6 ms·

I think the idea of an open source developer as a career and lifestyle is the issue here.

altairprime 3y ago
I think the idea that creators should not get paid is the issue here. It’s much more generic than open source. Another example of the same issue is how creators receive nothing for exploitation of their works by VC-funded AI companies. In both cases, the same imbalance between creators (who get nothing) and exploiters (who get billions of dollars of revenue) exists.
- whateveracct 3y ago
  They could just not do it. Spend your time more wisely. If you git commit, you've lost your leverage. Don't go write a labor politics blog post about how you're enslaved for writing C for free.
  - altairprime 3y ago
    Open source is labor politics. Copyleft is shorthand for “I labor to create this work for the commons, and all who modify my work must adhere to my labor politics by sharing their modifications with the commons.” It’s designed specifically to counteract commercial exploitation of labor while denying the commons their modified works. Without labor politics, there would be no GPL, no AGPL, no Sharealike. (Ironically, my single sentence license above would be more likely to win a court challenge than the GPL/AGPL, while also being more resilient to new methodologies and less vulnerable to loopholes; however, it’s incompatible with the “legal contracts should not depend on human judgment calls” viewpoint that’s popular in technical circles.
    - seanhunter 3y ago
      We don't have to speculate about whether the GPL would stand a court challenge as it has been tested in court many times in multiple jurisdictions.[1] As an aside, the reason I don't think your statement would work is you don't have the ability to unilaterally bind other people by a statement you make without their agreement (ie you saying something is not a contract, because that is by definition an agreement between parties). For that reason I'm pretty sure your "all who modify my work must ..." subclause would have no legal force. The mechanism that copyleft licenses use is to grant rights to the user provided that the user adheres to the terms. That's something you can do, because it's up to you to grant whatever rights you want to grant and it's in your gift to set conditions on those grants. If users don't accept the terms of the license, they don't get granted the rights and therefore they are prevented from using or distributing the software by normal copyright law. [1] eg check out http://gpl-violations.org/news/ http://gpl-violations.org/news/ or https://sfconservancy.org/news/2019/apr/02/vmware-no-appeal/ https://sfconservancy.org/news/2019/apr/02/vmware-no-appeal/ etc
      - altairprime 3y ago
        Noted! I’ll tune a couple words next time :)
- kelnos 3y ago
  I don't think that's the issue at hand here. If you give away your work for free, then you shouldn't expect others to pay for it. Depending on the charity of others isn't a great business model. Projects and organizations that do get a large portion of their funding from donations usually need to spend a lot of time marketing and evangelizing to get those donations. A solo open source developer probably doesn't have the time to do that, plus write the software itself.
- whateveracct 3y ago
  Also these creators chose to release their work under an open source license. On them completely.
  - Dylan16807 3y ago
    Whether someone should get paid is based on how much value their work has, not the price. Open source sets the price. It can be "on them" and also bad that it works this way.
    - fluoridation 3y ago
      No, that's nonsense. The point of a price is to set expectations with regards to the obligations of both parties to avoid arguments after a transaction is complete. You say "give me $X and I'll give you this thing" and I can accept it, negotiate, or reject it. We both understand that this is a commercial transaction, that I'm supposed to give you money when you give me the thing, and that if I run into problems that you're supposed to give me support. If you just give me something without setting a price then it's not a commercial transaction and I don't have an obligation to pay nor do you have an obligation to support the good or service you sold to me. Or do you believe that every time someone gave you a present actually you were supposed to pay the gift-giver based on the value of the present?
      - Dylan16807 3y ago
        It's not an obligation on any person in particular, but someone that gives lots of genuinely useful gifts should get gifts back. Is that a controversial take? Though when you mention support, that's one route to improving the situation. It seems like most companies are unwilling to buy pure support, even though most of what they actually want is support. If paying for pure support was more normalized it would be very helpful to open source.
        fluoridation 3y ago
        You're not talking about gifts, you're talking about a gift economy. If we lived in a pre-monetary society, we could use loose accounting to keep track of debts. I get fish from the fisherman, and in exchange I help fix his boat when needed. The village doctor heals everyone, and in exchange he gets stuff he needs from everyone. Someone can slack for a bit, but they do it for too long they'll accrue too high a debt and people will no longer give them things. Well, we don't live in a pre-monetary society and we don't use loose accounting, except with people we're close with and who we can trust.

I think the idea that creators should not get paid is the issue here. It’s much more generic than open source. Another example of the same issue is how creators receive nothing for exploitation of their works by VC-funded AI companies. In both cases, the same imbalance between creators (who get nothing) and exploiters (who get billions of dollars of revenue) exists.

whateveracct 3y ago
They could just not do it. Spend your time more wisely. If you git commit, you've lost your leverage. Don't go write a labor politics blog post about how you're enslaved for writing C for free.
- altairprime 3y ago
  Open source is labor politics. Copyleft is shorthand for “I labor to create this work for the commons, and all who modify my work must adhere to my labor politics by sharing their modifications with the commons.” It’s designed specifically to counteract commercial exploitation of labor while denying the commons their modified works. Without labor politics, there would be no GPL, no AGPL, no Sharealike. (Ironically, my single sentence license above would be more likely to win a court challenge than the GPL/AGPL, while also being more resilient to new methodologies and less vulnerable to loopholes; however, it’s incompatible with the “legal contracts should not depend on human judgment calls” viewpoint that’s popular in technical circles.
  - seanhunter 3y ago
    We don't have to speculate about whether the GPL would stand a court challenge as it has been tested in court many times in multiple jurisdictions.[1] As an aside, the reason I don't think your statement would work is you don't have the ability to unilaterally bind other people by a statement you make without their agreement (ie you saying something is not a contract, because that is by definition an agreement between parties). For that reason I'm pretty sure your "all who modify my work must ..." subclause would have no legal force. The mechanism that copyleft licenses use is to grant rights to the user provided that the user adheres to the terms. That's something you can do, because it's up to you to grant whatever rights you want to grant and it's in your gift to set conditions on those grants. If users don't accept the terms of the license, they don't get granted the rights and therefore they are prevented from using or distributing the software by normal copyright law. [1] eg check out http://gpl-violations.org/news/ http://gpl-violations.org/news/ or https://sfconservancy.org/news/2019/apr/02/vmware-no-appeal/ https://sfconservancy.org/news/2019/apr/02/vmware-no-appeal/ etc
    - altairprime 3y ago
      Noted! I’ll tune a couple words next time :)
kelnos 3y ago
I don't think that's the issue at hand here. If you give away your work for free, then you shouldn't expect others to pay for it. Depending on the charity of others isn't a great business model. Projects and organizations that do get a large portion of their funding from donations usually need to spend a lot of time marketing and evangelizing to get those donations. A solo open source developer probably doesn't have the time to do that, plus write the software itself.
whateveracct 3y ago
Also these creators chose to release their work under an open source license. On them completely.
- Dylan16807 3y ago
  Whether someone should get paid is based on how much value their work has, not the price. Open source sets the price. It can be "on them" and also bad that it works this way.
  - fluoridation 3y ago
    No, that's nonsense. The point of a price is to set expectations with regards to the obligations of both parties to avoid arguments after a transaction is complete. You say "give me $X and I'll give you this thing" and I can accept it, negotiate, or reject it. We both understand that this is a commercial transaction, that I'm supposed to give you money when you give me the thing, and that if I run into problems that you're supposed to give me support. If you just give me something without setting a price then it's not a commercial transaction and I don't have an obligation to pay nor do you have an obligation to support the good or service you sold to me. Or do you believe that every time someone gave you a present actually you were supposed to pay the gift-giver based on the value of the present?
    - Dylan16807 3y ago
      It's not an obligation on any person in particular, but someone that gives lots of genuinely useful gifts should get gifts back. Is that a controversial take? Though when you mention support, that's one route to improving the situation. It seems like most companies are unwilling to buy pure support, even though most of what they actually want is support. If paying for pure support was more normalized it would be very helpful to open source.
      - fluoridation 3y ago
        You're not talking about gifts, you're talking about a gift economy. If we lived in a pre-monetary society, we could use loose accounting to keep track of debts. I get fish from the fisherman, and in exchange I help fix his boat when needed. The village doctor heals everyone, and in exchange he gets stuff he needs from everyone. Someone can slack for a bit, but they do it for too long they'll accrue too high a debt and people will no longer give them things. Well, we don't live in a pre-monetary society and we don't use loose accounting, except with people we're close with and who we can trust.