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>> [from the article] Many people view funding open source as a moral or ethical problem at its core: essentially, companies should pay for what they use (if a

>> [from the article] Many people view funding open source as a moral or ethical problem at its core: essentially, companies should pay for what they use (if a project accepts payment) because not doing so is exploitation. I sympathise with this perspective, but I believe a more helpful one is of economics and incentives, because we can reason about money more objectively and constructively this way. I strongly agree with this sentiment. Many (although not all) Open Source authors feel aggrieved when their work is used by a for-profit-company, or when they work becomes a direct source of profit to another company. There's some group of developers who believe charging _consumers_ for Open Source programs is somehow unethical or unfair. There are some who believe and Open Source license forces user to "give something back". This disconnect between "work" and "pay" is a somewhat foreign concept to (especially Western, and inexperienced) programmers - and so this disconnect, which is specifically built-into OSS licenses feels "wrong". In this sense writing OSS is not for everyone. Lots of people take a lot of pleasure (and find personal significance) in writing code, and distributing it freely. Others need to be paid for their work, and for them a off-the-shelf OSS license may not be the best model. For example a source-available model may be a good compromise - where the user has the ability to change and use, but not distribute. I think though it's generally a good idea for programmers to figure out their goals, and what they need from a project. Then there will be a better license fit for that, and ultimately happier programmers in the bargain.

chii 5y ago
> Others need to be paid for their work or they want the marketing benefit of open source, without the loss of revenue when inevitably someone makes profit off their open source code in a way that the original authors cannot.
- heuroci 5y ago
  I think it depends a bit on the real intention. If the author intends to grow their project to a business and is upfront about it, there is nothing wrong with that. After all a sustainable business would imply sustainable project. The misfortune happens when the concealed and public intentions are not aligned.
  - chii 5y ago
    > the real intention there's intent, and then there's action. I personally don't care for intent. I care about action. The actions of some open source projects are in line with the intent that they want to use the PR generated to gain revenue. When the open source license fails to achieve such goals, they complain (like elastic search did).
prepend 5y ago
> Many (although not all) Open Source authors feel aggrieved when their work is used by a for-profit-company I don’t think that’s fair to say. There are hundreds of thousands (millions?) if open source projects with many creators. There are very few authors complaining about this. Perhaps many feel this way, but without some evidence of these feelings, I don’t think it’s accurate to attribute a feeling to millions of people. Even if there are a thousand, and that’s considered many, context is needed so it doesn’t sound like this feeling is generalized to an entire group.
- bruce511 5y ago
  You are right, it was a sweeping generalisation. But I would say it is a common lament, perhaps by a vocal minority, which is regularly expressed here. But yes, for each one who posts there maybe 1000 who don't.

chii 5y ago

> Others need to be paid for their work or they want the marketing benefit of open source, without the loss of revenue when inevitably someone makes profit off their open source code in a way that the original authors cannot.

heuroci 5y ago
I think it depends a bit on the real intention. If the author intends to grow their project to a business and is upfront about it, there is nothing wrong with that. After all a sustainable business would imply sustainable project. The misfortune happens when the concealed and public intentions are not aligned.
- chii 5y ago
  > the real intention there's intent, and then there's action. I personally don't care for intent. I care about action. The actions of some open source projects are in line with the intent that they want to use the PR generated to gain revenue. When the open source license fails to achieve such goals, they complain (like elastic search did).

prepend 5y ago

> Many (although not all) Open Source authors feel aggrieved when their work is used by a for-profit-company I don’t think that’s fair to say. There are hundreds of thousands (millions?) if open source projects with many creators. There are very few authors complaining about this. Perhaps many feel this way, but without some evidence of these feelings, I don’t think it’s accurate to attribute a feeling to millions of people. Even if there are a thousand, and that’s considered many, context is needed so it doesn’t sound like this feeling is generalized to an entire group.

bruce511 5y ago
You are right, it was a sweeping generalisation. But I would say it is a common lament, perhaps by a vocal minority, which is regularly expressed here. But yes, for each one who posts there maybe 1000 who don't.