likely to be relatively expensive. The insurance company then has a strong incentive to pay basement guy to do maintenance of the software so as to reduce the risk of an insurance claim. This is grossly over-simplified, but if we accept the notion that businesses can have real liabilities if they get hacked, then they're going to want insurance and the insurance companies are going to want to drive rapid improvements in quality in order to reduce the number of claims. This effect has been a significant factor in improvements in safety in a wide range of other industries.

yowlingcat 6y ago
I like this approach more because it incentivizes fulfillment of the risk interface without precluding flexibility in how that might be accomplished. I agree with your conclusion that a significant factor in improvements in safety have been seen in other industries with this approach -- align the incentive of not externalizing the risk and I think you'll see a lot of the misbehavior disappear because it's no longer profitable.
- varispeed 6y ago
  This is not a bad idea, but I am thinking whether this will only shift who is making money off the software from one big corporation to another. Maybe a combination of both - royalties to ensure developers are paid and insurance to ensure big corporations become conscious of their responsibilities.
  - rjknight 6y ago
    The ultimate point of the insurance market is to provide an incentive for quality. Use of components which the insurer regards as low-risk will be cheaper to insure. What would the insurer regard as low-risk? Typically, they would use two things: 1) Past experience - have they seen this piece of software regularly exploited? 2) Formal assessment in an underwriters' lab - do relevant experts consider the software to be well-constructed? Here open-source software has a real advantage, because the underwriters can review the source code directly, or pay others to do so. They have access to any automated tests and code coverage assessments, and so might assign a lower risk score to a project with more tests. They might even assign lower risk to projects written in languages that are known to produce safer code, so with all other things being equal a Rust codebase would be cheaper to insure than a C++ one. This is entirely compatible with a system of bounties or rewards for anyone who moves the project in the direction of safety and high-quality maintenance. By concentrating the risk associated with poor software quality on the insurer, we get around the problem where many different companies use the software but are unwilling to pay for its maintenance. The insurer has a greater incentive to care than they do, and so would be more willing to pay developers. I admit that this is a back-of-a-napkin sketch, but the incentives do seem to line up correctly.

JohnJamesRambo 6y ago

> developed by one guy in his rented basement and big corporations make billions on the back of it without sharing a penny. We need a royalty system I mean isn’t this what a software patent is for? And you guys hate those. It’s how you are properly compensated for your inventions.

pessimizer 6y ago
It has absolutely nothing to do with software patents, which are garbage, it's simple copyright. It's literally the way all proprietary software is distributed, sprinkled randomly with "open source spirit", with a vaguely specified micropayments system bolted on. Giving away your software to small business and individuals has nothing to do with Open Source, Microsoft (among others) does it with some of its biggest products that it later charges your firstborn for after you get past a certain size. If you want to do this, just do it.
the_optimist 6y ago
No, this is what copyrights and licensing are for. Patents were/are merely a silly exercise in language, exploitable primarily within the legal community.

pessimizer 6y ago

That's not Open Source software, that's proprietary software whose source you let people read. If you want to force people to contribute back if they distribute, make your software Free, if you want to force people to pay you, make your software proprietary.

Shared404 6y ago
Free as in Speech, not Free as in Beer. It is perfectly possible to charge for open source software.

vls-xy 6y ago

I agree, but only to an extent. From my perspective OSS contributors are not "privileged developers" who can afford to commit their spare time. Yes, software development is a privileged career, but the privilege is not really pay, but education. Anybody in the world with access to the internet and a decent education can become a software developer. It is a highly competitive global market. My suggestion to any developer who is working something crazy like a 996 schedule is to look for opportunities elsewhere.

varispeed 6y ago
My point is that there are many developers who would love to contribute to open source projects, but they don't have wealthy parents who pay bills, didn't inherit a flat, have families to feed and so on, so for them only viable option is to seek employment or work on their own business. People who can commit their time to work on open source are privileged and by giving their work away for free they create a situation that there is less work for people who cannot afford that. For example a company instead of hiring developers, paying salaries and taxes to create a tool they need, will instead use open source project for free and that means other developers are missing out. Ensuring that everyone gets paid levels the playing field. This is the same situation as you have with free internships - there are people whose families have money, so they can afford to get experience working for a company for free and that puts people from poor background into a disadvantage - that's why in many places unpaid internships are illegal.