4 ms·

Do you ever feel taken advantage of? That’s the main reason I would never do it. I would feel like a sucker if somebody used my work to make money without payin

by 3qz 4y ago

Do you ever feel taken advantage of? That’s the main reason I would never do it. I would feel like a sucker if somebody used my work to make money without paying me for it.

capableweb 4y ago
Have you ever built a non-open source product using any open source libraries? Do you feel like you take advantage of the authors of those libraries? I've never felt like I've taken advantage of others, and I also don't feel like that when others use my libraries to build products and earn money based on those products. If you're giving away software for free, you can't expect to make any money from it, because it's just that, free.
- OkayPhysicist 4y ago
  I think you can, however, expect payment in kind, i.e developer time. If someone is marketing an improved version of my code, I think they do have an obligation to provide their source as well. Hence the (A)GPL.
  - capableweb 4y ago
    I guess if "Pay in developer time" is part of the license, you could expect that. Personally, I always use MIT and hence I expect nothing, even for people who use my software to earn themselves money :)
    - OkayPhysicist 4y ago
      Yeah, and that's why I can't imagine using those licenses. It's an open invitation for free riders into a system built on mutual aid. It costs you nothing to open source code, so it's the very least you can do as a user of open source code.
      - capableweb 4y ago
        I definitely understand your point of view. It's hard for me to justify restricting my open source work like that though, as I associate "freedom" with "do literally whatever you want, I don't care". I've myself have built businesses on open source code, and wouldn't want to stop others from doing the same either, even if they don't contribute back code.
OkayPhysicist 4y ago
Not with the (A)GPL. I figure even if someone finds someway to monetize something I've made, they're paying it back in kind by providing their work to the public (or at least their customers) as well.
FrenchAmerican 4y ago
You may be interested un what game theory indicates about this. I'm not a specialist of it, just a book I read years ago. Basically: you wrote some code and didn't know how to make money of it, otherwise you would have. If someone reuses your code (according to the license of your choice), there is a chance that you get something out of it. It may be recognition (something to add to your resume) or maybe a job offer or be paid for specific development as a contractor or just to help that firm's dev team make the most of your code. So releasing your code publicly is an appeal for cooperation. Without doing it, well, nobody makes money out of your code but you don't either. Classic example: A and B are two persons with no connection. You tell B you will get $1 if he/she accepts that A get $10. Otherwise both get nothing. Most people prefer having nothing than having the extra $1. If don't know how to monetize the code you wrote, well... game theory pleads in favor of being in cooperation mode. You may get only a small fraction at first of the profits but by cooperating, you're in the game. That is then up to you to make the relation evolve so that you get your fair share at some point. The other answers display the variety of what people get out releasing their code. It varies a lot from a person to another. The difficult part is to stay in an healthy relationship, e.g. where all parties are happy. If you can't stop complaining about being treated unfairly, that won't work. But the firm using your code should know as well its own interest in the relationship, so they should want you happy.
- 3qz 4y ago
  This is only true if you leave out things like self respect
- b20000 4y ago
  it is not because you were not able to monetize it that you were clueless. the ability to monetize might come from access to capital or social network. often to monetize you need to have money. working a job or doing contracting is not going to scale. you can only sell a limited number of hours. and what you can charge is capped by randomly decided on numbers made up by the CFOs or HR departments and by the crab mentality and aversion to organizing.

by 3qz 4y ago

Do you ever feel taken advantage of? That’s the main reason I would never do it. I would feel like a sucker if somebody used my work to make money without paying me for it.

capableweb 4y ago

Have you ever built a non-open source product using any open source libraries? Do you feel like you take advantage of the authors of those libraries? I've never felt like I've taken advantage of others, and I also don't feel like that when others use my libraries to build products and earn money based on those products. If you're giving away software for free, you can't expect to make any money from it, because it's just that, free.

OkayPhysicist 4y ago
I think you can, however, expect payment in kind, i.e developer time. If someone is marketing an improved version of my code, I think they do have an obligation to provide their source as well. Hence the (A)GPL.
- capableweb 4y ago
  I guess if "Pay in developer time" is part of the license, you could expect that. Personally, I always use MIT and hence I expect nothing, even for people who use my software to earn themselves money :)
  - OkayPhysicist 4y ago
    Yeah, and that's why I can't imagine using those licenses. It's an open invitation for free riders into a system built on mutual aid. It costs you nothing to open source code, so it's the very least you can do as a user of open source code.
    - capableweb 4y ago
      I definitely understand your point of view. It's hard for me to justify restricting my open source work like that though, as I associate "freedom" with "do literally whatever you want, I don't care". I've myself have built businesses on open source code, and wouldn't want to stop others from doing the same either, even if they don't contribute back code.

OkayPhysicist 4y ago

Not with the (A)GPL. I figure even if someone finds someway to monetize something I've made, they're paying it back in kind by providing their work to the public (or at least their customers) as well.

FrenchAmerican 4y ago

You may be interested un what game theory indicates about this. I'm not a specialist of it, just a book I read years ago. Basically: you wrote some code and didn't know how to make money of it, otherwise you would have. If someone reuses your code (according to the license of your choice), there is a chance that you get something out of it. It may be recognition (something to add to your resume) or maybe a job offer or be paid for specific development as a contractor or just to help that firm's dev team make the most of your code. So releasing your code publicly is an appeal for cooperation. Without doing it, well, nobody makes money out of your code but you don't either. Classic example: A and B are two persons with no connection. You tell B you will get $1 if he/she accepts that A get $10. Otherwise both get nothing. Most people prefer having nothing than having the extra $1. If don't know how to monetize the code you wrote, well... game theory pleads in favor of being in cooperation mode. You may get only a small fraction at first of the profits but by cooperating, you're in the game. That is then up to you to make the relation evolve so that you get your fair share at some point. The other answers display the variety of what people get out releasing their code. It varies a lot from a person to another. The difficult part is to stay in an healthy relationship, e.g. where all parties are happy. If you can't stop complaining about being treated unfairly, that won't work. But the firm using your code should know as well its own interest in the relationship, so they should want you happy.

3qz 4y ago
This is only true if you leave out things like self respect
b20000 4y ago
it is not because you were not able to monetize it that you were clueless. the ability to monetize might come from access to capital or social network. often to monetize you need to have money. working a job or doing contracting is not going to scale. you can only sell a limited number of hours. and what you can charge is capped by randomly decided on numbers made up by the CFOs or HR departments and by the crab mentality and aversion to organizing.