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I don't understand the concern. It's a real problem and if someone wanted to do it for free, they could have and would have. Here is a guy who offers to do it i

by flexie 14y ago

I don't understand the concern. It's a real problem and if someone wanted to do it for free, they could have and would have. Here is a guy who offers to do it if he get's paid a minimum amount. Fine. No moral issues.

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- Aloisius 14y ago
  The issue is that it arguably violates the spirit of open source. Open source software is meant to be free and available to everyone. The spirit of Open Source is free like speech, not like beer. Open Source, while often given away, has always been about empowering people to be able to hack on internals, not simply avoid paying money for things. I've paid real money for a lot of open source software for the decade and a half and done so happily.
  - nicpottier 14y ago
    Yes, thank you for reminding us all of that. Kids these days weren't around during the /. debates on this very topic.
- freyr 14y ago
  > it arguably violates the spirit of open source. Open source software is meant to be free and available to everyone. Open source means open source. There's no implicit requirement that the developer must have received no monetary compensation for developing the source. Besides, a whole lot of open-source software is written by developers who, while developing it, are getting paid by a parent company. Consider Apple, who has contributed open-source software as an outgrowth of their work on OS X. Do you think they demanded that their developers work for free, so as to avoid tainting the spirit of the open source movement and complicating the ethical calculus? Of course not.
- reitzensteinm 14y ago
  Money and open source mix just fine. The practical reason that open source has exploded is that a large number of interested parties can contribute towards a project that benefits them all, avoiding duplication of effort. This is just the next logical step. Instead of contributing one hour of my time, I can spend it on my day job and pay for one hour of Andrew's time. In practice, this is exactly the same as the old model, just with higher efficiency - as a Django outsider (but user), one hour of Andrew's time is worth the first hundred of mine. If you don't want to contribute financially, you have no obligation to; just in the same way that you can use Django and contribute no code. It also doesn't stop you from helping in other ways - I'm sure Andrew would be thrilled to have help, so long as you spend those countless hours getting up to speed :)
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ProblemFactory 14y ago
> Here is a guy who offers to do it if he get's paid a minimum amount. I'm sure Andrew would work on this even if the kickstarter had failed - he built South without one after all :) But having a funded project helps in many ways. It frees him from the distraction of contract work, proves that a lot of people really care about the issue, and finally is a thank-you-donation for the work on Django in the past and the future.
- adamc 14y ago
  It's a no-brainer if only as a thank-you for something I've used and certainly appreciated.

by flexie 14y ago

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Aloisius 14y ago
The issue is that it arguably violates the spirit of open source. Open source software is meant to be free and available to everyone. The spirit of Open Source is free like speech, not like beer. Open Source, while often given away, has always been about empowering people to be able to hack on internals, not simply avoid paying money for things. I've paid real money for a lot of open source software for the decade and a half and done so happily.
- nicpottier 14y ago
  Yes, thank you for reminding us all of that. Kids these days weren't around during the /. debates on this very topic.
freyr 14y ago
> it arguably violates the spirit of open source. Open source software is meant to be free and available to everyone. Open source means open source. There's no implicit requirement that the developer must have received no monetary compensation for developing the source. Besides, a whole lot of open-source software is written by developers who, while developing it, are getting paid by a parent company. Consider Apple, who has contributed open-source software as an outgrowth of their work on OS X. Do you think they demanded that their developers work for free, so as to avoid tainting the spirit of the open source movement and complicating the ethical calculus? Of course not.
reitzensteinm 14y ago
Money and open source mix just fine. The practical reason that open source has exploded is that a large number of interested parties can contribute towards a project that benefits them all, avoiding duplication of effort. This is just the next logical step. Instead of contributing one hour of my time, I can spend it on my day job and pay for one hour of Andrew's time. In practice, this is exactly the same as the old model, just with higher efficiency - as a Django outsider (but user), one hour of Andrew's time is worth the first hundred of mine. If you don't want to contribute financially, you have no obligation to; just in the same way that you can use Django and contribute no code. It also doesn't stop you from helping in other ways - I'm sure Andrew would be thrilled to have help, so long as you spend those countless hours getting up to speed :)

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ProblemFactory 14y ago

> Here is a guy who offers to do it if he get's paid a minimum amount. I'm sure Andrew would work on this even if the kickstarter had failed - he built South without one after all :) But having a funded project helps in many ways. It frees him from the distraction of contract work, proves that a lot of people really care about the issue, and finally is a thank-you-donation for the work on Django in the past and the future.

adamc 14y ago
It's a no-brainer if only as a thank-you for something I've used and certainly appreciated.