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Funding basic infrastructure as open source is a great idea. And the only way to keep a market economy going. Otherwise the infrastructure is used increasingly

by jpfr 5y ago

Funding basic infrastructure as open source is a great idea. And the only way to keep a market economy going. Otherwise the infrastructure is used increasingly to lock out small competitors. However, I see a distinct lack of “geeks” in this initiative. Instead a lot of pol-sci majors that want to “manage” / claim developments they themselves would not have the skills to build.

FlyingSnake 5y ago
> I see a distinct lack of “geeks” in this initiative I feel the same. Germany has a strong undercurrent of great open source developers and I hope the bureaucracy won’t come in the way of helping the geeks/hackers.
oytis 5y ago
Aren't they just going to allocate funding to pre-existing projects? They don't have to be geeks to do that.
Xylakant 5y ago
> Instead a lot of pol-sci majors that want to “manage” / claim developments they themselves would not have the skills to build Very few geeks have the skills (or even the desire) to build a financially sustainable open source project. The projects that are financially sustainable, are often tied to corporate ownership, often one of the FAANG. Still, the work to build the financial and community framework for such a project is often valued at close to, or even less than zero - as your comment shows. There's a lot of talk in the open source world about funding, or rather the lack thereof. Still, comments such as yours downtalk every effort people invest as profiteering of open source work. Wonder why no one wants to do that work - it's thankless, hard, undervalued and underappreciated, even by the ones that would profit of it - the people doing the coding. Your comment is doing all efforts to provide funding for open source projects a disservice.
- jpfr 5y ago
  On the contrary. I am very much in favor of people that put in the effort to support the organization around open source. But it should be done by persons that also have insight in the technical work. Otherwise problems of judgment cannot be avoided. That’s the same in every profession by the way. You want to be head of the carpenters guild? Work as a carpenter for some time. Even if it is just carpentry as a hobby. You don’t like it as a hobby? Well, that says a lot already. There is ample organization and leadership skill among the geeks. Look at the site you are on and its background. Many millionaire geeks...
  - Xylakant 5y ago
    > There is ample organization and leadership skill among the geeks. Look at the site you are on and its background. Many millionaire geeks... Are any of those building and maintaining a successful open source project that is not commercially interesting to their company?
    - jpfr 5y ago
      Fabrice Bellard Paul Graham Rasmus Lerdorf The world is full of ‘em. You don’t need one of those as the maintainer. They can also just hire somebody to do it for them. But you do need some number of successful geeks in advisory roles to keep the political class on target when the funding is allocated.
      - Xylakant 5y ago
        > You don’t need one of those as the maintainer. They can also just hire somebody to do it for them. And who are they going to hire? Someone with people skills and accounting skills. That doesn’t need to be a tech person.
        jpfr 5y ago
        Now we are in a decision making role vs support role discussion. “People skills” mostly are detecting the group consensus and running with it. Not the type of leader you need in tech. Geeks are known to fight hard for their independent opinions. Especially when it goes against the group opinion. You need the willingness to do so - if required - from a leader ... so not a pure people person. What is required though is being a good communicator. Most geeks learn that very fast. If properly taught... Accounting can be hired for pretty cheap virtually everywhere on earth.
- axnKa 5y ago
  Many open source projects have been widely used without getting any funding at all. In the last decade a group of bureaucrats have arisen who promote the notion that open source will not function without their gracious presence. In many cases these bureaucrats destroy working projects for their own benefit (fame, power, salaries they would not get otherwise). That isn't meant to say that funding is bad in all cases, but reflexively cheering whenever a new fund is announced is naive.
  - Xylakant 5y ago
    Widely used does not at all imply that they’re financially or otherwise sustainable. See the OpenSSL debacle which was at least partially caused by lack of paid maintainer time. It’s not like the lack of funding for large open source projects gets mentioned every time a major bug is discovered in one of those widely used open source projects (log4j maybe?) A lack of money also means that the pool of people working on public good (open source) projects self-selects to those that have the money to do that - and that’s limiting the pool and input into those projects.

by jpfr 5y ago

FlyingSnake 5y ago

> I see a distinct lack of “geeks” in this initiative I feel the same. Germany has a strong undercurrent of great open source developers and I hope the bureaucracy won’t come in the way of helping the geeks/hackers.

oytis 5y ago

Aren't they just going to allocate funding to pre-existing projects? They don't have to be geeks to do that.

Xylakant 5y ago

> Instead a lot of pol-sci majors that want to “manage” / claim developments they themselves would not have the skills to build Very few geeks have the skills (or even the desire) to build a financially sustainable open source project. The projects that are financially sustainable, are often tied to corporate ownership, often one of the FAANG. Still, the work to build the financial and community framework for such a project is often valued at close to, or even less than zero - as your comment shows. There's a lot of talk in the open source world about funding, or rather the lack thereof. Still, comments such as yours downtalk every effort people invest as profiteering of open source work. Wonder why no one wants to do that work - it's thankless, hard, undervalued and underappreciated, even by the ones that would profit of it - the people doing the coding. Your comment is doing all efforts to provide funding for open source projects a disservice.

jpfr 5y ago
On the contrary. I am very much in favor of people that put in the effort to support the organization around open source. But it should be done by persons that also have insight in the technical work. Otherwise problems of judgment cannot be avoided. That’s the same in every profession by the way. You want to be head of the carpenters guild? Work as a carpenter for some time. Even if it is just carpentry as a hobby. You don’t like it as a hobby? Well, that says a lot already. There is ample organization and leadership skill among the geeks. Look at the site you are on and its background. Many millionaire geeks...
- Xylakant 5y ago
  > There is ample organization and leadership skill among the geeks. Look at the site you are on and its background. Many millionaire geeks... Are any of those building and maintaining a successful open source project that is not commercially interesting to their company?
  - jpfr 5y ago
    Fabrice Bellard Paul Graham Rasmus Lerdorf The world is full of ‘em. You don’t need one of those as the maintainer. They can also just hire somebody to do it for them. But you do need some number of successful geeks in advisory roles to keep the political class on target when the funding is allocated.
    - Xylakant 5y ago
      > You don’t need one of those as the maintainer. They can also just hire somebody to do it for them. And who are they going to hire? Someone with people skills and accounting skills. That doesn’t need to be a tech person.
      - jpfr 5y ago
        Now we are in a decision making role vs support role discussion. “People skills” mostly are detecting the group consensus and running with it. Not the type of leader you need in tech. Geeks are known to fight hard for their independent opinions. Especially when it goes against the group opinion. You need the willingness to do so - if required - from a leader ... so not a pure people person. What is required though is being a good communicator. Most geeks learn that very fast. If properly taught... Accounting can be hired for pretty cheap virtually everywhere on earth.
axnKa 5y ago
Many open source projects have been widely used without getting any funding at all. In the last decade a group of bureaucrats have arisen who promote the notion that open source will not function without their gracious presence. In many cases these bureaucrats destroy working projects for their own benefit (fame, power, salaries they would not get otherwise). That isn't meant to say that funding is bad in all cases, but reflexively cheering whenever a new fund is announced is naive.
- Xylakant 5y ago
  Widely used does not at all imply that they’re financially or otherwise sustainable. See the OpenSSL debacle which was at least partially caused by lack of paid maintainer time. It’s not like the lack of funding for large open source projects gets mentioned every time a major bug is discovered in one of those widely used open source projects (log4j maybe?) A lack of money also means that the pool of people working on public good (open source) projects self-selects to those that have the money to do that - and that’s limiting the pool and input into those projects.