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> Hey, what are your thoughts on the OP's argument, though? An ad-hom insult doesn't make an argument. OP isn't bashing open source, OP is bashing for-profit c

> Hey, what are your thoughts on the OP's argument, though? An ad-hom insult doesn't make an argument. OP isn't bashing open source, OP is bashing for-profit companies using it without contributing as an overall system, and OP's website isn't a for-profit company, so even the "OP is a dumb hypocrite" isn't only an insult, it's also wrong. > "There is no obligation or anything to encourage anyone to donate to the authors, most people don't care." My long term simple answer to American's "tipping problem"[1] is that if you want money, charge money. This emotional manipulation guilt tripping "you don't have to pay, it's free" "my children, think of my dying starving family, I need money" "oh but it's free honestly I do it to contribute to others" "but listen to the crying of my wife as she scrapes together the last of our posessions to take to the pawn shop" "no really, I encourage everyone to make and use free software (but you should FEEL BAD if you do what I encourage)" "but it's free, check out that license" "I'm only saying I was hoping you would behave like a decent person and not take advantage of me while I lie about my motives to your face and emotionally manipulate you" "btw don't even think of holding me responsible for any problems in the code, I disclaim all responsibility to the maximum amount permitted by law and offer no support for any problems" is just not a good or honest way to go about things. You want money, charge money. Code as an employee, be a consultant, be indipendent and sell your thing. You need money, charge money, there's multiple ways to do it, people have been doing it for years. Why aren't you able to charge money? At least partly because of all the people giving away the equivalent for free. Why would someone pay for your library when they could get a free one? If guilt tripping is the only answer, you need a better answer. If I plant a tree for everyone to have a bit more oxygen in the atmosphee, will you pay me for the oxygen you're using from my efforts? Of course not. [1] that's not to say I don't tip, it's to say I hate the design of the system and think it leaves the majority worse off and far more stressed, so the minority of attractive people in rich areas come out far ahead.

KronisLV 5y ago
> An ad-hom insult doesn't make an argument. OP isn't bashing open source, OP is bashing for-profit companies using it without contributing as an overall system, and OP's website isn't a for-profit company, so even the "OP is a dumb hypocrite" isn't only an insult, it's also wrong. I do agree that ad hominems are bad and that OP is maybe conflating bringing attention to problems with open source with actually being opposed to open source, which is definitely not the same thing! Lots of criticism may come from a position of wanting to improve everything. However, my more charitable interpretation of the original message would be along the lines of: "Open source seems to work, since you can post this criticism while utilizing a lot of open source technologies." And that's why i felt like creating my response/question above (apologies if that wasn't clear enough), since i'm surprised myself that we have as much working open source software in the first place, given how underfunded and underappreciated many of the oftentimes critical projects are. :( The bit about tipping is an interesting one - somehow many of the waiters in the USA aren't paid a living wage but instead have to rely on the patrons of the establishment to tip them. On one hand, that seems incredibly wrong to me (and unthinkable of in certain countries), however at the same time that implies that surely it's possible to somehow ingrain tipping or similar monetary actions into a culture to the point where it's not viewed as something outrageous by the denizens of said culture. How did tipping even become a thing? Why isn't tipping a thing in more industries (hopefully sans the abusive wage practices)? Why did "npm fund" become a thing just a number of years ago but was never really successful? https://dev.to/ruyadorno/npm-6-13-0-7f3 https://dev.to/ruyadorno/npm-6-13-0-7f3 Why do most corporations stop at extracting lists of dependencies in their projects so they don't get sued and don't have to release their codebases to the public, as opposed to actually funding the people on whose work they depend on? > You want money, charge money. Code as an employee, be a consultant, be indipendent and sell your thing. You need money, charge money, there's multiple ways to do it, people have been doing it for years. Why aren't you able to charge money? At least partly because of all the people giving away the equivalent for free. Why would someone pay for your library when they could get a free one? If guilt tripping is the only answer, you need a better answer. Are we incapable as humanity on a large scale to give money willingly to others, when we benefit from their work? > If I plant a tree for everyone to have a bit more oxygen in the atmosphere, will you pay me for the oxygen you're using from my efforts? Of course not. Why not? If i wasn't under constant stress about my financial future, scraping by to survive in an economy that doesn't feel viable long term (especially given how i receive cents on the dollar for my work in the grand scheme of things) and aggressively saving of what little i earn, while knowing that i have slim chances of ever having real estate of my own (given that currently that's only viable after decades of work, even if that), i'd be more than happy to pay someone for a tree or a well planted forest, if it'd be presented to me as something i can do easily. Just look at: https://teamtrees.org/ https://teamtrees.org/ If there is not a viable solution to the open source funding problem, i don't think open source has a future that's all that bright, at least outside of corporate backed projects or privileged people (e.g. those not under constant financial stress) who can afford the time and effort to put into it. Edit: apologies if that's an emotional reaction that's maybe not entirely rational, but another post here on HN also made me think: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29525286 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29525286 In short: It feels like open source developers should be paid, regardless of everything else.
- jodrellblank 5y ago
  > "However, my more charitable interpretation of the original message would be along the lines of: "Open source seems to work, since you can post this criticism while utilizing a lot of open source technologies."" The blog title is ""Open Source" is not broken" [edit I think the title changed since first reading]; > "however at the same time that implies that surely it's possible to somehow ingrain tipping or similar monetary actions into a culture to the point where it's not viewed as something outrageous by the denizens of said culture." I don't find tipping outrageous, rather annoying in that it turns a simple transaction (food for money) into a one-way unclear social negotiation. There's no fixed amount of tip which means it varies in different places, which means it's possible to be rude without meaning to be rude - in a way that has a knock on effect on the waiter's lifestyle - and a decision weighing up how much is fair, without being so much it's uncomfortable to pay or so little it risks insult. (See also the Monty Python Life of Brian scene "won't haggle"). > "Are we incapable as humanity on a large scale to give money willingly to others, when we benefit from their work?" Isn't that what "buying" is? A huge part of the world is devoted to this, paying money to others to benefit from their work. The question here is, if those others give their work for free, why then do they expect money and try to guilt people into giving them money, when there is a system whereby they could have asked for money in the first place? > "Why not? If i wasn't ... X, Y, Z..." Because if you aren't compelled to, you have plenty of other things to spend money on instead, apparently. > "In short: It feels like open source developers should be paid, regardless of everything else. [...] i don't think open source has a future that's all that bright" If nobody willingly wants to pay for a thing, then the author deserves to get paid for it? Why?
  - KronisLV 5y ago
    > Isn't that what "buying" is? No, buying is a financial transaction, without which you will not acquire the goods that you're after. With open source, you'll just take the code, benefit from it (like large corpos that make millions through it), but aren't obligated to give any of that money to the authors. While also not stealing, to me that sounds like exploitation on some level - the authors oftentimes seeing that as the status quo and being okay with it doesn't make it any less exploitative in my eyes. > If nobody willingly wants to pay for a thing, then the author deserves to get paid for it? Why? Because they're making the world a better place with the code that they create. If nobody wants to acknowledge that or willingly give them money for it (recognition also would be nice, but you can't eat recognition), then in my eyes the problem lies with society. In a better society, people who do the work would be taken care of.
watwut 5y ago
> no really, I encourage everyone to make and use free software (but you should FEEL BAD if you do what I encourage 100% this. I remember how open source advocates were literally pushing everyone who would listen to use and trust open source. Literally arguing by free too. Now, the people want to twist it into "and if you got convinced and use it you are asshole freeloader". Well then, maybe it should have been private licensed software of that is what you want. Which I'd actually fine by me.

KronisLV 5y ago

> An ad-hom insult doesn't make an argument. OP isn't bashing open source, OP is bashing for-profit companies using it without contributing as an overall system, and OP's website isn't a for-profit company, so even the "OP is a dumb hypocrite" isn't only an insult, it's also wrong. I do agree that ad hominems are bad and that OP is maybe conflating bringing attention to problems with open source with actually being opposed to open source, which is definitely not the same thing! Lots of criticism may come from a position of wanting to improve everything. However, my more charitable interpretation of the original message would be along the lines of: "Open source seems to work, since you can post this criticism while utilizing a lot of open source technologies." And that's why i felt like creating my response/question above (apologies if that wasn't clear enough), since i'm surprised myself that we have as much working open source software in the first place, given how underfunded and underappreciated many of the oftentimes critical projects are. :( The bit about tipping is an interesting one - somehow many of the waiters in the USA aren't paid a living wage but instead have to rely on the patrons of the establishment to tip them. On one hand, that seems incredibly wrong to me (and unthinkable of in certain countries), however at the same time that implies that surely it's possible to somehow ingrain tipping or similar monetary actions into a culture to the point where it's not viewed as something outrageous by the denizens of said culture. How did tipping even become a thing? Why isn't tipping a thing in more industries (hopefully sans the abusive wage practices)? Why did "npm fund" become a thing just a number of years ago but was never really successful? https://dev.to/ruyadorno/npm-6-13-0-7f3 https://dev.to/ruyadorno/npm-6-13-0-7f3 Why do most corporations stop at extracting lists of dependencies in their projects so they don't get sued and don't have to release their codebases to the public, as opposed to actually funding the people on whose work they depend on? > You want money, charge money. Code as an employee, be a consultant, be indipendent and sell your thing. You need money, charge money, there's multiple ways to do it, people have been doing it for years. Why aren't you able to charge money? At least partly because of all the people giving away the equivalent for free. Why would someone pay for your library when they could get a free one? If guilt tripping is the only answer, you need a better answer. Are we incapable as humanity on a large scale to give money willingly to others, when we benefit from their work? > If I plant a tree for everyone to have a bit more oxygen in the atmosphere, will you pay me for the oxygen you're using from my efforts? Of course not. Why not? If i wasn't under constant stress about my financial future, scraping by to survive in an economy that doesn't feel viable long term (especially given how i receive cents on the dollar for my work in the grand scheme of things) and aggressively saving of what little i earn, while knowing that i have slim chances of ever having real estate of my own (given that currently that's only viable after decades of work, even if that), i'd be more than happy to pay someone for a tree or a well planted forest, if it'd be presented to me as something i can do easily. Just look at: https://teamtrees.org/ https://teamtrees.org/ If there is not a viable solution to the open source funding problem, i don't think open source has a future that's all that bright, at least outside of corporate backed projects or privileged people (e.g. those not under constant financial stress) who can afford the time and effort to put into it. Edit: apologies if that's an emotional reaction that's maybe not entirely rational, but another post here on HN also made me think: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29525286 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29525286 In short: It feels like open source developers should be paid, regardless of everything else.

jodrellblank 5y ago
> "However, my more charitable interpretation of the original message would be along the lines of: "Open source seems to work, since you can post this criticism while utilizing a lot of open source technologies."" The blog title is ""Open Source" is not broken" [edit I think the title changed since first reading]; > "however at the same time that implies that surely it's possible to somehow ingrain tipping or similar monetary actions into a culture to the point where it's not viewed as something outrageous by the denizens of said culture." I don't find tipping outrageous, rather annoying in that it turns a simple transaction (food for money) into a one-way unclear social negotiation. There's no fixed amount of tip which means it varies in different places, which means it's possible to be rude without meaning to be rude - in a way that has a knock on effect on the waiter's lifestyle - and a decision weighing up how much is fair, without being so much it's uncomfortable to pay or so little it risks insult. (See also the Monty Python Life of Brian scene "won't haggle"). > "Are we incapable as humanity on a large scale to give money willingly to others, when we benefit from their work?" Isn't that what "buying" is? A huge part of the world is devoted to this, paying money to others to benefit from their work. The question here is, if those others give their work for free, why then do they expect money and try to guilt people into giving them money, when there is a system whereby they could have asked for money in the first place? > "Why not? If i wasn't ... X, Y, Z..." Because if you aren't compelled to, you have plenty of other things to spend money on instead, apparently. > "In short: It feels like open source developers should be paid, regardless of everything else. [...] i don't think open source has a future that's all that bright" If nobody willingly wants to pay for a thing, then the author deserves to get paid for it? Why?
- KronisLV 5y ago
  > Isn't that what "buying" is? No, buying is a financial transaction, without which you will not acquire the goods that you're after. With open source, you'll just take the code, benefit from it (like large corpos that make millions through it), but aren't obligated to give any of that money to the authors. While also not stealing, to me that sounds like exploitation on some level - the authors oftentimes seeing that as the status quo and being okay with it doesn't make it any less exploitative in my eyes. > If nobody willingly wants to pay for a thing, then the author deserves to get paid for it? Why? Because they're making the world a better place with the code that they create. If nobody wants to acknowledge that or willingly give them money for it (recognition also would be nice, but you can't eat recognition), then in my eyes the problem lies with society. In a better society, people who do the work would be taken care of.

watwut 5y ago

> no really, I encourage everyone to make and use free software (but you should FEEL BAD if you do what I encourage 100% this. I remember how open source advocates were literally pushing everyone who would listen to use and trust open source. Literally arguing by free too. Now, the people want to twist it into "and if you got convinced and use it you are asshole freeloader". Well then, maybe it should have been private licensed software of that is what you want. Which I'd actually fine by me.