6 ms·

You are using Ubuntu, I see from your profile. How much have you paid them? This is how the stories goes: we haven't figured out how to make good work worthwhi

by hf 12y ago

You are using Ubuntu, I see from your profile. How much have you paid them? This is how the stories goes: we haven't figured out how to make good work worthwhile. Perhaps we can learn something from our vast experience in profitably peddling shit?

pyre 12y ago
> You are using Ubuntu, I see from your profile. How much have you paid them? It's easier for businesses to write off these type donations (and make them for significant amounts) than for private individuals to do so.
- fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
  >It's easier for businesses Far simpler not to even bother at all.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- briandear 12y ago
  If it's a registered non profit you can donate and 'write it off' too. The idea that a 'big company' should do the donating is short sighted. That big company is made up of individuals. If everyone reading this donated $100, the problem posed by the article would disappear.
  - pyre 12y ago
    My point is that it's probably easier to get a company that is turning a profit off of something to donate a single large sum, than to convince a million people to donate $1.
    - crpatino 12y ago
      Beg to disagree. If your effort is half as good, you still get half million people to donate $1. On the company case, one million is not pocket change, so this will be a serious decision that has to be approved by several independent branches within the organization, each with veto power. Screw one of those and it's a deal breaker. Furthermore, I'd say that this decision is one that is particularly difficult to frame for the company. While corporations do understand direct costs very very well, they are practically hardwired to ignore/exploit the gift economy. So the discussion will be stirred towards what indirect benefits will the company receive from donating to a worthy cause (public relations, tax exceptions, etc) and away from the consequences of letting a (unacknowledged) strategic partner to go under. Not to say that a corporation cannot assume stewardship of a distressed project, but it almost always requires executive fiat to get over the bureaucracy.
  - sukilot 12y ago
    The numbers are a bit harder to meet than that, as gpg isn't the only project that needs funding. Heartbleed was caused by a similar issue.
- icelancer 12y ago
  Tu quoque?
- whichfawkes 12y ago
  It's easier still for a business to pay for a support contract, contributing to Canonical's revenue. Perhaps they could send a small fraction of that money to projects like GPG.
fivedogit 12y ago
We're our own worst enemies. Software developers have this sort of circular firing squad where nobody wants to be the first to keep their source closed and try to charge for it. Because then you're just "greedy" and not pure enough. But that'll never change unless all of a sudden we say "Ok, on the count of 3, everybody stop giving away their hard-earned expertise for free. 1... 2... 3..." We're like musicians nowadays. We love it, so we do it without insisting on compensation. A few months ago, I Show HN'd an open source project, but reserved the copyright to the code. The commenters immediately took note of this and I felt compelled to switch it to an MIT license. (It was open source for security reasons, if you're wondering.) I'm glad I did, but the point remains: there was pressure to conform.
- erichmond 12y ago
  Why in the world would this be downvoted? There is nothing inflammatory about this post at all. He's bringing up a widely debated point in our industry.
  - fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
    Probably because we're talking about encryption software ITT, and nobody would trust closed source encryption software.
    - toyg 12y ago
      > nobody would trust closed source encryption software. ORLY? Have you read much source for BitLocker or FileVault, recently? WhatsApp? Skype? And those are just the most popular ones off the top of my head...
      - fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
        No, and I wouldn't trust myself to read it either. But, there's a fair chance that someone I trust eventually will and that they'll point it out when they see something fishy.
  - deleted 12y ago
rmc 12y ago
Ubuntu used to (and do sometimes) send banners and CDs. That costs money. Ubuntu/Canonical have money. Why haven't they given some for GPG?
- zanny 12y ago
  Ubuntu is not making money, and Mark Shuttleworth keeps infusing the company with his own pocketbook whenever it goes in the red. They might be doing something on the server / corporate support contracts end nowadays, that has really taken off in the last few years, but you might as well just ask Mark to hire Werner Koch.
zanny 12y ago
The problem is that in practice most people in almost any free software project do not have the funds personally to afford donating all the time. I mean, I feel the burn when I give money to Debian, Arch, KDE, etc - but I do it because I know I have to, because the software is so important to me. The $500 or so I donate each year is a lot of money to me, and I'm in the US - I cannot imagine how much donating to these projects would hurt the international users who make significantly less than the 15-25k or so I make annually. I don't know how KDE managed it, but Blue Systems (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Systems http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Systems) is a Germany company founded by one Clemens Tönnies, Jr. Don't know anything about the guy, but he is somehow paying 10+ KDE devs without a business model. I've donated a lot to Kubuntu, but I cannot imagine in a million years they get enough donor money to fund all the devs they employ. But those kinds of philanthropies, the way Mark Shuttleworth keeps Canonical afloat, seems to me to be the only practical way to keep free software afloat. You cannot ask a million destitute people to donate money they need to eat or sleep comfortably, but we as a community don't have the charisma or ears to get fat cat donors to foot the bills. Probably because software freedom does not matter as much when you are wealthy - you can just pay to get the software you want made anyway, and you might even be able to bribe companies to give you the source if you care enough. And I recognize a huge portion of the donor pool for most free software projects isn't either end of this spectrum, but people like me making something above the poverty line and below extravagance that donate what they can where they can, but that is consistently shown to not be enough. And I imagine it is more because it takes millions of average joes paying dollars to match what one millionaire can do in an instant.

by hf 12y ago

pyre 12y ago

> You are using Ubuntu, I see from your profile. How much have you paid them? It's easier for businesses to write off these type donations (and make them for significant amounts) than for private individuals to do so.

fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
>It's easier for businesses Far simpler not to even bother at all.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
briandear 12y ago
If it's a registered non profit you can donate and 'write it off' too. The idea that a 'big company' should do the donating is short sighted. That big company is made up of individuals. If everyone reading this donated $100, the problem posed by the article would disappear.
- pyre 12y ago
  My point is that it's probably easier to get a company that is turning a profit off of something to donate a single large sum, than to convince a million people to donate $1.
  - crpatino 12y ago
    Beg to disagree. If your effort is half as good, you still get half million people to donate $1. On the company case, one million is not pocket change, so this will be a serious decision that has to be approved by several independent branches within the organization, each with veto power. Screw one of those and it's a deal breaker. Furthermore, I'd say that this decision is one that is particularly difficult to frame for the company. While corporations do understand direct costs very very well, they are practically hardwired to ignore/exploit the gift economy. So the discussion will be stirred towards what indirect benefits will the company receive from donating to a worthy cause (public relations, tax exceptions, etc) and away from the consequences of letting a (unacknowledged) strategic partner to go under. Not to say that a corporation cannot assume stewardship of a distressed project, but it almost always requires executive fiat to get over the bureaucracy.
- sukilot 12y ago
  The numbers are a bit harder to meet than that, as gpg isn't the only project that needs funding. Heartbleed was caused by a similar issue.
icelancer 12y ago
Tu quoque?
whichfawkes 12y ago
It's easier still for a business to pay for a support contract, contributing to Canonical's revenue. Perhaps they could send a small fraction of that money to projects like GPG.

fivedogit 12y ago

We're our own worst enemies. Software developers have this sort of circular firing squad where nobody wants to be the first to keep their source closed and try to charge for it. Because then you're just "greedy" and not pure enough. But that'll never change unless all of a sudden we say "Ok, on the count of 3, everybody stop giving away their hard-earned expertise for free. 1... 2... 3..." We're like musicians nowadays. We love it, so we do it without insisting on compensation. A few months ago, I Show HN'd an open source project, but reserved the copyright to the code. The commenters immediately took note of this and I felt compelled to switch it to an MIT license. (It was open source for security reasons, if you're wondering.) I'm glad I did, but the point remains: there was pressure to conform.

erichmond 12y ago
Why in the world would this be downvoted? There is nothing inflammatory about this post at all. He's bringing up a widely debated point in our industry.
- fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
  Probably because we're talking about encryption software ITT, and nobody would trust closed source encryption software.
  - toyg 12y ago
    > nobody would trust closed source encryption software. ORLY? Have you read much source for BitLocker or FileVault, recently? WhatsApp? Skype? And those are just the most popular ones off the top of my head...
    - fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
      No, and I wouldn't trust myself to read it either. But, there's a fair chance that someone I trust eventually will and that they'll point it out when they see something fishy.
- deleted 12y ago

rmc 12y ago

Ubuntu used to (and do sometimes) send banners and CDs. That costs money. Ubuntu/Canonical have money. Why haven't they given some for GPG?

zanny 12y ago
Ubuntu is not making money, and Mark Shuttleworth keeps infusing the company with his own pocketbook whenever it goes in the red. They might be doing something on the server / corporate support contracts end nowadays, that has really taken off in the last few years, but you might as well just ask Mark to hire Werner Koch.

zanny 12y ago

The problem is that in practice most people in almost any free software project do not have the funds personally to afford donating all the time. I mean, I feel the burn when I give money to Debian, Arch, KDE, etc - but I do it because I know I have to, because the software is so important to me. The $500 or so I donate each year is a lot of money to me, and I'm in the US - I cannot imagine how much donating to these projects would hurt the international users who make significantly less than the 15-25k or so I make annually. I don't know how KDE managed it, but Blue Systems (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Systems http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Systems) is a Germany company founded by one Clemens Tönnies, Jr. Don't know anything about the guy, but he is somehow paying 10+ KDE devs without a business model. I've donated a lot to Kubuntu, but I cannot imagine in a million years they get enough donor money to fund all the devs they employ. But those kinds of philanthropies, the way Mark Shuttleworth keeps Canonical afloat, seems to me to be the only practical way to keep free software afloat. You cannot ask a million destitute people to donate money they need to eat or sleep comfortably, but we as a community don't have the charisma or ears to get fat cat donors to foot the bills. Probably because software freedom does not matter as much when you are wealthy - you can just pay to get the software you want made anyway, and you might even be able to bribe companies to give you the source if you care enough. And I recognize a huge portion of the donor pool for most free software projects isn't either end of this spectrum, but people like me making something above the poverty line and below extravagance that donate what they can where they can, but that is consistently shown to not be enough. And I imagine it is more because it takes millions of average joes paying dollars to match what one millionaire can do in an instant.