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This whole open source thing is the biggest farce on planet Earth. Someone with a good knowledge about geeks and their behaviour concocted up this open source b

This whole open source thing is the biggest farce on planet Earth. Someone with a good knowledge about geeks and their behaviour concocted up this open source bullshit. So now talented people give their skill to the "whole" and they have to beg for contributions and donations to get by. And other geeks (not suits with ties) finance the ones they sympathise with. It's ridiculous. And faceless entities use their hard work for who knows what, but mostly to fatten up their already oversized corp and give back NOTHING. And people, seemingly without common sense suck up to companies that rob them, and even disseminate their shiny new "free" tools. This would be a Hugo-Nebula award winner novel if it wouldn't be reality.

azangru 4y ago
This is such a misrepresentation of the open-source landscape. Yes, there are people working on open-source projects who beg for donations; but there also are open-source projects maintained by full-time employees (Eleventy, paid by Netlify; React, paid by Facebook; Angular, paid by Google; Next.js, paid by Vercel; Linux, paid by various companies; etc.). If a person thinks that his efforts will be better compensated elsewhere, he can always start looking for a paid job.
- lofaszvanitt 4y ago
  People should not beg for their work for a start. If you use it, you should pay for it. A small fee, or a fee that is set by the dev.
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    I use a lot of open source software and directly pay for approximately none of it. Do you behave differently and pay for it today? What do you use to accomplish (track and manage) that?
    - lofaszvanitt 4y ago
      That's the problem there are no systems in place for it. So if there is no UI for payments on github, people will never stop for a moment to think about what they take for granted.
  - sneak 4y ago
    You just described proprietary software. It's a philosophy incompatible with free software. You aren't required to pay for a gift, which is what free software is.
    - lofaszvanitt 4y ago
      Nah, nope. You usually don't get the source for proprietary software. Just like you get medical care when you are in an accident, same should apply to work done on os software. Somehow devs should be compensated for their work on os soft.
elric 4y ago
Yikes. You sound very bitter. Is there a story behind that bitterness? There's a wide variety of people in the open source community at large. And a wide variety of motivations for contributing. I for one am happy that open source software is a thing. It's been a net good for mankind. Sure, there are abuses, and I'm sure many things could be improved. But I'm glad it's there all the same.
- lofaszvanitt 4y ago
  Nah, not at all, just don't like power structures that feed on benevolent naivety. Of course it's good, but compensating those people should be the norm. Where is the payments side of github for example? So it's open source but in order to clone the rep you should spend 1 bucks on it, or if you want a bug/feature addressed you could name a price or the dev can set the price on it? Because the holy sacred cow must not be agitated... suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuure. And people rationalizing the all devouring machine, hell, it is just bonkers.
  - TheDong 4y ago
    > compensating those people should be the norm. Where is the payments side of github for example? [..] if you want a bug/feature addressed you could name a price or the dev can set the price on it? Github does have monetization. It has "sponsors", and you can create a "sponsor" level that is basically "I will consult with you and prioritize bugs you choose". It's totally normal for a developer who wants to monetize a popular open source project to offer consulting or "pay for me to work on your bug". That's already there. ... However, I would like to provide an alternative view. I am personally very happy that monetary compensation is not the norm in free software. I find joy in coding, but I find far more joy in coding when there's no money involved. When I am able to work as much or as little as I want, without feeling any form of financial obligation to others (which inescapably comes from being paid), I am happier. If the norm was to pay or be paid in free software, I would not find joy in it. I would likely not participate. By analogy, let's say that me and some friends get together to eat food, and each bring a meal. You might say "oh, that is a waste, the person who made a meatloaf could have sold that for money. Everyone at this meal should be paying each other for their cooking, and the person who cooked the most ends up making some money". Do you not see how that would ruin the feeling of cooking for your friends and enjoying time together? To me, the free software community has a similar thing. Because the norm is assuming people are just trying to build stuff, not make money, it makes it a far more pleasant activity. > And people rationalizing the all devouring machine, hell, it is just bonkers. To me, the truly bonkers thing is people letting capitalism eat them. "You have to have your grindset, optimize your time to make money", it seems bonkers to me. People trying to rationalize their existence not by finding communities and trying to help others, but by trying to make their wealth as large as possible, often at the expense of happiness.
KronisLV 4y ago
While this is a pretty harsh take, I can't help but to feel that articles like "Software below the poverty line" support at least aspects of it: https://staltz.com/software-below-the-poverty-line.html https://staltz.com/software-below-the-poverty-line.html
nemo44x 4y ago
I don’t think open source per-se but certainly permissive licenses like Apache were a mistake. They’ve just allowed business to either get free things to make a profit while contributing nothing back or to literally create a business by selling the Apache licensed programs in the cloud.
lelanthran 4y ago
> So now talented people give their skill to the "whole" and they have to beg for contributions and donations to get by. And other geeks (not suits with ties) finance the ones they sympathise with. It's ridiculous. Is it? I can't think of a single professional dev making money right now that isn't making money because they did not have to reinvent the entire tech stack that they are skilled in. If there was no open source, we'd all be making a lot less, and the state of tech would be far far smaller than it is right now.
- lofaszvanitt 4y ago
  If there would be no open source, people would pay for libraries. Now we have open source, and a lot of devs are not compensated. End of story. No proper solution. That's all. Roughly the same applies to newspapers. Ohm please do not turn off advertisements so we could keep the lights going. Digital beggars everywhere.
  - lelanthran 4y ago
    > If there would be no open source, people would pay for libraries. Nonsense. The cost of creating non-trivial software (say, 20+ dependencies, all needing payment) would put software out of the reach of ordinary people, meaning that there will only be a small niche of developer jobs. Which means that most people making a non-zero income from writing software today would have been making a zero income from writing software in your hypothetical alternate universe. There's a lot of butterfly-effect type results as well - due to how capitalism works, the majority of people who are capable of writing software would never be able to compete - whoever the bug players are, they could simply buy them out, shut them down or even product-dump. FOSS levels the field somewhat: FOSS is a force multiplier, in that whatever FOSS creates can be used to create more software (even non-FOSS), reducing the dependency on one or two incumbents who were lucky enough to get there first and cornered the market. Without FOSS, we'd all be running IE6 on Windows 98, because there'd be no competition.
    - lofaszvanitt 4y ago
      I think you have issues with interpreting the idea as a whole, so you cling to one sentence and base some totally out of touch assumption on that very sentence.
specialist 4y ago
Yup. FWIW, I keep thinking about some kind of dual licensing, FOSS and something-something-royalties. (Sorry, IANAL, so haven't gotten any further.)

azangru 4y ago

This is such a misrepresentation of the open-source landscape. Yes, there are people working on open-source projects who beg for donations; but there also are open-source projects maintained by full-time employees (Eleventy, paid by Netlify; React, paid by Facebook; Angular, paid by Google; Next.js, paid by Vercel; Linux, paid by various companies; etc.). If a person thinks that his efforts will be better compensated elsewhere, he can always start looking for a paid job.

lofaszvanitt 4y ago
People should not beg for their work for a start. If you use it, you should pay for it. A small fee, or a fee that is set by the dev.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  I use a lot of open source software and directly pay for approximately none of it. Do you behave differently and pay for it today? What do you use to accomplish (track and manage) that?
  - lofaszvanitt 4y ago
    That's the problem there are no systems in place for it. So if there is no UI for payments on github, people will never stop for a moment to think about what they take for granted.
- sneak 4y ago
  You just described proprietary software. It's a philosophy incompatible with free software. You aren't required to pay for a gift, which is what free software is.
  - lofaszvanitt 4y ago
    Nah, nope. You usually don't get the source for proprietary software. Just like you get medical care when you are in an accident, same should apply to work done on os software. Somehow devs should be compensated for their work on os soft.

elric 4y ago

Yikes. You sound very bitter. Is there a story behind that bitterness? There's a wide variety of people in the open source community at large. And a wide variety of motivations for contributing. I for one am happy that open source software is a thing. It's been a net good for mankind. Sure, there are abuses, and I'm sure many things could be improved. But I'm glad it's there all the same.

lofaszvanitt 4y ago
Nah, not at all, just don't like power structures that feed on benevolent naivety. Of course it's good, but compensating those people should be the norm. Where is the payments side of github for example? So it's open source but in order to clone the rep you should spend 1 bucks on it, or if you want a bug/feature addressed you could name a price or the dev can set the price on it? Because the holy sacred cow must not be agitated... suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuure. And people rationalizing the all devouring machine, hell, it is just bonkers.
- TheDong 4y ago
  > compensating those people should be the norm. Where is the payments side of github for example? [..] if you want a bug/feature addressed you could name a price or the dev can set the price on it? Github does have monetization. It has "sponsors", and you can create a "sponsor" level that is basically "I will consult with you and prioritize bugs you choose". It's totally normal for a developer who wants to monetize a popular open source project to offer consulting or "pay for me to work on your bug". That's already there. ... However, I would like to provide an alternative view. I am personally very happy that monetary compensation is not the norm in free software. I find joy in coding, but I find far more joy in coding when there's no money involved. When I am able to work as much or as little as I want, without feeling any form of financial obligation to others (which inescapably comes from being paid), I am happier. If the norm was to pay or be paid in free software, I would not find joy in it. I would likely not participate. By analogy, let's say that me and some friends get together to eat food, and each bring a meal. You might say "oh, that is a waste, the person who made a meatloaf could have sold that for money. Everyone at this meal should be paying each other for their cooking, and the person who cooked the most ends up making some money". Do you not see how that would ruin the feeling of cooking for your friends and enjoying time together? To me, the free software community has a similar thing. Because the norm is assuming people are just trying to build stuff, not make money, it makes it a far more pleasant activity. > And people rationalizing the all devouring machine, hell, it is just bonkers. To me, the truly bonkers thing is people letting capitalism eat them. "You have to have your grindset, optimize your time to make money", it seems bonkers to me. People trying to rationalize their existence not by finding communities and trying to help others, but by trying to make their wealth as large as possible, often at the expense of happiness.

KronisLV 4y ago

While this is a pretty harsh take, I can't help but to feel that articles like "Software below the poverty line" support at least aspects of it: https://staltz.com/software-below-the-poverty-line.html https://staltz.com/software-below-the-poverty-line.html

nemo44x 4y ago

I don’t think open source per-se but certainly permissive licenses like Apache were a mistake. They’ve just allowed business to either get free things to make a profit while contributing nothing back or to literally create a business by selling the Apache licensed programs in the cloud.

lelanthran 4y ago

> So now talented people give their skill to the "whole" and they have to beg for contributions and donations to get by. And other geeks (not suits with ties) finance the ones they sympathise with. It's ridiculous. Is it? I can't think of a single professional dev making money right now that isn't making money because they did not have to reinvent the entire tech stack that they are skilled in. If there was no open source, we'd all be making a lot less, and the state of tech would be far far smaller than it is right now.

lofaszvanitt 4y ago
If there would be no open source, people would pay for libraries. Now we have open source, and a lot of devs are not compensated. End of story. No proper solution. That's all. Roughly the same applies to newspapers. Ohm please do not turn off advertisements so we could keep the lights going. Digital beggars everywhere.
- lelanthran 4y ago
  > If there would be no open source, people would pay for libraries. Nonsense. The cost of creating non-trivial software (say, 20+ dependencies, all needing payment) would put software out of the reach of ordinary people, meaning that there will only be a small niche of developer jobs. Which means that most people making a non-zero income from writing software today would have been making a zero income from writing software in your hypothetical alternate universe. There's a lot of butterfly-effect type results as well - due to how capitalism works, the majority of people who are capable of writing software would never be able to compete - whoever the bug players are, they could simply buy them out, shut them down or even product-dump. FOSS levels the field somewhat: FOSS is a force multiplier, in that whatever FOSS creates can be used to create more software (even non-FOSS), reducing the dependency on one or two incumbents who were lucky enough to get there first and cornered the market. Without FOSS, we'd all be running IE6 on Windows 98, because there'd be no competition.
  - lofaszvanitt 4y ago
    I think you have issues with interpreting the idea as a whole, so you cling to one sentence and base some totally out of touch assumption on that very sentence.

specialist 4y ago

Yup. FWIW, I keep thinking about some kind of dual licensing, FOSS and something-something-royalties. (Sorry, IANAL, so haven't gotten any further.)