Hacker News Reader

Comment by earonesty | Hacker News Reader

"Small companies don't have the resources"... that's some backward thinking right there.

By failing to contribute, small companies cost themselves money very quickly. How can a small business afford to live in a world of un-maintainable forks, patches and tech debt?

Only large companies can afford to maintain private forks of FOSS. Small companies have to give back, or they will simply disappear.

View on HN

I can't count how many times I've submitted a patch only to hear my supervisors complain that I made a contribution to the thing that makes the business profitable.

I know you are deploying irony but due to competing interpretations I can't figure out its intent. Do you mean the supervisors do complain or they don't?

I'm pretty sure he's not being ironic. I've heard the same thing from other folks before.

Company A and Company B both use the same FOSS application. Company A has internal devs that add/fix the FOSS, but keep those updates internal. This gives Company A an advantage Company B does not get. Company A managers recognize this, and feel that since the updates were made on company time, they do not have to provide that to the rest of the world. Company A devs commit their updates to the repository, and now Company A mangers feel like they have given away work product for free. Lots of way pointy hair bosses to be upset in this scenario.

Why would they complain? Sorry, I don't work in software so I don't understand.

Because they are giving away their work for free. It makes sense only if you don't actually work with software and can only think about money.

I think it more accurately depends on the nature of the project and the nature of the patch. Not every patch is "technical debt" [itself a term that often encourages incorrect conclusions due to the debt metaphor not fitting perfectly] and not every amount of maintenance is scary. People react this way in fear before they understand the work.

But sure, it's a good idea to send patches upstream.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com