The Internet Was Built on the Free Labor of OSS Devs. Is That Sustainable?

When I evangelize for an open-source project, I tell a company that they need to do two things to make Free/Libre/Open-Source Software work Really Well:

1 - hire an engineer on your payroll give to this one project (maybe two, if theyre both small). Their role is to join the software project, and ensure that your usecase remains viable. That last bit is where your engineer will pay for theirself.

2 - give them a giant novelty check once a year at a conference. It doesnt need to be $100,000 - just give something back, and you may as well do it where engineers will see you do it.

Does your company have to be a software company to do these things? No. Just like you dont need to be a software company to need your own social media, your own website,... But those arent quite like. . .

Your Own App. Your own servers, or cloud presence. Your own in-house software. These things dont run in a vacuum. Even the proprietary software you run depends on open-source projects.

Didn't Al Gore solely invent the internet? :)