4 ms·

open source is charity. I believe in it, I contribute to it, but I recognize it is unlikely to lead to a sustainable livelihood

foxglacier 1y ago
Yes. Somebody else using your software is usually the ambition of open source developers but this guy is hurt by it. He's programming for money, not doing charity. It sounds like being open source was just for show to make his business look like a charity.
lemming 1y ago
I don't know about you, but if I'm going to donate to/work for charity, I'd like to ensure it's for someone who actually needs it rather than the Amazons of the world. I don't feel a pressing need to donate any money or time to them.
- bigstrat2003 1y ago
  That makes no sense at all. Software is not a scarce resource, unlike your money. If you donate money to a charity who gives it to Amazon, you would have good reason to be upset. But if you write a piece of software and Amazon uses it, other (needier) users benefit just as much! Or to put it in another context, if you went and volunteered for a highway cleanup, would you get mad if Bezos drove on the highway you cleaned? Because that is what your position here is analogous to, and that seems like a poor line of reasoning to me.
  - lemming 1y ago
    > if you went and volunteered for a highway cleanup, would you get mad if Bezos drove on the highway you cleaned? No, but I would get mad if Bezos made a ton of money charging people to drive on a clean highway after I had cleaned it for free.
    - account42 1y ago
      The situation is more akin to Bezos charging people to deliver goods via your highway while others can still use it for free though.
pabs3 1y ago
There are lots of FOSS consultancies out there doing fairly well, some linked from the FOSSjobs wiki: https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources
- account42 1y ago
  Sure but the open source part is mostly incidental to their work. They solve business needs for corporations.
  - pabs3 1y ago
    The open source part is usually the whole point, they work solely on open source projects themselves, not deploying those projects for corporations. They work on things like the Linux kernel, mesa, systemd, distros etc.

foxglacier 1y ago

Yes. Somebody else using your software is usually the ambition of open source developers but this guy is hurt by it. He's programming for money, not doing charity. It sounds like being open source was just for show to make his business look like a charity.

lemming 1y ago

I don't know about you, but if I'm going to donate to/work for charity, I'd like to ensure it's for someone who actually needs it rather than the Amazons of the world. I don't feel a pressing need to donate any money or time to them.

bigstrat2003 1y ago
That makes no sense at all. Software is not a scarce resource, unlike your money. If you donate money to a charity who gives it to Amazon, you would have good reason to be upset. But if you write a piece of software and Amazon uses it, other (needier) users benefit just as much! Or to put it in another context, if you went and volunteered for a highway cleanup, would you get mad if Bezos drove on the highway you cleaned? Because that is what your position here is analogous to, and that seems like a poor line of reasoning to me.
- lemming 1y ago
  > if you went and volunteered for a highway cleanup, would you get mad if Bezos drove on the highway you cleaned? No, but I would get mad if Bezos made a ton of money charging people to drive on a clean highway after I had cleaned it for free.
  - account42 1y ago
    The situation is more akin to Bezos charging people to deliver goods via your highway while others can still use it for free though.

pabs3 1y ago

There are lots of FOSS consultancies out there doing fairly well, some linked from the FOSSjobs wiki: https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources

account42 1y ago
Sure but the open source part is mostly incidental to their work. They solve business needs for corporations.
- pabs3 1y ago
  The open source part is usually the whole point, they work solely on open source projects themselves, not deploying those projects for corporations. They work on things like the Linux kernel, mesa, systemd, distros etc.