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> You are basically saying "I wish that people writing FOSS stopped doing that." Yes. I wish people would stop doing FOSS and started doing source avaialble in

> You are basically saying "I wish that people writing FOSS stopped doing that." Yes. I wish people would stop doing FOSS and started doing source avaialble instead of open source and charged companies money. I wish people who built super valuable software got properly rewarded for their efforts. I know it's odd that someone doesn't think FOSS is great. But some of us honestly think it's the worst thing in tech. It's the cause of so many hassles for companies and open source maintainers alike. It seems like every month some open source maintainer has to tell people that they're not getting paid for this and they don't have time to work on it properly because they have a day job and a life. So they have very limited time to work on this project. Then we have maintainers who tell people they don't really want pull requests because pull requests are work since they need to maintain them. All of this is solved when people are paid for thier work and it's not a hobby project. > That makes the very naive assumption that a FOSS project that has grown to be successful would have reached the same status if it were "source available". The thing is, it wouldn't even need to reach the same status to generate a livable income. Seriously, if you have a project that you sell to revenue generating companies for 1k a year each. And you only get 75 companies using it heavily instead of 30,000 companies. You're good to live off that and work on that project full time.

rglullis 5y ago
> You're good to live off that and work on that project full time. What if they don't want to work on it full time? What if they don't feel like they are tied to their work or obligated to serve "customers"? Software is not just about creating tools for a trade. Software is also self-expression and leverage for creating other things of worth. Your issue is with FOSS developers who are amateurs (in the good sense of the word) and thus "fail" at supporting themselves and their "customers" with their work. This is a not only an incredibly myopic view - I really don't even want to imagine what would be the state of the industry if FOSS projects like GNU, Linux, Apache and many others who are successfully funded didn't exist - it is also one that serves only the big corporate world that you think "should be paying". It reeks of a Protestant worldview that acts as something is only worth doing if you can make money off it. Anyway, your problem is with "amateurism" in the industry, not with FOSS. For every "hassle" you find in FOSS projects, there are plenty of others who are successfully managed, with developers who know to answer "This is Free Software, but it does not mean you are entitled to free work or my time. If you want me to solve a problem you are having, you have to pay for it".

rglullis 5y ago

> You're good to live off that and work on that project full time. What if they don't want to work on it full time? What if they don't feel like they are tied to their work or obligated to serve "customers"? Software is not just about creating tools for a trade. Software is also self-expression and leverage for creating other things of worth. Your issue is with FOSS developers who are amateurs (in the good sense of the word) and thus "fail" at supporting themselves and their "customers" with their work. This is a not only an incredibly myopic view - I really don't even want to imagine what would be the state of the industry if FOSS projects like GNU, Linux, Apache and many others who are successfully funded didn't exist - it is also one that serves only the big corporate world that you think "should be paying". It reeks of a Protestant worldview that acts as something is only worth doing if you can make money off it. Anyway, your problem is with "amateurism" in the industry, not with FOSS. For every "hassle" you find in FOSS projects, there are plenty of others who are successfully managed, with developers who know to answer "This is Free Software, but it does not mean you are entitled to free work or my time. If you want me to solve a problem you are having, you have to pay for it".