8 ms·

Starting to notice a huge influx of OS projects not being funded and maintainers drop off of something that's valuable and their passionate about. It's unfortun

Starting to notice a huge influx of OS projects not being funded and maintainers drop off of something that's valuable and their passionate about. It's unfortunate.

chrona8490 3y ago
> Starting to notice a huge influx of OS projects not being funded and maintainers drop off of something that's valuable and their passionate about. It's unfortunate. Why is it unfortunate? Mother nature is not kind. If an open source maintainer can’t pay their bills, maybe they should spend their time on something that does pay the bills.
- gumballindie 3y ago
  Yeah maybe those companies using their open source project should donate a little bit?
  - sammyteee 3y ago
    Isn't the typical licensing model for open-source projects designed to differentiate between personal and commercial usage? Or is the real challenge that enforcing such licensing terms is practically unfeasible?
    - WalterBright 3y ago
      We use the Boost license which does not distinguish personal from commercial use. This is on purpose. We have no agenda for anyone's use of D. We are especially happy to hear from users who have made a lot of money from using D.
    - NegativeK 3y ago
      Open source business models differentiate by providing value to commercial entities (support, extended features, whatever.) Traditional open source licenses and definitions of open source demand that the licenses not differentiate between different use types (personal, commercial, governmental, etc.) Newer licenses are coming up that do differentiate. Traditional open source orgs are often saying that they're source available, not open source.
    - cmrdporcupine 3y ago
      No, they are not. And the most popular licenses (Apache-style) these days don't even require commercial entities that fork your project to contribute back their changes. Free software / copyleft licenses like the GPL which do require that are these days shunned by many. "Open source" has become synonymous with "free labour" for a lot of firms, and there's a whole class of SaaS projects which amount to gluing together other people's open source work and then supporting it. I think this was all fine for people during boom time; you built your resume up on GitHub, you got street cred, often your employer paid for you to work on it. But I think it's starting to lose its sheen for some people.
  - WalterBright 3y ago
    Here at the D Language Foundation, we don't shame people into contributing. We point out how it is worth their while to donate.
    - gumballindie 3y ago
      I’ll use this opportunity to say that D Lang is awesome and that I wish it gains wider adoption. I simply love that language and the community and I thank you for everything you do. On topic, indeed, shaming is never an option. But still I wish companies would donate to projects - in some countries there are even tax incentives to do so, and the benefit is that they essentially externalise development of a valuable tool for them. Also would earn a lot of good will - as steam does (while not sponsoring money directly).
      - WalterBright 3y ago
        It's the kind words from people like you that give us rocket fuel!
- probablynish 3y ago
  Steel manning here, the outcome is unfortunate because presumably these projects have positive externalities (benefits accruing to people other than other than whoever is paying, if anyone) and so the optimal funding for them from a social/aggregate point of view is greater than it currently is. That they are not funded enough is a case of market failure. Of course this doesn't contradict your point, that is fine for the maintainers to respond to these incentives. (Edit: to that end I agree with one of the main points of the article, developer's shouldn't be embarrassed about doing things for money, seeing as it's somewhat necessary for the world we live in).
- voxl 3y ago
  And maybe they should be funded by society enough to live. It's funny because this kind of social darwinism or capitalist world view is not the only possible way society could be successfully organized. Yet the (fallacious) appeal to "nature" would suggest that arbitrary monetary value is somehow the most important thing to optimize.
  - WalterBright 3y ago
    > is not the only possible way society could be successfully organized True, if you have a rather low bar of success. Capitalism has produced wealth for average citizens inconceivable only a couple centuries ago. Even the poor in capitalist countries have a higher standard of living than medieval kings.
    - bheadmaster 3y ago
      > Even the poor in capitalist countries have a higher standard of living than medieval kings. That is almost completely due to technological progress, not because of capitalism itself.
      - WD40forRust 3y ago
        Capitalism is the nature in which technology got naturally selected.
        bheadmaster 3y ago
        This sentence does not make any sense to me. Would you care to elaborate?
        voxl 3y ago
        [citation needed] You know its funny because almost all academic advancement has not been in a capitalist system.
        WalterBright 3y ago
- readyplayernull 3y ago
  Monopolization is too slow, the goverment should force the fussion of every big tech company into a single entity that is forced to employ everyone in the country with great salaries and 4 hour workday, then people would have resources to do what's good. How would you like that MAANG?!
foobiekr 3y ago
It's not unfortunate at all. Every company I've worked for has been an unbelievable freeloader on open source projects. Tens of billions of dollars in revenue, almost nothing to the projects they rely on. I think the open source experiment has failed and that we need to embrace moving toward a compensated-commercial source model. Companies are strongly opposed to this because they can't freeload on volunteer work and other companies anymore, but it should be done.
- behnamoh 3y ago
  > I think the open source experiment has failed imo it still serves as a way to strengthen resumes of job applicants. Just have a few GH projects with decent "stars" to show you know how to build things. I don't endorse it (because the projects then often get abandoned after employment)—maybe it'd be better to have a "badge" on the GH page showing what the purpose of the project really is.
  - wahnfrieden 3y ago
    thats not the open source experiment, that's just employers getting comfortable with expecting uncompensated labor in the recruiting process
- jltsiren 3y ago
  Open source has not failed. Attempts to build viable business models around it may have. That's not a weakness of open source but a weakness of software business. When you have a product with very low marginal cost of production, the market price for the product often tends towards $0. If you have a business that sells software licenses and someone develops a viable alternative (for whatever reason) and starts distributing it for free, you may have a hard time competing against them. And if the free alternative gains enough market share, both parties may find it difficult to pay for continued development. That's just how the market works.
  - foobiekr 3y ago
    As a movement. People have to eat.
barrysteve 3y ago
It's a long time coming. Getting something for nothing, doesn't last.
bityard 3y ago
I'm starting to notice that roughly half of the comments on these threads that even lightly touch on the "ecomonmics" of Free and Open Source software are from who think they or their peers are somehow entitled to money and attention just because they put some code on the Internet. Maybe I'm old-school but I was always under the impression that a paycheck and recognition are things that are earned, not begged-for or guilt-tripped into.

Starting to notice a huge influx of OS projects not being funded and maintainers drop off of something that's valuable and their passionate about. It's unfortunate.

chrona8490 3y ago

> Starting to notice a huge influx of OS projects not being funded and maintainers drop off of something that's valuable and their passionate about. It's unfortunate. Why is it unfortunate? Mother nature is not kind. If an open source maintainer can’t pay their bills, maybe they should spend their time on something that does pay the bills.

gumballindie 3y ago
Yeah maybe those companies using their open source project should donate a little bit?
- sammyteee 3y ago
  Isn't the typical licensing model for open-source projects designed to differentiate between personal and commercial usage? Or is the real challenge that enforcing such licensing terms is practically unfeasible?
  - WalterBright 3y ago
    We use the Boost license which does not distinguish personal from commercial use. This is on purpose. We have no agenda for anyone's use of D. We are especially happy to hear from users who have made a lot of money from using D.
  - NegativeK 3y ago
    Open source business models differentiate by providing value to commercial entities (support, extended features, whatever.) Traditional open source licenses and definitions of open source demand that the licenses not differentiate between different use types (personal, commercial, governmental, etc.) Newer licenses are coming up that do differentiate. Traditional open source orgs are often saying that they're source available, not open source.
  - cmrdporcupine 3y ago
    No, they are not. And the most popular licenses (Apache-style) these days don't even require commercial entities that fork your project to contribute back their changes. Free software / copyleft licenses like the GPL which do require that are these days shunned by many. "Open source" has become synonymous with "free labour" for a lot of firms, and there's a whole class of SaaS projects which amount to gluing together other people's open source work and then supporting it. I think this was all fine for people during boom time; you built your resume up on GitHub, you got street cred, often your employer paid for you to work on it. But I think it's starting to lose its sheen for some people.
- WalterBright 3y ago
  Here at the D Language Foundation, we don't shame people into contributing. We point out how it is worth their while to donate.
  - gumballindie 3y ago
    I’ll use this opportunity to say that D Lang is awesome and that I wish it gains wider adoption. I simply love that language and the community and I thank you for everything you do. On topic, indeed, shaming is never an option. But still I wish companies would donate to projects - in some countries there are even tax incentives to do so, and the benefit is that they essentially externalise development of a valuable tool for them. Also would earn a lot of good will - as steam does (while not sponsoring money directly).
    - WalterBright 3y ago
      It's the kind words from people like you that give us rocket fuel!
probablynish 3y ago
Steel manning here, the outcome is unfortunate because presumably these projects have positive externalities (benefits accruing to people other than other than whoever is paying, if anyone) and so the optimal funding for them from a social/aggregate point of view is greater than it currently is. That they are not funded enough is a case of market failure. Of course this doesn't contradict your point, that is fine for the maintainers to respond to these incentives. (Edit: to that end I agree with one of the main points of the article, developer's shouldn't be embarrassed about doing things for money, seeing as it's somewhat necessary for the world we live in).
voxl 3y ago
And maybe they should be funded by society enough to live. It's funny because this kind of social darwinism or capitalist world view is not the only possible way society could be successfully organized. Yet the (fallacious) appeal to "nature" would suggest that arbitrary monetary value is somehow the most important thing to optimize.
- WalterBright 3y ago
  > is not the only possible way society could be successfully organized True, if you have a rather low bar of success. Capitalism has produced wealth for average citizens inconceivable only a couple centuries ago. Even the poor in capitalist countries have a higher standard of living than medieval kings.
  - bheadmaster 3y ago
    > Even the poor in capitalist countries have a higher standard of living than medieval kings. That is almost completely due to technological progress, not because of capitalism itself.
    - WD40forRust 3y ago
      Capitalism is the nature in which technology got naturally selected.
      - bheadmaster 3y ago
        This sentence does not make any sense to me. Would you care to elaborate?
      - voxl 3y ago
        [citation needed] You know its funny because almost all academic advancement has not been in a capitalist system.
        WalterBright 3y ago
readyplayernull 3y ago
Monopolization is too slow, the goverment should force the fussion of every big tech company into a single entity that is forced to employ everyone in the country with great salaries and 4 hour workday, then people would have resources to do what's good. How would you like that MAANG?!

foobiekr 3y ago

It's not unfortunate at all. Every company I've worked for has been an unbelievable freeloader on open source projects. Tens of billions of dollars in revenue, almost nothing to the projects they rely on. I think the open source experiment has failed and that we need to embrace moving toward a compensated-commercial source model. Companies are strongly opposed to this because they can't freeload on volunteer work and other companies anymore, but it should be done.

behnamoh 3y ago
> I think the open source experiment has failed imo it still serves as a way to strengthen resumes of job applicants. Just have a few GH projects with decent "stars" to show you know how to build things. I don't endorse it (because the projects then often get abandoned after employment)—maybe it'd be better to have a "badge" on the GH page showing what the purpose of the project really is.
- wahnfrieden 3y ago
  thats not the open source experiment, that's just employers getting comfortable with expecting uncompensated labor in the recruiting process
jltsiren 3y ago
Open source has not failed. Attempts to build viable business models around it may have. That's not a weakness of open source but a weakness of software business. When you have a product with very low marginal cost of production, the market price for the product often tends towards $0. If you have a business that sells software licenses and someone develops a viable alternative (for whatever reason) and starts distributing it for free, you may have a hard time competing against them. And if the free alternative gains enough market share, both parties may find it difficult to pay for continued development. That's just how the market works.
- foobiekr 3y ago
  As a movement. People have to eat.

barrysteve 3y ago

It's a long time coming. Getting something for nothing, doesn't last.

bityard 3y ago

I'm starting to notice that roughly half of the comments on these threads that even lightly touch on the "ecomonmics" of Free and Open Source software are from who think they or their peers are somehow entitled to money and attention just because they put some code on the Internet. Maybe I'm old-school but I was always under the impression that a paycheck and recognition are things that are earned, not begged-for or guilt-tripped into.