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One cannot demand a service-level agreement from a volunteer maintainer. Few maintainers, [Ted T’so] said, do that work as a full-time job. Good maintainers ar

by nequo 3y ago

One cannot demand a service-level agreement from a volunteer maintainer. Few maintainers, [Ted T’so] said, do that work as a full-time job. Good maintainers are a public good. Why doesn’t the Linux Foundation raise funding to hire maintainers as its employees?

anna34322 3y ago
[flagged]
thx-2718 3y ago
What about public grants and partnerships with Universities as well? I really think having open source software that is deployed and actively used by the University can give students real experience in improving and fixing software. Surely if we can have tenured Professors we should have something similar to tenure for Software maintainers.
walterbell 3y ago
130 projects funded by Linux Foundation: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/projects https://www.linuxfoundation.org/projects Need a list of Linux-specific projects by Linux Foundation, which would include: Automotive Grade Linux LinuxBoot (Firmware) Linux Kernel Linux Vendor Firmware Service (LVFS) LF Edge (Virtualization) Long-Term Support Initiative OpenBMC Real-Time Linux (RTL) SONiC Foundation (Networking) Tizen (Mobile/TV) Yocto Linux (Embedded)
PragmaticPulp 3y ago
The maintainers list is huge and many of them contribute sporadically. It’s not a good match for full-time employment at all. Hiring people as employees also completely changes the dynamic to something much more complex. Would this change require everyone to be an employee contribute? Are contributions now limited by budget? Can someone still contribute without being an employee? Who decides who gets to be an employee and who has to remain a free contributor? Who gets cut when budgets shrink in down years? Linux Foundation does fund a lot of projects, but the idea of “just” raising enough money to make everyone employees isn’t feasible or realistic.
- nequo 3y ago
  > the idea of “just” raising enough money to make everyone employees isn’t feasible or realistic I didn't mean that everyone should be an employee. But some subsystems don't have enough maintainer capacity, while there are firms that want to push patches into those parts of the code base. None of them individually find it worthwhile to pay for a full-time maintainer, but maybe they could share the cost and hire one through the Linux Foundation?
  - sitkack 3y ago
    I would hope that at some point sub system, maintainers would be paid and they would manage the volunteers who are sending in the patches.

by nequo 3y ago

anna34322 3y ago

[flagged]

thx-2718 3y ago

What about public grants and partnerships with Universities as well? I really think having open source software that is deployed and actively used by the University can give students real experience in improving and fixing software. Surely if we can have tenured Professors we should have something similar to tenure for Software maintainers.

walterbell 3y ago

130 projects funded by Linux Foundation: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/projects https://www.linuxfoundation.org/projects Need a list of Linux-specific projects by Linux Foundation, which would include: Automotive Grade Linux LinuxBoot (Firmware) Linux Kernel Linux Vendor Firmware Service (LVFS) LF Edge (Virtualization) Long-Term Support Initiative OpenBMC Real-Time Linux (RTL) SONiC Foundation (Networking) Tizen (Mobile/TV) Yocto Linux (Embedded)

PragmaticPulp 3y ago

The maintainers list is huge and many of them contribute sporadically. It’s not a good match for full-time employment at all. Hiring people as employees also completely changes the dynamic to something much more complex. Would this change require everyone to be an employee contribute? Are contributions now limited by budget? Can someone still contribute without being an employee? Who decides who gets to be an employee and who has to remain a free contributor? Who gets cut when budgets shrink in down years? Linux Foundation does fund a lot of projects, but the idea of “just” raising enough money to make everyone employees isn’t feasible or realistic.

nequo 3y ago
> the idea of “just” raising enough money to make everyone employees isn’t feasible or realistic I didn't mean that everyone should be an employee. But some subsystems don't have enough maintainer capacity, while there are firms that want to push patches into those parts of the code base. None of them individually find it worthwhile to pay for a full-time maintainer, but maybe they could share the cost and hire one through the Linux Foundation?
- sitkack 3y ago
  I would hope that at some point sub system, maintainers would be paid and they would manage the volunteers who are sending in the patches.