- cross-posted to:
- opensource@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- opensource@lemmy.ml
cross-posted from: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/49194514
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What is to be expected when the current trend among CEOs is to get the same stuff done with less employees and same salaries hence resulting in either you getting fired, resigning or doing x2 the amount of work with no real life improvements. Who would have the willingness to continue their side hobbies/project like contributions to open source when your main life is in shambles.
Open source should be funded by the tax-payers, or all code should be forcibly open-source (something like AGPL)
Any other models feels like they would create perverse incentives
Also recurring donations feels like a better way than one-time tips
By which country?
Each of them.
All of them? Maybe an international consortium that pays devs in their home currency.
I’m sure many people could point to hundreds of dangers around open-source programs relying on government funding. Yet, I can’t argue that it seems to be a necessity.
I mean, look what happened with TCP/IP.
A fucking disaster for humanity on a global scale
???
So what’s the problem with those protocols?
Same deal with lawyers that go into public interest. It pays super low, compared to corporate and similar that has money to throw at their employees.
A lot of FOSS projects are freemium based which seems viable for larger more complex projects.
In these projects it’s common to see the developer get paid for adding features on top of the core version, for a SaaS version, for custom development, or for offering support.
Other projects with a lot of community interest - and a good “community manager” style organizer can attract contributors in the form of pulls, bug testing and reports, and widespread use which generates valuable marketing. These projects only exist because of the labor of love from the whole community.
It’s funny how common this mindset is in the self-hosting community: “If I’m running it on my own hardware, the software should basically be free… maybe I’ll toss a tiny ‘tip’ if I feel generous.”
The logic seems to be that since there’s no ongoing server cost, the developer’s time, skill, and effort must somehow be worth nothing and that we should magically fund the entire project through some hypothetical cloud version that they themselves will never use.
It’s like showing up to a brewery with your own growler and expecting the beer to be free because you didn’t use their glass.
Exactly right.
I’m sorry, but I can’t agree with this. If the software is free, then it’s free. It’s up to the authors how they want to license it.
Personally, I write code and publish it in the hopes that it will help someone. If someone comes in and says “there’s this bug, fix it!” I will only do so if it will benefit me, or if I feel like it.
The article and discussion here is about open source software which is not free software. Thats where the problem lies it is assumed that open source software has be free.
Freedom in software does not mean free software.
It’s up to the authors how they want to license it.
Plus or minus some amount of piracy, sure
If only there was a way to fund open source projects so we both could have better software for the world and paid employees…
I think you can guess which government body already do this. Just take a shot.
Big question is: how many of us are funding foss projects?
It isn’t difficult, and with how popular some are, it wouldn’t be long before the projects could hire one or more full time devs at good rates.
I support a few big projects I use every month through liberapay.
Don’t forget that with money comes expectations though. Managing contributors is not easy.
Then they would just be paid but exhausted
Liberapay is really nice. I like the payment options they have to minimize the fees, like making 2 years of small “monthly” payments in a single charge to your bank card.
The brain! No the stomach!
Big question is: how many of us are funding foss projects?
It isn’t difficult, and with how popular some are, it wouldn’t be long before the projects could hire one or more full time devs at good rates.
I support a few big projects I use every month through liberapay.
I’m going to be honest, I have no idea how open source works. I can’t imagine maintaining anything more than a tiny library that I can ignore six days of the week.
Also: open source relies on good jobs. You can only do it if you have a well paid low stress job with good hours. Those have been in short supply recently.
I think the free time covid gave, followed by the free time the layoffs gave, and AI have been patching / hiding the fact that the core model of open source is completely unsustainable in its current state.
The part that confuses me is: How can multiple people work on overlapping bits of code at the same time, and the Git manager (or whatever you call it) just handles it all without breaking everything?
I have a job like that, but I also have kids, so…
For example, the developer of asus-linux.org who made the kernel contributions for Asus ROG laptops and the accompanying ROG Control Center recently walked away, due to exhaustion.
I couldn’t find anything about this on the Asus Linux blog, am I just dumb and looking in the wrong place? I use Asus-linux and didn’t know about this :(
Edit:
unfortunately it seems that bullshitters who make shit up on the spot have made their way over to Lemmyboo meFor myself, I make sure I’ve done my due diligence before I might accuse someone of dishonesty, rather than making a minimum effort.
From his Kofi: https://ko-fi.com/flukejones
I’ve burned out on LKML and many many other parts of the FOSS world. It’s exhausting. As such, I will not be working on Linux for asus device. It’s not something I can devote huge chunks of time to for free anymore.
Thank you everyone who has donated something over the last years.
Same on his Patreon
Anus Linux, you say?
So are closed source developers.
Hey, it’s their problem for choosing to be a developer. That’s the worst job ever, with the overtime and shit.
I read this blog post yesterday and it was insightful.
Seems like we could solve multiple problems in one go here…
I liked the article. It sung to my heart. I’ve been in this world for a while. Lived through the failure and hyperacalars just taking without giving back.
I don’t know what to think. But I’m not happy with where we are and it’s nice to hear someone else talking about it.
I’m all for ethical licensing, and defensive licensing, but we’ll likely end up with an unmanageable soup of various licenses that everyone is nervous about misinterpreting. We lose efficacy and everyone will just default back to the same handful of licenses we’re currently using.
I think unless it was a small number of crystal clear alternative licenses with broadly agreeable terms, we’d get chaos, followed by complacency.
More likely, people’s work will get thrown into the bin because its poorly licensed.
Well that’s kind of what I’m getting at. How many times does that happen before everybody just goes back to using GPL, MIT, etc…
The consequences of what that article proposes is we’re gonna be back to this period of history where companies were all using proprietary technology that self-taught devs won’t ever learn and that students will only learn if they can afford a school that can use it, in addition to poor developer experience because of maintainer agenda being driven by money rather than community requests.
Fuuuuck that!
I don’t understand much about the finances of the FOSS world, but do companies like FUTO help at all? I don’t even know how FUTO makes money, to be honest.
They’re not a company, FUTO is one rich guy.
FUTO is both a company (LLC, to be specific) and a rich guy.
That was my intuition after looking around their site
I know how futa makes money
All of the large scale projects are funded and maintained by enterprises
A lot of larger foss projects do open up a foundation or another legal entity. Mostly due to regulations or dealing with donations. But it’s hard to call them enterprises
