4 ms·

I'm not sure to whom you are replying. I can't think of anyone I've ever met that started an open-source project expecting it to become their day job in short

by donw 5y ago

I'm not sure to whom you are replying. I can't think of anyone I've ever met that started an open-source project expecting it to become their day job in short order. When your project blows up and mints a herd of new gazillionaires, yes, it's reasonable to ask those companies to fund what is now an important community project. Anybody that says "nope, their money, they do what they want" is spouting the same flavor of dipshittery as "free speech only means the government can't censor, private companies are free to do what they want". Technically correct and functionally disastrous. Societies worth living in can and do not endure this behavior for long. Americans used to understand this. Know why there are schools all over the country named after Andrew Carnegie? Because that ruthless capitalist mercenary, after crushing every one of his competitors to dust, invested a large chunk of his fortune on infrastructure for national wealth that would propel another three generations.

saghm 5y ago
I think the point is that while it would be awesome to just have everyone pay open source maintainers what they can afford to when they use their project, in practice relying on people's (or worse, companies') good will is a losing strategy. It seem wildly unrealistic to just expect that everyone will just naturally give back to open source in a meaningful way absent any actual incentives or requirements, and even if it did start happening there would be nothing the situation from returning to the way it was before. I think most of the arguments you'll see against the idea of "just give back to open source maintainers even though you aren't required to" aren't skeptical of the idea that people should be compensated for their work, but just skeptical that peer pressure is the only thing needed to turn the current open source model into one where all maintainers are fairly compensated.
- donw 5y ago
  You're largely correct, but I'm not speaking about peer pressure. 'Tis the season, so we've been listening to a lot of Christmas carols. One of my favorites is Good King Wenceslas, which concludes with the verse: "Therefore, Christian men, be sure, wealth or rank possessing, Ye who now will bless the poor, shall yourselves find blessing." Charity used to be a behavioral expectation in the West. Charity is not "giving money to somebody else so they can do charity on your behalf" nor is it "paying taxes to fund social programs". Charity is you, directly, investing your resources in your community, with no expectation of return. Today, this assumption no longer holds. The result is the current state of open source, which needs to figure out a license that extracts value from players big enough to pay it, without punishing upstarts into oblivion (and thus forming a protective moat for existing large players). Some percentage of net revenue share strikes me as the right sort of license, with sensible caps and/or some sort of shared pooling mechanism.
  - pabs3 5y ago
    Such a license doesn't seem likely to fit the Open Source Definition.
    - meribold 5y ago
      Some projects use a copyleft license like the GPL or AGPL by default but also sell their product under another license to parties that want to avoid copyleft. This way the product is FOSS but companies that want to use it in their proprietary software have to pay. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-licensing#Business_models https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-licensing#Business_model...
  - perl4ever 5y ago
    >Charity is not "giving money to somebody else so they can do charity on your behalf" nor is it "paying taxes to fund social programs". Charity is you, directly, investing your resources in your community, with no expectation of return. Can you give some concrete examples? Because I can't tell what distinction you are trying to define, at all. In which bucket would you put: 1) Giving money to a local hospital 2) Volunteering with a non-profit organization 3) Giving cash to a wandering schizophrenic 4) Buying lunch for someone who's been holding up a cardboard sign at an off-ramp 5) Giving money to the United Way through paycheck deductions. 6) Giving money to an organization that funds research into a disease 7) Giving money to a local organization that gives grants and loans to disadvantaged people to start small businesses. 8) *Lending* money to a local non-profit that gives loans to disadvantaged people to start small businesses. 9) Giving money to a local food bank. 10) Donating blood to the Red Cross 11) Giving money to the Red Cross
- mbrodersen 5y ago
  You are absolutely right. The naivety of most open source developers when it comes to understanding how people/companies/markets work is jaw dropping. If you ask people to pay $0 for your work then that is exactly what they will pay. Wishing for things to be different is a waste of time. Accept how the world works and act accordingly.
  - wpietri 5y ago
    That isn't "the world". It's a relatively small set of people in a relatively small chunk of history that see themselves as entitled to make endless profit without ever worrying about where that comes from or who it hurts. It's not a sustainable mindset, so it never lasts. Look at the shift in attitudes toward the environment in the last 100 years as an example. There was a point where executives thought it absolutely fine to pollute wildly. That consequences were for the little people. Through a mix of culture change and improved regulation, that has changed, and it continues to change. A more recent example is the trend toward corporate social responsibility, which looks at a broad set of problems and devotes corporate resources toward fixing them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_social_responsibility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_social_responsibilit... Do they put in enough money? Surely not. But it's indicative of the kind of culture shift we can push for here.
    - Aeolun 5y ago
      > It's a relatively small set of people in a relatively small chunk of history I think it’s a fairly large chunk of history (e.g. all the time humans were a thing) that this applies to. The fact that it weren’t executives but kings, queens and nobles thinking this way doesn’t really change much. It’s not even necessarily malicious, but you really don’t want to think about the fact your life is so comfortable at the expense of other people.
      - gilleain 5y ago
        I agree with your general point, but Kings and Queens absolutely had to consider other people. Specifically, most rulers had some kind of patronage network where they gave out 'gifts' like land, or the right to collect taxes, in return for loyalty. Princes did not generally just sit on a huge pile of money, like a dragon. If they wanted to go to war or build a palace, they had raise taxes, which meant concessions to their power. Anyway, slightly off-topic! Still, the analogy holds - you don't get to be a prince of the internet without the work of a lot of minor nobles.
xyzzy_plugh 5y ago
> When your project blows up and mints a herd of new gazillionaires, yes, it's reasonable to ask those companies to fund what is now an important community project. You never need an excuse to ask, but neither side should feel compelled. The transaction is already complete. Once you give something away, it doesn't matter if someone else gets rich off it. You gave it away. You're not, and shouldn't feel, entitled to anything. If this bothers you, maybe you shouldn't have given it away for free? > Anybody that says "nope, their money, they do what they want" is spouting the same flavor of dipshittery as "free speech only means the government can't censor, private companies are free to do what they want". I don't know how to respond to this. This statement seems entirely paradoxical to me. Yes, it is their money, and they can do whatever they want. And also you accurately describe how free speech applies to private enterprises. Why are you so bothered by this? There is a question of morality, sure, but that's a fruitless conversation to have. It's one thing to wish the world were different, but another to be angry with people who live in this world. Does this make me a person who merely spouts dipshittery? You seem to acknowledge that the world is a certain a way, but feel shocked to find, and subsequently rebel against the idea that yes, it is actually that way. I don't understand this at all. I for one appreciate that this site and others are moderated and restrict and remove posts containing hate speech. I imagine that the majority of readers and contributors would agree with me. > Americans used to understand this. Know why there are schools all over the country named after Andrew Carnegie? Perhaps it's because I, and the rest of the world, are not American, but I can't say I've ever given a moment of thought to the names of schools in your country, or Carnegie for that matter. Perhaps America's fetish for capitalism is at the root of these divides. If you want to get paid and work on open source software full time, I can't think of a better way than under some form of universal basic income, but your capitalist infatuations make that unlikely. Charity is not the solution.

by donw 5y ago

saghm 5y ago

I think the point is that while it would be awesome to just have everyone pay open source maintainers what they can afford to when they use their project, in practice relying on people's (or worse, companies') good will is a losing strategy. It seem wildly unrealistic to just expect that everyone will just naturally give back to open source in a meaningful way absent any actual incentives or requirements, and even if it did start happening there would be nothing the situation from returning to the way it was before. I think most of the arguments you'll see against the idea of "just give back to open source maintainers even though you aren't required to" aren't skeptical of the idea that people should be compensated for their work, but just skeptical that peer pressure is the only thing needed to turn the current open source model into one where all maintainers are fairly compensated.

donw 5y ago
You're largely correct, but I'm not speaking about peer pressure. 'Tis the season, so we've been listening to a lot of Christmas carols. One of my favorites is Good King Wenceslas, which concludes with the verse: "Therefore, Christian men, be sure, wealth or rank possessing, Ye who now will bless the poor, shall yourselves find blessing." Charity used to be a behavioral expectation in the West. Charity is not "giving money to somebody else so they can do charity on your behalf" nor is it "paying taxes to fund social programs". Charity is you, directly, investing your resources in your community, with no expectation of return. Today, this assumption no longer holds. The result is the current state of open source, which needs to figure out a license that extracts value from players big enough to pay it, without punishing upstarts into oblivion (and thus forming a protective moat for existing large players). Some percentage of net revenue share strikes me as the right sort of license, with sensible caps and/or some sort of shared pooling mechanism.
- pabs3 5y ago
  Such a license doesn't seem likely to fit the Open Source Definition.
  - meribold 5y ago
    Some projects use a copyleft license like the GPL or AGPL by default but also sell their product under another license to parties that want to avoid copyleft. This way the product is FOSS but companies that want to use it in their proprietary software have to pay. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-licensing#Business_models https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-licensing#Business_model...
- perl4ever 5y ago
  >Charity is not "giving money to somebody else so they can do charity on your behalf" nor is it "paying taxes to fund social programs". Charity is you, directly, investing your resources in your community, with no expectation of return. Can you give some concrete examples? Because I can't tell what distinction you are trying to define, at all. In which bucket would you put: 1) Giving money to a local hospital 2) Volunteering with a non-profit organization 3) Giving cash to a wandering schizophrenic 4) Buying lunch for someone who's been holding up a cardboard sign at an off-ramp 5) Giving money to the United Way through paycheck deductions. 6) Giving money to an organization that funds research into a disease 7) Giving money to a local organization that gives grants and loans to disadvantaged people to start small businesses. 8) *Lending* money to a local non-profit that gives loans to disadvantaged people to start small businesses. 9) Giving money to a local food bank. 10) Donating blood to the Red Cross 11) Giving money to the Red Cross
mbrodersen 5y ago
You are absolutely right. The naivety of most open source developers when it comes to understanding how people/companies/markets work is jaw dropping. If you ask people to pay $0 for your work then that is exactly what they will pay. Wishing for things to be different is a waste of time. Accept how the world works and act accordingly.
- wpietri 5y ago
  That isn't "the world". It's a relatively small set of people in a relatively small chunk of history that see themselves as entitled to make endless profit without ever worrying about where that comes from or who it hurts. It's not a sustainable mindset, so it never lasts. Look at the shift in attitudes toward the environment in the last 100 years as an example. There was a point where executives thought it absolutely fine to pollute wildly. That consequences were for the little people. Through a mix of culture change and improved regulation, that has changed, and it continues to change. A more recent example is the trend toward corporate social responsibility, which looks at a broad set of problems and devotes corporate resources toward fixing them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_social_responsibility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_social_responsibilit... Do they put in enough money? Surely not. But it's indicative of the kind of culture shift we can push for here.
  - Aeolun 5y ago
    > It's a relatively small set of people in a relatively small chunk of history I think it’s a fairly large chunk of history (e.g. all the time humans were a thing) that this applies to. The fact that it weren’t executives but kings, queens and nobles thinking this way doesn’t really change much. It’s not even necessarily malicious, but you really don’t want to think about the fact your life is so comfortable at the expense of other people.
    - gilleain 5y ago
      I agree with your general point, but Kings and Queens absolutely had to consider other people. Specifically, most rulers had some kind of patronage network where they gave out 'gifts' like land, or the right to collect taxes, in return for loyalty. Princes did not generally just sit on a huge pile of money, like a dragon. If they wanted to go to war or build a palace, they had raise taxes, which meant concessions to their power. Anyway, slightly off-topic! Still, the analogy holds - you don't get to be a prince of the internet without the work of a lot of minor nobles.

xyzzy_plugh 5y ago

> When your project blows up and mints a herd of new gazillionaires, yes, it's reasonable to ask those companies to fund what is now an important community project. You never need an excuse to ask, but neither side should feel compelled. The transaction is already complete. Once you give something away, it doesn't matter if someone else gets rich off it. You gave it away. You're not, and shouldn't feel, entitled to anything. If this bothers you, maybe you shouldn't have given it away for free? > Anybody that says "nope, their money, they do what they want" is spouting the same flavor of dipshittery as "free speech only means the government can't censor, private companies are free to do what they want". I don't know how to respond to this. This statement seems entirely paradoxical to me. Yes, it is their money, and they can do whatever they want. And also you accurately describe how free speech applies to private enterprises. Why are you so bothered by this? There is a question of morality, sure, but that's a fruitless conversation to have. It's one thing to wish the world were different, but another to be angry with people who live in this world. Does this make me a person who merely spouts dipshittery? You seem to acknowledge that the world is a certain a way, but feel shocked to find, and subsequently rebel against the idea that yes, it is actually that way. I don't understand this at all. I for one appreciate that this site and others are moderated and restrict and remove posts containing hate speech. I imagine that the majority of readers and contributors would agree with me. > Americans used to understand this. Know why there are schools all over the country named after Andrew Carnegie? Perhaps it's because I, and the rest of the world, are not American, but I can't say I've ever given a moment of thought to the names of schools in your country, or Carnegie for that matter. Perhaps America's fetish for capitalism is at the root of these divides. If you want to get paid and work on open source software full time, I can't think of a better way than under some form of universal basic income, but your capitalist infatuations make that unlikely. Charity is not the solution.