3 ms·

AFAICT, the fee applies if you're using binary releases, or if you open issues, and are also generating revenue from the project. Apparently you can grab the so

by nine_k 1y ago

AFAICT, the fee applies if you're using binary releases, or if you open issues, and are also generating revenue from the project. Apparently you can grab the sources and build the binaries yourself (as per the OSS license), never ask for support (by reporting issues), and still have to pay nothing, even in a commercial setting. It looks a bit similar to the RedHat model: they release open-source software (Linux kernel is GPL2), but you may want to buy their binary releases and support. Not so rarely companies would not mind paying a small amount to help support the OSS projects they depend on. This may give CTOs an easy way to expense such support, even though becoming a GitHub sponsor is more involved than many would like; I hope Wix will introduce even easier options (Open Collective, its own non-profit, etc).

mikestorrent 1y ago
> companies would not mind paying a small amount to help support the OSS projects they depend on meanwhile I've been trying to find a way to give Hashicorp some money for over a decade of depending on their tools, but their products simply are too good to need the enterprise versions! At some point we need something like a "certified B corporation" for "certified ethical fair-trade Free Software using corporation" where an independant body audits and makes sure you're donating to a sufficient % of the open source projects used in your production SaaS
- nine_k 1y ago
  You can open https://www.hashicorp.com/en/pricing https://www.hashicorp.com/en/pricing and contact their sales department! Also, wasn't there an uproar when Terraform turned slightly less free? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37081306 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37081306
  - mikestorrent 1y ago
    Oh, I've been through the sales process. The trouble is that everything I've ever NEEDED has been free, and everything I might concievably want is locked behind a fairly high price threshold that I can never justify. They need some way for folks like me to get our companies to pay like $5k a year ARR for something that makes it more useful without going the full enterprise route.
- acedTrex 1y ago
  I mean enterprise vault has some really important features that open source doesnt. That could be a good direction to throw money at.
- robmensching 1y ago
  Yes! There are many Open Source projects my company depends on (like Astro, Vue, and Vite for our web sites) that I would love to pay a Maintenance Fee to encourage the maintainers to keep on keeping on. For all Open Source projects that we depend on and accept sponsors, we do pay the $10 "fee" even if they don't require it.
derefr 1y ago
> or if you open issues I feel like there should be an exception carved out to this policy, if the submitter of an issue is offering to create (or, as a corporation, dedicate their own engineers' time to creating) a PR to resolve the problem the issue describes. As a maintainer of a few OSS projects myself, I see my fair share of "choosing beggars" (i.e. people who don't mentally model others' motivations, and so use github issues to essentially say "I got this for free, but it's not perfect for me, so can you please improve it in ways X/Y/Z to better suit my needs?" — without any consideration of whether their suggested improvement would ever benefit anyone else.) But if an issue's submitter offers to create a PR, then this makes it very clear that they're not operating in this mindset; and in fact, they're being quite considerate! By describing a real problem, and then offering to create a solution to that problem, they: 1. make sure that we actually want to solve this problem (i.e. that we don't think of their problem as a WONTFIX / something that doesn't belong upstream) 2. give us the opportunity to take over solving the problem ourselves, if we think it's some kind of highly-critical and finicky work 3. give us the opportunity to participate in / constrain / steer the design of a solution, before it gets developed (rather than just having code dropped in our laps and having to fight it into an entirely different shape) And it often doesn't even matter if the developer in question really has the skill and experience to develop the proposed solution entirely on their own. To me, a dev who creates a half-baked PR that we can then help shepherd over the line over the course of weeks/months of back-and-forth with them in the PR thread, is someone clearly in the process of developing that skill and experience, and potentially becoming an active contributor to the project — or maybe even a future maintainer. This sort of willingness to engage in a non-drive-by way is incredibly valuable.
- thayne 1y ago
  It's complicated. Reviewing a PR takes time and effort, and the maintainer may not want to do that for a feature that mainly benefits a company that isn't paying the maintenance fee. OTOH, as a maintainer, if a company finds a bug that would impact a lot of users, I would want them to report it, regardless of their payment status. But saying something like "Issues from paying customers/donors have higher priority" is kind of vague, and doesn't provide any concrete value to the payer. So I'm not really sure what a good balance would be.
huslage 1y ago
Red Hat does not charge you to open issues on open source projects and never will. Their business model does not hinge on deriving value from core open source principles.
robmensching 1y ago
> It looks a bit similar to the RedHat model Yes, very good recognition. The Open Source Maintenance Fee follows several of the paths RedHat paved long ago. > This may give CTOs an easy way to expense such support I'm finding it actually gives the CTOs (or someone a bit lower in the chain) the _requirement_ to pay like they always wanted to before. Said another way, in the past, many devs/leads/managers would say, "Oh, I'd like to sponsor this project but I can't get through procurement." With the OSMF, now they have the forcing function to help them through. This is not hypothetical, I've had companies tell me exactly this. > becoming a GitHub sponsor is more involved than many would like; GitHub Sponsors is great... except for a few very real cases where it is not. This is on my radar to improve over time.

by nine_k 1y ago

mikestorrent 1y ago

> companies would not mind paying a small amount to help support the OSS projects they depend on meanwhile I've been trying to find a way to give Hashicorp some money for over a decade of depending on their tools, but their products simply are too good to need the enterprise versions! At some point we need something like a "certified B corporation" for "certified ethical fair-trade Free Software using corporation" where an independant body audits and makes sure you're donating to a sufficient % of the open source projects used in your production SaaS

nine_k 1y ago
You can open https://www.hashicorp.com/en/pricing https://www.hashicorp.com/en/pricing and contact their sales department! Also, wasn't there an uproar when Terraform turned slightly less free? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37081306 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37081306
- mikestorrent 1y ago
  Oh, I've been through the sales process. The trouble is that everything I've ever NEEDED has been free, and everything I might concievably want is locked behind a fairly high price threshold that I can never justify. They need some way for folks like me to get our companies to pay like $5k a year ARR for something that makes it more useful without going the full enterprise route.
acedTrex 1y ago
I mean enterprise vault has some really important features that open source doesnt. That could be a good direction to throw money at.
robmensching 1y ago
Yes! There are many Open Source projects my company depends on (like Astro, Vue, and Vite for our web sites) that I would love to pay a Maintenance Fee to encourage the maintainers to keep on keeping on. For all Open Source projects that we depend on and accept sponsors, we do pay the $10 "fee" even if they don't require it.

derefr 1y ago

> or if you open issues I feel like there should be an exception carved out to this policy, if the submitter of an issue is offering to create (or, as a corporation, dedicate their own engineers' time to creating) a PR to resolve the problem the issue describes. As a maintainer of a few OSS projects myself, I see my fair share of "choosing beggars" (i.e. people who don't mentally model others' motivations, and so use github issues to essentially say "I got this for free, but it's not perfect for me, so can you please improve it in ways X/Y/Z to better suit my needs?" — without any consideration of whether their suggested improvement would ever benefit anyone else.) But if an issue's submitter offers to create a PR, then this makes it very clear that they're not operating in this mindset; and in fact, they're being quite considerate! By describing a real problem, and then offering to create a solution to that problem, they: 1. make sure that we actually want to solve this problem (i.e. that we don't think of their problem as a WONTFIX / something that doesn't belong upstream) 2. give us the opportunity to take over solving the problem ourselves, if we think it's some kind of highly-critical and finicky work 3. give us the opportunity to participate in / constrain / steer the design of a solution, before it gets developed (rather than just having code dropped in our laps and having to fight it into an entirely different shape) And it often doesn't even matter if the developer in question really has the skill and experience to develop the proposed solution entirely on their own. To me, a dev who creates a half-baked PR that we can then help shepherd over the line over the course of weeks/months of back-and-forth with them in the PR thread, is someone clearly in the process of developing that skill and experience, and potentially becoming an active contributor to the project — or maybe even a future maintainer. This sort of willingness to engage in a non-drive-by way is incredibly valuable.

thayne 1y ago
It's complicated. Reviewing a PR takes time and effort, and the maintainer may not want to do that for a feature that mainly benefits a company that isn't paying the maintenance fee. OTOH, as a maintainer, if a company finds a bug that would impact a lot of users, I would want them to report it, regardless of their payment status. But saying something like "Issues from paying customers/donors have higher priority" is kind of vague, and doesn't provide any concrete value to the payer. So I'm not really sure what a good balance would be.

huslage 1y ago

Red Hat does not charge you to open issues on open source projects and never will. Their business model does not hinge on deriving value from core open source principles.

robmensching 1y ago

> It looks a bit similar to the RedHat model Yes, very good recognition. The Open Source Maintenance Fee follows several of the paths RedHat paved long ago. > This may give CTOs an easy way to expense such support I'm finding it actually gives the CTOs (or someone a bit lower in the chain) the _requirement_ to pay like they always wanted to before. Said another way, in the past, many devs/leads/managers would say, "Oh, I'd like to sponsor this project but I can't get through procurement." With the OSMF, now they have the forcing function to help them through. This is not hypothetical, I've had companies tell me exactly this. > becoming a GitHub sponsor is more involved than many would like; GitHub Sponsors is great... except for a few very real cases where it is not. This is on my radar to improve over time.