Should Maintainers of Open Source Projects Be Paid? (techrepublic.com) 121
Matt Asay, a former COO of Canonical now working at AWS, writes "Over the last few weeks I've interviewed a range of open source project maintainers, most of which don't directly get paid for supporting their projects... Is this a bad thing?"
It's not completely clear. Linux Foundation executive Chris Aniszczyk has been an outspoken opponent of open source "tip jars" that seek to sustain projects with donations. "These [open source developers] should be encouraged to start businesses or your business should hire them directly," he argues. But many such developers don't want a 9-to-5 corporate job, preferring the independence of contract work. Open source sustainability, in other words, is messy. Most open source project maintainers with whom I've spoken got started because it was a "fun" way to spend their free time. They had a variety of personal "itches" they needed to scratch. Exactly none started coding because they were hoping to get paid for that work.
In fact, in some cases, it was specifically to create space from their employer that they started the project. For Datasette founder Simon Willison, for example, he "wanted a creative outlet." That is, a project that he got to have complete control over. In some ways, he said, it was perhaps "a way of blowing off steam," but really it was a place where he could express his creativity without a corporate overlord steering that creativity. See the problem...?
Aniszczyk reasonably suggests that the most sustainable source of funding is a paycheck, but that's precisely what many of these developers don't want. Or, at least, they don't want a paycheck that comes with restrictions on their ability to code freely... [O]pen source sustainability will never have one, meta answer for all of open source. It's always a project-by-project analysis and, really, a founder-by-founder (or community-by-community) decision.
In fact, in some cases, it was specifically to create space from their employer that they started the project. For Datasette founder Simon Willison, for example, he "wanted a creative outlet." That is, a project that he got to have complete control over. In some ways, he said, it was perhaps "a way of blowing off steam," but really it was a place where he could express his creativity without a corporate overlord steering that creativity. See the problem...?
Aniszczyk reasonably suggests that the most sustainable source of funding is a paycheck, but that's precisely what many of these developers don't want. Or, at least, they don't want a paycheck that comes with restrictions on their ability to code freely... [O]pen source sustainability will never have one, meta answer for all of open source. It's always a project-by-project analysis and, really, a founder-by-founder (or community-by-community) decision.
By whom? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:By whom? (Score:5, Insightful)
By whom should they be paid?
By the people that use it to do business. And that's "should" in the sense that if you rely on something it's a dumbass idea not to support it in some way.
Then this is real easy. (Score:2, Insightful)
Simply put a price on your code. You want to get paid? Sell it. If your code is worth selling, it will be bought.
Re: Then this is real easy. (Score:3)
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Would you mind actually reading my post and responding to what I wrote not generic comments on the topic.
Whatever the oss devs did, it's not sound business to rely on something that you don't even pay lip service towards making sure it's stays working. Companies should support OSS because its business critical and it's much much cheaper to fling a few bucks at it than employ a full time dev to understand and work on the code.
Re: By whom? (Score:2)
If it mattered that much we'd have people on staff work on it, and share the work if we really have to.
This isn't even the right question, it's like asking if you watch a free YouTube video, should the people in the credits be paid?
Who is that even aimed at? Getting paid for their labor or not is their business, using the results of their labor is mine. There is no relationship between us. Asking this question after the fact is pointless, so maybe the better question is, if I rely on it, is this relation
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By the people that use it to do business. And that's "should" in the sense that if you rely on something it's a dumbass idea not to support it in some way.
It is open source, remember? Once I have the source, I don't need you to maintain it because I can hire someone to support it if I need someone to support it.
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It is open source, remember? Once I have the source, I don't need you to maintain it because I can hire someone to support it if I need someone to support it.
Sure you can, but do you have the budget to do that, versus a small sponsorship?
Some reciprocation would not be a bad thing (Score:5, Interesting)
If a business derives very great value from open source software, doing something in return would not be a bad thing. Doing so strengthens a 'supplier' they rely on, after all. You could consider it a public service, or responsible maintenance.
For example, the Qt company is not doing so well. One of their customers is Tesla, who has apparently never paid a cent to Qt. While that's a perfectly valid choice, it may lead to a situation where the Qt company closes and Tesla is left with a much more uncertain (and much more expensive) situation. A tiny bit of investment may avert that risk.
How to organize such a thing is less clear. Qt has a company behind it, but lacking that, how should a potential paying customer spend its money wisely to ensure further growth of the infrastructure it relies on? It's easy to get this wrong, and see contributors disappear because they are not being paid while others are.
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If a business derives very great value from open source software, doing something in return would not be a bad thing. Doing so strengthens a 'supplier' they rely on, after all. You could consider it a public service, or responsible maintenance.
For example, the Qt company is not doing so well.
Are you sure? Their stock price has been shooting up, as has their revenue [nasdaqomxnordic.com].
I don't think they're on track to become a Microsoft or Google, but building a small to medium business around a successful open source project does seem to be a viable business model.
You don't get a fraction of the in-person revenue, but you get an enthusiastic user base that will actually promote you, write documentation, tutorials, and even code for you.
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How to organize such a thing is less clear. Qt has a company behind it, but lacking that, how should a potential paying customer spend its money wisely to ensure further growth of the infrastructure it relies on? It's easy to get this wrong, and see contributors disappear because they are not being paid while others are.
The most common approach is to hire the primary contributors. The individual engineers, I mean.
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They probably think "if the Qt company goes under we can buy them for cheap in their bankruptcy sale".
Eh, no, they only think that in cases where they *want* the company and its assets. In the case of something like QT, companies who use their free product want QT to continue developing it without themselves spending a dime. And business people in general avoid spending money ahead of time so, as the GP said, avoiding to help your OSS supplier now may cost you dearly down the line.
It's similar logic to how countless companies have saved money by getting the cheapest outsourced software solutions, only to th
Dangerous (Score:3)
They probably think "if the Qt company goes under we can buy them for cheap in their bankruptcy sale".
Not always. The corollary to that is "Oh crap Google just outbid us and is deprecating the branch we use." Or, worse still, "Oracle just bought them and is closed-sourcing further development."
Sure, get paid! (Score:2)
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If the project is actually valuable, the person maintaining the project should have no trouble convincing people with money to pay them for their work.
Even if something is valuable to a business it is in the interest of the business for other businesses to pay the developers money where at all possible.
Even if something is valuable to a business the business may not understand that it is being used or what the actual value is.
Even if something is valuable to a business such payments may be cut to reduce costs
Where a project does not have a sales arm of sorts to convince businesses to pay, relatively few will pay and hope or assume others will pay, and on
The impartiality problem (Score:5, Insightful)
In general, a good maintainer is one that is able to remain objective and focus on the quality of whatever it is that they are maintaining. When you suddenly go from having full autonomy in decision making to a corporate role, this can be hard to continue. With contract work this is a bit easier, as you can pick and choose what to take on, and you're better positioned to maintain an overall balance without the project being derailed by a prevailing corporate interest. Every company that hires a maintainer seems to think they'll have no problems allowing them to continue to do things they way they like, but the reality is often different. There will eventually be scenarios where a contribution by another part of the company is rejected or asked to be reworked which may cause schedule slippage or put deadlines at risk and it becomes attractive to apply top-down pressure. The role of the maintainer is a largely thankless task where one has to spend a great deal amount of time saying 'no' to things - this doesn't mesh well in a financial relationship where there is a 'yes' expectation. There are certainly cases where it can be made to work, but these aspects need to really be thought out well in advance and reflected contractually to ensure that both sides understand the caveats going in and that there is ultimately no bad blood.
Paid by whom? (Score:4, Insightful)
The OP doesn't say who should be paying those maintainers. The post does go to say they should get paid do to whatever they want (no ties to any deliverables or having any restrictions), so I'm curious, who wants to fund such free spirits?
Re:Paid by whom? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Ah, yes. THE dreamy idea for which only the benefits are talked about (and studied!), leaving how to pay for it completely unaddressed. I thinks the majority of people would agree that a society where nobody has to work to be able to live at some mutually agreed standard of living would be just amazing and the greatest thing since sliced bread. The elephant in the room, as always, is what that standard of living should be (and therefore how much is would cost) and who should pay for it (and no, "the governm
Re: Paid by whom? (Score:5, Insightful)
While it's true that the financing aspect is never addressed, there's actually a relatively easy and sustainable answer to that, and it is to treat the people as shareholders of the Earth, paying them dividend from the use of the planet and its resources, which are now given away practically for free. Such a construct would also be a perfect instrument for reducing our footprint to something sustainable and to reduce income inequality. Alaska and Norway already have a very basic system like this in place with the Alaska Permanent Fund and the Government Pension Fund. Marshall Brain's rather awkward but otherwise very interesting parable "Manna" is also based on this approach and its best known alternative, which is not far from slavery.
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We already have exactly that bureaucracy in place in almost all countries. The total size of the bureaucracy could actually be much smaller than it is now if using such a scheme.
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The earth isn't worth a nickel without someone's labour to turn it into wealth.
You can't give someone a right to someone else's labour without making them your slave.
UBI is BS.
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> UBI ... leaving how to pay for it completely unaddressed
OK, I will try.
- Lets say a government automatizes food production, distribution and sales and makes food selling a monopoly.
- Each resident is given 100 tokens every day.
- Food costs 100 tokens per day.
- Now everyone gets food, and money circulates around the system.
Obviously when you think it like this, the money becomes irrelevant. Why not just give free food to the people, which would be Universal Basic Service, or UBS for short. I think this
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> At some point, you will notice that UBI has negative effects. Then you revert back one dollar and there you have the sweet spot of UBI.
Sounds good. At the $1 level, it costs about three dollars to process each of the $1 payments. So it's a negative on society. So per your formula we reduce it by $1, one dollar less than $1, so we set it at zero. There ya go. :)
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That "gotcha" is almost the same as a "horror movie jump scare" that moves at a glacial speed of 6 inches per century, in addition to being predictably choreographed.
At the $1/month level, the government can wait 12 months and send out $12/year, or even slip it in as a refundable tax credit and not require duplicate paperwork for something that's already being done once per year, and thus overlapping the processing cost with something else that gets processed.
Not to mention that there's already a $1/month t
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Sounds good. At the $1 level, it costs about three dollars to process each of the $1 payments. So it's a negative on society. So per your formula we reduce it by $1, one dollar less than $1, so we set it at zero. There ya go. :)
Sounds like your banking system could use an upgrade. Here in Norway no-frills debit transactions (BankAxept) cost $0.012 in bulk (>50 mio transactions/year). With no risk of disputes or anything like that 365 deposits/year should be no problem for a 21st century bank. You should compare it to the high frequency trading in the stock market...
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Yes, unfortunately the US government isn't particularly efficient. And they mail out a lot payments, as in inside a paper envelope, rather than using electronic transfers.
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- Now everyone gets food, and money circulates around the system.
Obviously when you think it like this, the money becomes irrelevant.
You don't know people, sorry. Some will do anything for your tokens just so they can have more. Mothers will fuck you so their kids gets more food than yours. Fathers will gamble it in hope to make more, they get addicted and waste it on drugs, or they're the ones who sell you the drugs. Kids will punch other kids just to take away their tokens at school... People always find more uses for money (or tokens) than it is actually good for. This is why we have rich and poor people in the first place.
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Ah, yes. THE dreamy idea for which only the benefits are talked about (and studied!), leaving how to pay for it completely unaddressed.
I guess there is a great misconception at the root of this. It is not about paying everyone. It's about defining a minimum for when we pay somebody and, more importantly, if we can pay somebody.
As a consequence will some no longer get paid, while others will get paid a minimum. This is important to realise. It may seem worse, but it's actually better this way. Because when for instance we pay two people not enough will both starve eventually. But when we pay one, and not the other, does at least one not hav
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I'm not sure what you are describing, but it's not UBI.
There are plenty of bad descriptions for UBI by people who don't understand it.
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I'm not sure what you are describing, but it's not UBI.
There are plenty of bad descriptions for UBI by people who don't understand it.
Sure, like the one at the top of this thread that somehow envisions replacing the dollar with tokens. UBI is just what it says. Universal Basic Income, so welfare for all. Its just enough to have food and maybe very cheap rent. Its trying to take the first level of the hierarchy of needs off the table in capitalism. And while robber barons won't like it because employees wouldn't have to be so subservient at the bottom level, not much would change for those above the lowest rung. Politicians, on the
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Universal Basic Income, so welfare for all.
No, it's not. Income is not the same as welfare. Some governments may create a connection between their welfare system and a minimum income, i.e. not to pay more welfare than the minimum income, but they will also have rules on who is entitled to welfare. You'll still be able to fall through a welfare system when you fail the rules. Someone who can work, chooses not to, doesn't seek work nor is sick, will fall through the welfare system here in the UK simply because they deliberately choose poverty. UBI wil
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I know that some people want to see UBI as a "money for everyone", but this is not what UBI is
No, it's exactly what it is, hence the use of the work universal.
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If you take money out of the picture (e.g. Star Trek's futuristic society, or perhaps one where humans die out leaving sapient robots behind), how much money will it cost to provide resources to everyone?
You'll notice that if you completely ignore money, there's already infrastructure in place to do that. The only difference is that some food is getting thrown away because i
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I'm sorry, but that is so incredibly naive.
Let's start with the 0.01% "rich" paying for everyone. World's 15 richest people have a total combined net worth of 940 billion. Let's say we taxed them all 100% of their net worth, definitely something they would notice, and ignoring the fact that we'd liquidate all their businesses to do that, so lots of business would close and people would lose jobs, but let's say we did that. Dividing the entire wealth of the world's richest 15 people by 7.8B people in the wor
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The article is demonstrating how giving shit away for free is not sustainable.
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The article is demonstrating how giving shit away for free is not sustainable.
Slashdot is giving you news for free. How's that for free shit?
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Is it free?
Yes, for 20+ years.
What you don't know is that some things in life sustain naturally. A smile, a "thank you", an act of kindness, helping a stranger in need, ... People do these things everyday without getting paid, and somehow they keep doing it. For some it must seem like a miracle. You should try it.
Obviously not (Score:1)
Betteridge saw to that.
No (Score:3)
We worship money and idolise it far too much up to a point where some want to make it a sin when not all work isn't rewarded with money. We will end up valuing money more than anything. Let's continue to pay them with respect, gratitude and kindness, because these things are not easy to come by. When we continue on a narrow mindset might we one day end up paying our parents and grandparents with money and no longer with love. What a silly world that would be. Maintainers who cannot continue need to let go so other volunteers can step up. The moment we pay with money will some start making demands, withhold their money, use it to exert power and we will lose the freedom that comes with open source. Let's not close this door.
No (Score:2)
Information wants to be free. Let that free stuff come out. No need to handicap it with money.
A lot of them already are (Score:2)
A pretty fair chunk of open source is developed by large corporations that use it in house and contribute back to the community to see what they can do with it. Hereâ(TM)s an article that nicely demonstrates my point by sheer volume. They need to maintain the code in house for their own use and then contribute the updates to open source distributions.
https://www.infoworld.com/arti... [infoworld.com]
There are pragmatic reasons I have seen used do justify this to corporate bean counters. You get free labor on your core
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Sure, if they did it in their spare time. My point was that a significant amount of open source is effectively corporate funded by people who are doing that work for their day job anyways. They have come to an arrangement where a portion of their work is allowed to be exported as open source.
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Someone who maintains open source... (Score:2)
... should not have to work for a living, meaning working for someone else, beside that.
Then again, nobody should, regardless of what they do or don't do.
What developers and what projects? (Score:3)
I've noticed a huge influx of the 'tip jars' or open hands when it comes to node.js "things". (As a thousand warnings scroll by about deprecation).
I've also never seen the FreeBSD developers put out a hand. They all seem to be gainfully employed by someone that makes money from FreeBSD: iXSystems, Juniper, etc.
It's also why I make sure all of my stuff is MIT/BSD licensed. There's a non-zero chance some of my libraries gets picked up by someone that wants to use it in something bigger. You're welcome to do whatever you want, but if you get stuck I know the guy that wrote it, give me a call. It also doesn't scare them away from using it since it won't taint their entire project with the GPL. No need to resort to some weird GPL minus SaaS exception.
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For me, that's precisely why I use the GPL. If I'm spending my free time to write OSS,* then I want the ability to look at (and possibly use) your code too. I've learned a lot over the years by reading other people's code ("Hmm, how does that work?"). Don't want to make your code OSS? Fine, but then you can't use mine either. (Yes, I realize
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GPL-ers think that companies keep secret a lot more than they do. It's mainly just secret sauce and added value. IBM, Intel, Juniper, iXSystems all drive FreeBSD development.
If you look at most of the biggest/most useful libraries for Python and other languages the heavy lifters are all BSD/MIT/Apache (or similar): Numpy, Scipy, sklearn, Plotly, matplotlib, Tensorflow. Because of their use as building blocks in larger tooling I feel the non-GPL is important.
I have occasionally found an edge case where I kn
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I'm definitely against the freedom to murder, the freedom to rape, and the freedom to release proprietary software.
OSS is a broken parasitic model (Score:1)
I've been an OSS developer for decades, originally participating in FreeBSD and apache work. The model, as it is now, is a naive hippie pipe dream.
I think the OSS license should absolutely allow for an income stream back into the project from any company using the tool as a principle part of their own stack, in a manner that creates positive income. A portion of that income should go back into the project.
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Nothing in any OSS license I have ever read forbids income for the developers from those who use the software. There is no reason an OSS license needs to address money at all. Developers and users are free to agree to any separate contract for payment outside the scope of the OSS.
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sorry, no. Adding limitations on use requiring payment actually makes most "OSS" licenses no longer count as OSS.
So while you can do it, there are the OSS virtue police who start crying foul, and in some licenses, it is in conflict with its base clauses. Free for all unlimited use, as in limitations aren't allowed.
That is why I worded it as "they should ALLOW for this" -- not everybody MUST do it, but it should be allowed for.
Especially when it comes to Intellectual Property -- right now it's gray and vag
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There are plenty of models that work:
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That's not what I wrote. Again, a separate contract ("dual license") can be negotiated. I've done it.
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sorry, no. Adding limitations on use requiring payment actually makes most "OSS" licenses no longer count as OSS.
So while you can do it, there are the OSS virtue police who start crying foul, and in some licenses, it is in conflict with its base clauses. Free for all unlimited use, as in limitations aren't allowed.
That is why I worded it as "they should ALLOW for this" -- not everybody MUST do it, but it should be allowed for.
Especially when it comes to Intellectual Property -- right now it's gray and vague, but if you don't exclude IP from the licensing it's likely you are just giving away any IP along with the software -- really difficult if you want to leverage a patent.
Make another contract.
"I will work on project X, you will pay me X, changes will be released under that OSS license"
Also, there is nothing stopping you from going, see which developers you value, and paying them.
If you think yes, then give them money (Score:3)
I mean, this isn't complicated.
If you believe theoretically "they should be paid" then go right ahead. Use your money and pay them.
Or are you asserting "someone else" should pay them?
Yes. It's a bad thing. (Score:2)
Really nothing else to say. For better or worse, we are treated (and treat others and things) according to their monetary worth because that is the only common standard. By that measure, a volunteer is worth nothing and if you doubt it look how you treat volunteers and low wage workers like retail staff, call center employees, or Salvation Army volunteers.
If it's open source and useful then maybe there should be a cost proportional to the benefit. A corporation reaps huge profits so a % goes to the proje
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This is either false or at best a logical fallacy. An organization might value its volunteers very highly. But if you say that how much they are paid is the only measurement of how much they are valued, then you are begging the question, because you are suggesting th
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> An organization might value its volunteers very highly. But if you say that how much they are paid is the only measurement of how much they are valued, then you are begging the question, because you are suggesting that their monetary worth is defined by how they are treated while how they are treated is still defined by their monetary worth.
Money is the _only_ way businesses measure and demonstrate "value". Thinking otherwise is, at best, highly naive.
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For better or worse, we are treated (and treat others and things) according to their monetary worth because that is the only common standard.
This is the oversimplification fallacy, the straw man fallacy and is patently false. It is a straw man because rather than talking about the value of one's work, it talks about one's monetary worth. It is an oversimplification fallacy because it says a complex thing, how one is treated, is the product of a single factor, monetary work, and it is patently false because many people with low monetary worth are treated well for other reasons.
If it's open source and useful then maybe there should be a cost proportional to the benefit. A corporation reaps huge profits so a % goes to the project. A start-up reaps next to no profit and pays proportionally. A hobbyist reaps no profit and so pays nothing.
Here, the OP is suggesting that there sh
No Free Lunch (Score:2)
There is no such thing as a free lunch. If someone else is paying, then they have some level of control and could stop paying.
It's honestly a stupid question. Open source maintainers, like anyone else, should be paid for their work if they find other parties who see value in paying and are voluntarily willing to trade money in exchange for whatever they mutually agree will be provided. There are many ways this can happen and not happen.
"Free Software Does Not Grows On Trees" (Score:2)
The complex thing is to turn into services, since s
They are for the most part (Score:1)
On a side note,
Many of them already are (Score:2)
A lot of maintainers working for large Linux-related companies ( RedHat, Suse, Intel, various OEMs, etc) and getting paid by them. Working as a maintainer is just a job function for them. The question is what provision should be made for other major maintainers not corporately 'sponsored'?
Perhaps there should be a fund from corporates (that they don't get to direct) for non-employed maintainers to be paid from. Those maintainers get paid as long as they're contributing as determined by a consensus of oth
Donations for professional use is simply moral (Score:1)
Not all projects are equal (Score:2)
We have to be honest. Not all open source projects have the same value. An essential component like the Linux Kernel has no practical alternatives, while the next desktop music player app is at best forgettable. Having some sort of mechanism to sort out which project, and which contributor is paid how much is not an easy task.
In the current model, we have direct patronage (PayPal, Patreon, etc) for small projects, service / support contract based models for medium sized projects that support one or few deve
Yes (Score:2)
Paid by whom? (Score:2)
Getting paid for anything implies an existence of a contract, you agree to do something in return for someone else agreeing to pay you for it. There is no contract involved in writing some open source code, you do it purely on your own initiative without asking for anyone's agreement. So no, nobody can expect to get paid f
Why pay them? (Score:2)
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The same can be done and is done for people who write software.
I think a more real question (maybe still not the real question) is by whom those people that maintain Open Source should get pai
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You've confused "open source" with "free." While there is a lot of overlap, they are not synonymous.
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While I agree that it doesn't have to be that way, it would involve a change in definition. That's why I wrote about the definition.
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The copyright holder not asking for compensation has always been a qualifying factor of Open Source.
I think you're wrong about this. I'm pretty sure there's nothing in any open source license I've ever read that prohibits the copyright holder from ASKING for compensation.
Now, if you create a license that contains terms like "you are only authorized to install the software on X # of computers" and "redistribution of the software is prohibited" then I think trying to pass that license off as open source would be deliberately misleading. But if you leave out those terms then you don't really have much levera
Re: Lets compare... (Score:2)
Asking for compensation is not "being paid."
Almost, but not quite (Score:5, Informative)
You may find it interesting to read the primary open source license, the GPLv2. You'll notice it doesn't require anyone to distribute anything for free.
More then 10 years ago, a large hosting company hired me to do some modifications to Linux, creating a security system similar to SELinux. They liked my design better than the SELinux design. Because my code is based on GPLv2 (open source) software, my code is also open source. Today is the first time I've publicly acknowledged that I ever created a system similar to SELinux. The hosting company still to this day won't acknowledge that they have such a thing. Neither of us are distributing it publicly - and that's perfectly okay!
I sold it to them for several thousand dollars; I didn't give it to them for free, and that's also okay.
What the GPL and open source generally says is that because the hosting company bought the software from me, that comes with a full license to keep using it without paying me every year. They can maintain it because they have the source code. They are allowed to send that source code to another programmer to work on. It does not force them to send it to anyone; it gives them permission to do so if they choose.
That's what the GPL and open source requires - if the copyright holder provides you with the software, by selling it to you or otherwise, that comes with a license allowing you to use and modify the software freely, and send copies to other people. It doesn't require anyone to distribute the software, and certainly not for free.
Red Hat is in the business of selling open source software. Because it's open source, the CentOS project *can* give away copies after having bought a copy from Red Hat. But the people running the CentOS project can also stop doing so. There is nothing that requires them to spend their time building a version of the distro with Red Hat's trademarks removed.
The GPL says:
If you sell or give me software, that includes source and permissions. It doesn't require anyone to distribute anything for free.
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That is not entirely correct. The GPL does not require you to distribute, that is true. However, if you DO distribute, it must be for free (except for the cost of physically transferring the data).
But none of that has anything to do with the situation you described. You are the author of the code, so presumably you are also the copyright holder. It doesn't matter what license you use (open source or not), the terms of the license do not apply to you. However, if you had transferred the copyright to the
Re:Almost, but not quite (Score:4, Interesting)
I would encourage you to read the GPL. Here it is:
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/o... [gnu.org]
I'll copy-paste a couple of sections for you in case you don't have 10-15 minutes to read it right now:
--
"if you distribute copies of such a program, whether gratis or for a fee"
"You may charge a fee"
--
I'll also point out the gnu.org FAQ about their license:
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Does the GPL allow me to sell copies of the program for money? (#DoesTheGPLAllowMoney)
Yes, the GPL allows everyone to do this. The right to sell copies is part of the definition of free software. Except in one special situation, there is no limit on what price you can charge. ...
Does the GPL allow me to charge a fee for downloading the program from my distribution site? (#DoesTheGPLAllowDownloadFee)
Yes. You can charge any fee you wish for distributing a copy of the program.
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https://www.gnu.org/licenses/g... [gnu.org]
Again, as thr creators of the license clearly state "you can charge any fee you wish".
Red Hat Linux costs $349/year for the software with no support, $799 / year wirh standard support.
What the GPL says is that if I sell you sell me the binary, you also have to offer me the source code. Also, if you sell it to me, I may sell it to Bob. I may sell it to Bob for $1,00, for $100, for $1, or for $0. You can't stop me from selling it for any price I want, including zero. That's what the license says. It does not require anyone to give away any software and does not bar selling it. Quite the opposite - it gives everyone permission to sell it.
It just so happens that in many cases, if everyone is allowed to sell it at whatever price they want, somw people will sell it for $0. In many cases, but not all
The Throttlebox Apache module is open source, so anyone who has a legit copy could sell it to you. Good luck finding someone who will give it to you for free. They could, but I don't think you'll find anyone who will. The license does NOT require them to give it to you, and does NOT prevent them from selling it to you. In fact it guarantees them permission to sell it to you at any price they want.
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The actual license (the terms and conditions) state:
Paragraph 1 - You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee.
Why put that in there if the intent is that you can charge a fee for anything you want?
Now, maybe 'technically' a non-copyright holder can sell GPL software for a fee, but someone would have to be a complete idiot to pay for it.
Now, perhaps your point is that you can build another work off a GPL work, an
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You're coming at it from the wrong angle - where exactly in the GPL does it say you CAN'T sell it? When they give you the right to redistribute, the right to charge comes along with it, unless specifically excluded.
Licensing is something very different than selling - I can sell you a copy of a piece of software without giving you a license to it - in fact at the time the GPL was written that was the norm. The whole EULA/"we don't sell it, we license you to use it" bullshit hadn't been conceived of yet.
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Now this is completely wrong. Software is a copyrighted work. As such, there are two ways to 'sell' it. You can sell the 'work', which means the copyright transfers to the buyer and you no longer own it. Or you can sell licenses to the work. Sometimes the licenses are implicit, in which case they are defined by law. If you buy a book, the implicit license is that it is for your personal reading. A public reading of the book is not covered by the implicit license. For software, the implicit license sa
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Three ways:
You can sell the copyright - which really has nothing to do with what we're talking about.
You can sell a limited usage license - which is what software commonly does these days, and increasingly movies, music, and even ebooks - but this is a recent development only a few decades old.
Or you can take the original approach with centuries of history behind it and sell a copy of the work, in which case the buyer can do anything they want with it, *except* m
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https://xkcd.com/1053/ [xkcd.com]
Again I'm going to point out what the people who wrote the license say:
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Does the GPL allow me to sell copies of the program for money? (#DoesTheGPLAllowMoney)
Yes, the GPL allows everyone to do this. The right to sell copies is part of the definition of free software. Except in one special situation, there is no limit on what price you can charge. ...
Does the GPL allow me to charge a fee for downloading the program from my distribution site? (#DoesTheGPLAllowDownloadFee)
Yes. You can ch
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> Now, maybe 'technically' a non-copyright holder can sell GPL software for a fee, but someone would have to be a complete idiot to pay for it.
If someone you trust is giving it away, for home use it might well make sense to use the no-charge version.
Most Fortune 500 companies have some Linux machines.
Most of those buy Red Hat
Either all of the CIOs
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> Now, maybe 'technically' a non-copyright holder can sell GPL software for a fee, but someone would have to be a complete idiot to pay for it.
If someone you trust is giving it away, for home use it might well make sense to use the no-charge version. I typically do. Of course, sometimes nobody is giving it away - again I challenge you to find a free copy of Throttlebox, which is open source. My customers who bought it don't *want* to give it away.
Hmmm
> someone would have to be a complete idiot to p
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No, this is wrong. Go and re-read the GPL. It's about the right to modify and to redistribute.
You can charge as much or as little as you like for it.
If I buy some GPL software, I have the right to redistribute as I see fit, including charging money for it myself. Of course, for most GPL software, you can obtain it for zero cost from another source, so it's pointless charging for it. But some companies do charge for binary builds of GPL code, and they are entirely at liberty to do so as long as they comp
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> [...] and they are entirely at liberty to do so as long as they comply with
> the GPL by providing sources to their customers on request.
Not quite.
Companies selling binaries of GPL code have got two choices:
1. Give the source code to their customer(s) along with the compiled binary
2. Provide a written offer to supply the source code to ANY THIRD PARTY
for no more than the cost of copying/distributing it. Providing a link to the
source code (of the actual binary that was compiled and sold) is OK.
From t
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Exactly. For any open source software that has wide distribution, the mechanism you describe tends to push the price toward zero. Probably close to 99% of open source is available free of charge (legitimately).
Still, some CIOs would rather buy software from a trusted vendor than download whatever from freestuff.com People trust Red Hat. People running an enterprise on Microsoft trust Microsoft and feel more comfortable getting the whole package from Microsoft. Even if it's supposed to be the same softwar
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Should writers of music lyrics be paid?
Should graphics artists be paid?
Should inventors be paid?
Should craftsmen be paid?
Yes, let's compare: Do people write lyrics and other poetry without getting paid? Do people produce graphics and art without getting paid? Do people come up with inventions without anyone paying for them? Do people spend crazy amounts of time and money on craft projects?
The difference seems to be that when doing work for pay, you do it to the specifications and wishes of the one who is paying. Whereas when doing the same things for the fun of it, you are free to do things exactly the way you like, when you
Re:Lets compare... (Score:5, Insightful)
>The difference seems to be that when doing work for pay, you do it to the specifications and wishes of the one who is paying.
Well, that's certainly one way to do it, but hardly the only one. A lot comes down to *how* you get paid.
If you're pulling a paycheck you're probably working to someone else's desire. But musicians, authors, painters, sculptors, inventors, etc. can often manage to get paid for what they want to create, rather that creating what someone wants to pay them for.
It really comes down to whether you're selling your time, or the fruits of your labor. For immaterial (or easily replicated) goods like software, music, books, etc. you can sell copies, or if you'd rather give it away, you can accept donations. A tip jar or other forms of distributed patronage can be a good way to let people thank you for the work that you do/ buy you more time to keep doing it (money being a fluid form of time, within limits). That may introduce a temptation to cater to your most generous patrons, but its entirely up to the creator whether they wish to do that.
Such patronage can also, to a certain extent, serve as a "put your money where your mouth is" assessment of what your user community would like to see - the internet is bursting with opinion, a great deal of which suddenly evaporates if the opinionated are asked to contribute anything more than noise.
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Should writers of music lyrics be paid?
Yes, and they are when they license the use of their lyrics, they include a royalties clause.
Should graphics artists be paid?
Yes, and they are when they agree to do work either as an employee, do piece work, or license their work for use.
Should inventors be paid?
Yes, and they are when they sell their end product or license it to a company and receive royalties and fees.
Should craftsmen be paid?
Yes, and they are when they sell their end product or do piece work.
They are paid when they make provisions to be paid and don't give away their work under a license that allow it to be copied
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