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> I kind of wish the upstream devs got billed for all the extra work they cause. This is actually very easy to do! Surely you’re already donating generous sum

> I kind of wish the upstream devs got billed for all the extra work they cause. This is actually very easy to do! Surely you’re already donating generous sums to these open source projects - you can simply let them know you’ll reduce your contribution until the problem is fixed. This is a snarky reply and I’m sorry for that, but seriously why do you feel entitled to anything? Receiving any free software in the first place is more than sufficient.

nox101 2y ago
This has nothing to do with entitlement. Nothing about my post had to do with open source. The same issues apply to proprietary API changes. Further, I maintain 150 open source projects, 20+ of them active. I still take into account that making a change to an API effects every user downstream. You can spin this anyway you want. If you run an project (open or closed) and you make a change the costs 10s of thousands or million of hours of collective work downstream you just effectively burned down X amount of trees, put Y amount of carbon in the atmosphere, made Z number of people work late instead of being with friends and family, etc...
- shepherdjerred 2y ago
  Your post mentioned five projects all of which are free and open source. You then mentioned that upstream devs should be billed. How can your post be read as anything other than "open source devs should be billed"?
porridgeraisin 2y ago
This argument always bothered me. For me, the ethos of open source and free software is altruism. The whole point is that the developers make the software to help users. There's nothing gained by developers thought-endingly stating that the users aren't entitled to anything. On the other hand though, it's not like users are saints either (for example, vanishingly few donate to the developers of the software they use) so it's a bit of a race to the bottom overall and I understand such sentiment.
- phendrenad2 2y ago
  Maybe I'm cynical, but after 30 years in the open-source community, I think the true ethos of open-source is self-interest, and the disregard open-source maintainers feel for their users reflects this.
- shepherdjerred 2y ago
  The point of free software is to allow users to have control over the software they use. There's no inherent connection to altruism, though that is part of why I open source the code that I can. Plenty of individuals and companies release open source software that requires payment. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html Anyway, I feel this is all tangential. My issue was mostly that the parent comment suggested that open source devs be billed for changing the software they create.

nox101 2y ago

This has nothing to do with entitlement. Nothing about my post had to do with open source. The same issues apply to proprietary API changes. Further, I maintain 150 open source projects, 20+ of them active. I still take into account that making a change to an API effects every user downstream. You can spin this anyway you want. If you run an project (open or closed) and you make a change the costs 10s of thousands or million of hours of collective work downstream you just effectively burned down X amount of trees, put Y amount of carbon in the atmosphere, made Z number of people work late instead of being with friends and family, etc...

shepherdjerred 2y ago
Your post mentioned five projects all of which are free and open source. You then mentioned that upstream devs should be billed. How can your post be read as anything other than "open source devs should be billed"?

porridgeraisin 2y ago

This argument always bothered me. For me, the ethos of open source and free software is altruism. The whole point is that the developers make the software to help users. There's nothing gained by developers thought-endingly stating that the users aren't entitled to anything. On the other hand though, it's not like users are saints either (for example, vanishingly few donate to the developers of the software they use) so it's a bit of a race to the bottom overall and I understand such sentiment.

phendrenad2 2y ago
Maybe I'm cynical, but after 30 years in the open-source community, I think the true ethos of open-source is self-interest, and the disregard open-source maintainers feel for their users reflects this.
shepherdjerred 2y ago
The point of free software is to allow users to have control over the software they use. There's no inherent connection to altruism, though that is part of why I open source the code that I can. Plenty of individuals and companies release open source software that requires payment. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html Anyway, I feel this is all tangential. My issue was mostly that the parent comment suggested that open source devs be billed for changing the software they create.