3 ms·

Seems like a good time to throw out a reminder regarding "Roads and Bridges: The Unseen Labor Behind Our Digital Infrastructure" by Nadia Asparouhova. While she

by neom 9mo ago

Seems like a good time to throw out a reminder regarding "Roads and Bridges: The Unseen Labor Behind Our Digital Infrastructure" by Nadia Asparouhova. While she may have published it in 2016, it's still relevant today and speaks to the need for the private sector generally (looking at you VC firms) to support and understand the open source work, hours of unfunded labor, powering our societies. https://www.fordfoundation.org/learning/library/research-reports/roads-and-bridges-the-unseen-labor-behind-our-digital-infrastructure/ https://www.fordfoundation.org/learning/library/research-rep...

godzillabrennus 9mo ago
Big Tech should really be footing the bill here as well as large established VC firms.
- ajross 9mo ago
  To a large extent they do and always have. It's not as broad or fair as it should be[1], but for almost any economically important project all the major contributors and maintainers are on the payroll of one of the big tech interests or a foundation funded by them. The hippies writing that software may not be compensated at the level you'd expect given the value they provide, but they'll never go hungry. [1] LLVM and Linux get more cash than they can spend. GNU stuff is comparatively impoverished because everyone assumes they'd do it for free anyway. Stuff that ships on a Canonical desktop or RHEL default install gets lots of cash but community favorites like KDE need to make their own way, etc... Also just to be clear: node is filled with povertyware and you should be extremely careful what you grab from npm.
  - Foxboron 9mo ago
    > but for almost any economically important project all the major contributors and maintainers are on the payroll of one of the big tech interests or a foundation funded by them. "almost" is the load bearing word here, and/or a weasel word. Define what an "economically important project" is. > Also just to be clear: node is filled with povertyware and you should be extremely careful what you grab from npm. Is "povertyware" what we call software written by people and released for free now?
    - ajross 9mo ago
      > "almost" is the load bearing word here, and/or a weasel word. Define what an "economically important project" is. Linux, clang, python, react, blink, v8, openssl... You know what I mean. I stand by what I said. Do you have a counterexample you think is clearly unfunded? They exist[1], but they're rare. > Is "povertyware" what we call software written by people and released for free now? It's software subject to economic coercion owing to the lack of means of its maintainership. It's 100% fine for you to write and release software for free, but if a third party bets their own product on it they're subject to an attack where I hand you $7M to look the other way while I borrow your shell. [1] The xz-utils attack is the flag bearer for this kind of messup, obviously.
      - Foxboron 9mo ago
        > Linux, clang, python, react, blink, v8, openssl... You know what I mean. I stand by what I said. Do you have a counterexample you think is clearly unfunded? They exist[1], but they're rare. For Linux "all the major contributors and maintainers are on the payroll of one of the big tech interests or a foundation funded by them" is simply not true. It's trivial to prove this by just looking at the maintainers of the subsystems. Making this claim is nonsense to begin with. Same is true for several major contributors to the Python compiler and subsequent libraries as well. You will move the goalpost by trying to narrow down what "major contributor" means. > It's software subject to economic coercion owing to the lack of means of its maintainership. It's 100% fine for you to write and release software for free, but if a third party bets their own product on it they're subject to an attack where I hand you $7M to look the other way while I borrow your shell. So without knowing anyone you are making a value judgement on the (probable?) lack of ethics? Excuse me?
        ajross 9mo ago
        > You will move the goalpost I can't move the goalpost if you won't produce a ball. Who exactly are you thinking of that needs a job but doesn't have one?
        9mo ago
  - embedding-shape 9mo ago
    What is a "economically important project"? A company that makes a lot of money?
  - kolbe 9mo ago
    > LLVM and Linux get more cash than they can spend. GNU stuff is comparatively impoverished because everyone assumes they'd do it for free anyway. Stuff that ships on a Canonical desktop or RHEL default install gets lots of cash but community favorites like KDE need to make their own way, etc... Also just to be clear: node is filled with povertyware and you should be extremely careful what you grab from npm. This is often the problem with charity in general. It's hard to find good organizations that actually need your money. Great ones self-sustain on their own revenue. Good ones are saturated with donations from their own users. There's just a small sliver of projects that are awesome, and could productively use financial support. From personal experience, identifying these is often far more costly than the act of writing a check.
- alain94040 9mo ago
  Really simple fix: social pressure and expectations should be that every company that uses open source pays a fixed amount of their revenue (is 0.1% low enough to be negligible for the companies). Companies that don't should shunned.
  - n8m8 9mo ago
    They won’t even attempt to read ToS, you think they’ll shun companies?
  - TrainedMonkey 9mo ago
    The problem is, people who make that decision can either spend 0.1% to support open source and get return on investment in terms of better business performance in 2-3 business years. Or they could pay themselves 0.1% in bonuses right now and get an immediate return.
  - jszymborski 9mo ago
    How about we skip the social pressure and levy a tax on them that is used to shore up a sovereign fund for OSS.
    - deleted 9mo ago
      [deleted]
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
whilenot-dev 9mo ago
*by Nadia Eghbal EDIT: or are you rather thinking about the book Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software?
- embedding-shape 9mo ago
  Actually, since 2022, Nadia Asparouhova :) From a 2022 email: > (P.S. I have a new last name! Still transitioning everything over, but I’m now Nadia Asparouhova.)
  - whilenot-dev 9mo ago
    That clears things up, thanks! Here the website of the author: https://nadia.xyz/ https://nadia.xyz/

by neom 9mo ago

godzillabrennus 9mo ago

Big Tech should really be footing the bill here as well as large established VC firms.

ajross 9mo ago
To a large extent they do and always have. It's not as broad or fair as it should be[1], but for almost any economically important project all the major contributors and maintainers are on the payroll of one of the big tech interests or a foundation funded by them. The hippies writing that software may not be compensated at the level you'd expect given the value they provide, but they'll never go hungry. [1] LLVM and Linux get more cash than they can spend. GNU stuff is comparatively impoverished because everyone assumes they'd do it for free anyway. Stuff that ships on a Canonical desktop or RHEL default install gets lots of cash but community favorites like KDE need to make their own way, etc... Also just to be clear: node is filled with povertyware and you should be extremely careful what you grab from npm.
- Foxboron 9mo ago
  > but for almost any economically important project all the major contributors and maintainers are on the payroll of one of the big tech interests or a foundation funded by them. "almost" is the load bearing word here, and/or a weasel word. Define what an "economically important project" is. > Also just to be clear: node is filled with povertyware and you should be extremely careful what you grab from npm. Is "povertyware" what we call software written by people and released for free now?
  - ajross 9mo ago
    > "almost" is the load bearing word here, and/or a weasel word. Define what an "economically important project" is. Linux, clang, python, react, blink, v8, openssl... You know what I mean. I stand by what I said. Do you have a counterexample you think is clearly unfunded? They exist[1], but they're rare. > Is "povertyware" what we call software written by people and released for free now? It's software subject to economic coercion owing to the lack of means of its maintainership. It's 100% fine for you to write and release software for free, but if a third party bets their own product on it they're subject to an attack where I hand you $7M to look the other way while I borrow your shell. [1] The xz-utils attack is the flag bearer for this kind of messup, obviously.
    - Foxboron 9mo ago
      > Linux, clang, python, react, blink, v8, openssl... You know what I mean. I stand by what I said. Do you have a counterexample you think is clearly unfunded? They exist[1], but they're rare. For Linux "all the major contributors and maintainers are on the payroll of one of the big tech interests or a foundation funded by them" is simply not true. It's trivial to prove this by just looking at the maintainers of the subsystems. Making this claim is nonsense to begin with. Same is true for several major contributors to the Python compiler and subsequent libraries as well. You will move the goalpost by trying to narrow down what "major contributor" means. > It's software subject to economic coercion owing to the lack of means of its maintainership. It's 100% fine for you to write and release software for free, but if a third party bets their own product on it they're subject to an attack where I hand you $7M to look the other way while I borrow your shell. So without knowing anyone you are making a value judgement on the (probable?) lack of ethics? Excuse me?
      - ajross 9mo ago
        > You will move the goalpost I can't move the goalpost if you won't produce a ball. Who exactly are you thinking of that needs a job but doesn't have one?
        9mo ago
- embedding-shape 9mo ago
  What is a "economically important project"? A company that makes a lot of money?
- kolbe 9mo ago
  > LLVM and Linux get more cash than they can spend. GNU stuff is comparatively impoverished because everyone assumes they'd do it for free anyway. Stuff that ships on a Canonical desktop or RHEL default install gets lots of cash but community favorites like KDE need to make their own way, etc... Also just to be clear: node is filled with povertyware and you should be extremely careful what you grab from npm. This is often the problem with charity in general. It's hard to find good organizations that actually need your money. Great ones self-sustain on their own revenue. Good ones are saturated with donations from their own users. There's just a small sliver of projects that are awesome, and could productively use financial support. From personal experience, identifying these is often far more costly than the act of writing a check.
alain94040 9mo ago
Really simple fix: social pressure and expectations should be that every company that uses open source pays a fixed amount of their revenue (is 0.1% low enough to be negligible for the companies). Companies that don't should shunned.
- n8m8 9mo ago
  They won’t even attempt to read ToS, you think they’ll shun companies?
- TrainedMonkey 9mo ago
  The problem is, people who make that decision can either spend 0.1% to support open source and get return on investment in terms of better business performance in 2-3 business years. Or they could pay themselves 0.1% in bonuses right now and get an immediate return.
- jszymborski 9mo ago
  How about we skip the social pressure and levy a tax on them that is used to shore up a sovereign fund for OSS.
  - deleted 9mo ago
    [deleted]
deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]

whilenot-dev 9mo ago

*by Nadia Eghbal EDIT: or are you rather thinking about the book Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software?

embedding-shape 9mo ago
Actually, since 2022, Nadia Asparouhova :) From a 2022 email: > (P.S. I have a new last name! Still transitioning everything over, but I’m now Nadia Asparouhova.)
- whilenot-dev 9mo ago
  That clears things up, thanks! Here the website of the author: https://nadia.xyz/ https://nadia.xyz/