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I work for a startup that benefits from open source. I can and do make the case for spending a lot of money on SaaS products and hiring people. But there is no

I work for a startup that benefits from open source. I can and do make the case for spending a lot of money on SaaS products and hiring people. But there is no way in the world I can stand in front of company leadership and ask for money to spend on something that I already get for free. I'd look out of touch with the realities of running a business and the request would be roundly shouted down. If there's some value I can get then it's a much easier sell. For example, if there is a Babel job board then I can choose to use that over alternatives when I next hire. Jed Watson proposed https://budgetforopensource.org/ https://budgetforopensource.org/, which puts this type of thing in the employee perk category so that I can justify it using hiring as a goal. These are things where I can make a business case for spending real dollars, rather than a philosophical argument.

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plasma 5y ago
> But there is no way in the world I can stand in front of > company leadership and ask for money to spend on something > that I already get for free. I'd look out of touch with > the realities of running a business. The request would be > roundly shouted down. I agree, at minimum, the its free but seeking sponsorship model is making it hard. Looking at their Sponsorship options on GitHub [1] I see there's a useful perk at the $2,000/month price point, a Support Tier. It would be interesting to investigate offering "Paid support" for $50-100/month (something easier to put on a development team's corporate credit card), that gives you "priority" in response to GitHub Issues. Something tangible that the company gets back. [1] https://github.com/sponsors/babel?o=esb https://github.com/sponsors/babel?o=esb
- bsder 5y ago
  Yeah, that jump from $20/month to $500/month is too big. JetBrains asks for $500 per year--that's probably right about the discretionary spend of a decent engineer. $500/month means you're going to have to generate me an invoice and that invokes a whole bunch of corporate machinery that you don't want activated if you want a donation.
  - creshal 5y ago
    > JetBrains asks for $500 per year For IntelliJ; their other tools are $200 a year. And I suspect the average enterprise Java engineer has more discretionary spending than a random JS fullstack devsecops person.
    - bsder 5y ago
      Sorry, I never even noticed their "teams" things. And it looks like the full pack is now $650.
      - indemnity 5y ago
        Holy shit, I must be grandfathered in, I’m still paying US$150 per year for the all products pack. Just paid three days ago too.
        ipsi 5y ago
        It's €650 for the all-products pack for an organisation, or €250 for an individual, dropping to €199 in the second year, and €150 in the third+ year, which probably explains it.
        tehnicaorg 5y ago
        149€, third year onwards, individual use
        easton 5y ago
        But the individual license can be used at work, it just can’t be transferred to another person since it’s licensed to you.
        KptMarchewa 5y ago
        And you can't be reimbursed for it in any way.
        5y ago
notimetorelax 5y ago
Corps I worked for usually seek to create some kind of contractual obligation between the authors and the company. Of course they pay to get the authors to accept the obligations.
bengale 5y ago
> can and do make the case for spending a lot of money on SaaS products and hiring people. But there is no way in the world I can stand in front of company leadership and ask for money to spend on something that I already get for free. I'd look out of touch with the realities of running a business and the request would be roundly shouted down. You're right is very difficult. It feels like there needs to be a product version of these tools, I can definitely explain to my partners that we need this tool and it costs £xxx. But to explain that we should pay for free tools when we might be one of a very few that are is going to be a hard sell.
cycomanic 5y ago
The irony about this is that it's the same companies then complaining that development is not being continued or not going in the direction they want. Essentially what you're saying is that the realities of running a business is the equivalent of a millionaire going to the local soup kitchen/food bank and taking as much food as possible and then complaining about the food.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

plasma 5y ago

> But there is no way in the world I can stand in front of > company leadership and ask for money to spend on something > that I already get for free. I'd look out of touch with > the realities of running a business. The request would be > roundly shouted down. I agree, at minimum, the its free but seeking sponsorship model is making it hard. Looking at their Sponsorship options on GitHub [1] I see there's a useful perk at the $2,000/month price point, a Support Tier. It would be interesting to investigate offering "Paid support" for $50-100/month (something easier to put on a development team's corporate credit card), that gives you "priority" in response to GitHub Issues. Something tangible that the company gets back. [1] https://github.com/sponsors/babel?o=esb https://github.com/sponsors/babel?o=esb

bsder 5y ago
Yeah, that jump from $20/month to $500/month is too big. JetBrains asks for $500 per year--that's probably right about the discretionary spend of a decent engineer. $500/month means you're going to have to generate me an invoice and that invokes a whole bunch of corporate machinery that you don't want activated if you want a donation.
- creshal 5y ago
  > JetBrains asks for $500 per year For IntelliJ; their other tools are $200 a year. And I suspect the average enterprise Java engineer has more discretionary spending than a random JS fullstack devsecops person.
  - bsder 5y ago
    Sorry, I never even noticed their "teams" things. And it looks like the full pack is now $650.
    - indemnity 5y ago
      Holy shit, I must be grandfathered in, I’m still paying US$150 per year for the all products pack. Just paid three days ago too.
      - ipsi 5y ago
        It's €650 for the all-products pack for an organisation, or €250 for an individual, dropping to €199 in the second year, and €150 in the third+ year, which probably explains it.
      - tehnicaorg 5y ago
        149€, third year onwards, individual use
        easton 5y ago
        But the individual license can be used at work, it just can’t be transferred to another person since it’s licensed to you.
        KptMarchewa 5y ago
        And you can't be reimbursed for it in any way.
        5y ago

notimetorelax 5y ago

Corps I worked for usually seek to create some kind of contractual obligation between the authors and the company. Of course they pay to get the authors to accept the obligations.

bengale 5y ago

> can and do make the case for spending a lot of money on SaaS products and hiring people. But there is no way in the world I can stand in front of company leadership and ask for money to spend on something that I already get for free. I'd look out of touch with the realities of running a business and the request would be roundly shouted down. You're right is very difficult. It feels like there needs to be a product version of these tools, I can definitely explain to my partners that we need this tool and it costs £xxx. But to explain that we should pay for free tools when we might be one of a very few that are is going to be a hard sell.

cycomanic 5y ago

The irony about this is that it's the same companies then complaining that development is not being continued or not going in the direction they want. Essentially what you're saying is that the realities of running a business is the equivalent of a millionaire going to the local soup kitchen/food bank and taking as much food as possible and then complaining about the food.