Comment by jchw | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jchw | Hacker News Reader

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> Can we make fix the places where it's broken? Also, Yes.

Two problems:

1. How is it broken? As I and others in this thread attest to, the thing that makes open source so powerful is, in fact, the lack of legal and moral obligation to do anything in exchange for the right to use the software. Not having obligations is a two-way street. Same for donations; donations do not give you any additional assurances.

2. If it is truly broken, then what is the solution? Nobody has really offered any solution, that I can see. If the solution is that everyone rushes to support a project the moment it hits the news, that's not sustainable. It's good that log4j and its maintainer(s) will get more attention and hopefully funding as a result of this snafu, but it's not a sustainable solution to a problem.

(As a clarification, I am not implying that the answer is "it's not broken." I certainly do agree that open source is underfunded, though I think this is more of a procedural issue than anything.)

I feel like a lot of this isn't that individuals are the ones who should be forking over money, but rather corporations who are making tens of millions or billions who rely on this stuff as a core to their stack, but do nothing to support the ecosystem monetarily.

Any large tech company probably uses thousands or tens of thousands of open source components (because the licenses are well understood). Sone even support the projects officially, or unofficially by paying salaries to developers who contribute in their free time.

I like licenses that bind all users equally: whether you're a lone developer, a charity, or developing nukes. If you do not like a certain class of use using your software, then choose a license that matches your philosophy. One shouldn't piggyback on common licenses for popularity and then complain about users keeping to the terms if the license.

Tax the corporations and publicly fund free software.

"everyone rushes to support a project the moment it hits the news, that's not sustainable."

This is exactly how a lot of things function, especially in government and disasters. So apparently it is sustainable. It's just not ideal, but this element is always going to be a part of human nature as our collective consciousness can only focus on fixing a few things at a time.

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