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I keep trying to bring this up at work. We use a ton of FOSS software. We pay thousands per month to AWS, Datadog, etc... but nothing for the "free" software w

by tibbon 5y ago

I keep trying to bring this up at work. We use a ton of FOSS software. We pay thousands per month to AWS, Datadog, etc... but nothing for the "free" software we use. People are generally in support of the idea, but then it falls away as a priority, and there's the question of which projects to fund and for how much. We'd have to talk to the finance department, figure out a budget, etc. So it doesn't happen.

rectang 5y ago
Hire the core maintainers of projects which are mission-critical. It's an old idea, and a proven one. Anecdotally, I made my living as a such a hire for nearly a decade. Another good plan, mentioned elsethread: have your current devs contribute. Opportunities to contribute always arise, and contributing is in the company's interest. The only thing typically standing in the way is codifying an open source policy (which is a good idea for large organizations.)
acdha 5y ago
That question of targeting is important: I would argue that the most effective way most companies support open source is by buying Red Hat or Ubuntu licenses simply because it's a model which every accountant understands and you can make a single payment which will filter to tons of projects either in the form of direct employment of maintainers or patch contributions. I'm aware of various attempts to collect payments or offer support plans but I don't think anyone's hit a combination which is as corporate-friendly. Everyone understands the idea of paying for support and it's usually much easier to give six figures to one party than 3 figures to a dozen projects, _especially_ when the latter doesn't get you some kind of guaranteed benefit easily explained to the accountants.
pgeorgi 5y ago
If you have a particular project to support, ask a dev if they can offer a "support contract" (even if that only means "clients can send me, the developer, an email if they have issues and I'll reply within 3 business days, I'll also take care of releasing at least once every 6 months"). That way there's something for the finance department to work with. Once the dust settled, do the same with the next project.
- thinkharderdev 5y ago
  Yeah, this ends up being compelling from the business side as well. If you have mission-critical systems running on OSS software then it is absolutely worth it to have access to the maintainers in case you run into serious issues or need a bugfix prioritized. From the maintainer side it can be a bit tricky though. Typically the finance will want to pay another corporation, so the maintainer would need to create some sort of legal entity to bill with. The other potential issues would be around legal liability in case something goes sideways. You run the risk of getting sued if you don't provide a level of support that some corporate client is expecting.
  - maccard 5y ago
    In my experience finance don't care as long as there's an invoice and the tax is correct.
corpMaverick 5y ago
Agree. At the very least. Companies should buy support contracts for the free software they use. But there is not an easy way to do this either.

by tibbon 5y ago

rectang 5y ago

Hire the core maintainers of projects which are mission-critical. It's an old idea, and a proven one. Anecdotally, I made my living as a such a hire for nearly a decade. Another good plan, mentioned elsethread: have your current devs contribute. Opportunities to contribute always arise, and contributing is in the company's interest. The only thing typically standing in the way is codifying an open source policy (which is a good idea for large organizations.)

acdha 5y ago

That question of targeting is important: I would argue that the most effective way most companies support open source is by buying Red Hat or Ubuntu licenses simply because it's a model which every accountant understands and you can make a single payment which will filter to tons of projects either in the form of direct employment of maintainers or patch contributions. I'm aware of various attempts to collect payments or offer support plans but I don't think anyone's hit a combination which is as corporate-friendly. Everyone understands the idea of paying for support and it's usually much easier to give six figures to one party than 3 figures to a dozen projects, _especially_ when the latter doesn't get you some kind of guaranteed benefit easily explained to the accountants.

pgeorgi 5y ago

If you have a particular project to support, ask a dev if they can offer a "support contract" (even if that only means "clients can send me, the developer, an email if they have issues and I'll reply within 3 business days, I'll also take care of releasing at least once every 6 months"). That way there's something for the finance department to work with. Once the dust settled, do the same with the next project.

thinkharderdev 5y ago
Yeah, this ends up being compelling from the business side as well. If you have mission-critical systems running on OSS software then it is absolutely worth it to have access to the maintainers in case you run into serious issues or need a bugfix prioritized. From the maintainer side it can be a bit tricky though. Typically the finance will want to pay another corporation, so the maintainer would need to create some sort of legal entity to bill with. The other potential issues would be around legal liability in case something goes sideways. You run the risk of getting sued if you don't provide a level of support that some corporate client is expecting.
- maccard 5y ago
  In my experience finance don't care as long as there's an invoice and the tax is correct.

corpMaverick 5y ago

Agree. At the very least. Companies should buy support contracts for the free software they use. But there is not an easy way to do this either.