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> The OSS community almost seems to require OSS maintainers to be in poverty, while allowing large corporations to freely consume all of their work. It's a wei

by rlpb 4y ago

> The OSS community almost seems to require OSS maintainers to be in poverty, while allowing large corporations to freely consume all of their work. It's a weird sort of exploitation, because OSS maintainers who don't think they're being adequately compensated are free not to participate by volunteering their time.

nicoburns 4y ago
I think the key point here is that we would like to incentivise a society where people can be sustainably compensated for their time while still making the fruits of their labour available to all for mostly unrestricted use. Rather than ending up in a world where one either: - Is well-compensated while working for a for-profit company where the codebase is proprietary. - Works in open source but is poorly paid or not paid at all.
- newtritious 4y ago
  In the scenario you would like to incentivize, who gets to decide what labor is compensated?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- rlpb 4y ago
  Not all open source developers are poorly paid. I think it's a free market, and I don't see that as a problem. I don't think open source developers are really being exploited, because typically they are capable of earning what they need if they want to. An open source developer can simply work for a for-profit company on proprietary software if they don't think they get paid enough, for example[1]. And the industry will pay what they need to get the software they need. [1] That they might prefer to work on open source is their problem, and not one for the economy, I think; I say this as an open source developer who gets paid to work on open source and prefers this over working on proprietary software.
  - nicoburns 4y ago
    > That they might prefer to work on open source is their problem, and not one for the economy, I think; I think it's a problem for the economy, not because of individuals' preferences, but because I think there is an overall economic benefit to work being open source.
    - FractalHQ 4y ago
      Not to mention the countless societal benefits.

by rlpb 4y ago

nicoburns 4y ago

I think the key point here is that we would like to incentivise a society where people can be sustainably compensated for their time while still making the fruits of their labour available to all for mostly unrestricted use. Rather than ending up in a world where one either: - Is well-compensated while working for a for-profit company where the codebase is proprietary. - Works in open source but is poorly paid or not paid at all.

newtritious 4y ago
In the scenario you would like to incentivize, who gets to decide what labor is compensated?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
rlpb 4y ago
Not all open source developers are poorly paid. I think it's a free market, and I don't see that as a problem. I don't think open source developers are really being exploited, because typically they are capable of earning what they need if they want to. An open source developer can simply work for a for-profit company on proprietary software if they don't think they get paid enough, for example[1]. And the industry will pay what they need to get the software they need. [1] That they might prefer to work on open source is their problem, and not one for the economy, I think; I say this as an open source developer who gets paid to work on open source and prefers this over working on proprietary software.
- nicoburns 4y ago
  > That they might prefer to work on open source is their problem, and not one for the economy, I think; I think it's a problem for the economy, not because of individuals' preferences, but because I think there is an overall economic benefit to work being open source.
  - FractalHQ 4y ago
    Not to mention the countless societal benefits.