Comment by WJW | Hacker News Reader

Comment by WJW | Hacker News Reader

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> You've exceeded Y free installs for package X. Choose one of the following license options to continue: > > 1. $49 for a lifetime license > 2. Don't install package

That would be several absolutely radical paradigm shifts in how we use packages; depending on how big Y is some companies I know would blow through that in a single parallel CI run. They slice up their (enormous) test suite in over 100 slices and run each slice in a separate docker container. I also wonder how pricing will be determined. As an extreme example, that colors.js package that was in the news a few months ago because the dev intentionally broke it would not be worth $49 even when it did work. It literally only added terminal coloring codes to strings. JS is kinda notorious for having many tiny packages of course, but even larger pieces of software are extremely difficult to price. How much should postgres cost for example?

Finally, how will they determine which of the devs get how much each? Does it all go to the repo owner or will there be a pro-rata split over each contributor? Both will do some interesting things to the "FOSS community spirit", imagine having a useful PR refused solely because the repo owner doesn't want to share the income with others. I usually don't even bother asking for attribution when making a PR to an open source project, but if I knew the maintainers were getting an income from it then suddenly working for free seems a whole lot less attractive.

> How much should postgres cost for example?

I might match it to install base. How to handle "linux" or "bash" or "coreutils" is the real question. Do "core" projects need this kind of cash?

> Finally, how will they determine which of the devs get how much each? Does it all go to the repo owner or will there be a pro-rata split over each contributor?

Could be determined on a per project basis. Project could say upfront -- sorry, all money goes to core contributors, or to cancer research.

These don't seem like tough problems so much as they seem like nice, high class problems to me.

Orrrr... can we try to not monetize OSS and let project success be an honest reflection of community needs & interests? Funding too often becomes a conflict of interest. I'd rather see small projects come and go as time permits, than have OSS become the next victim of monetization-driven "optimizations"... what's next, Copilot offering better code blocks if you pay for premium suggestions? Functions with cloud DRM that keep some of the internals in a lambda and charge you per invocation? Examples in docs being written for Platinum sponsors instead of common use cases?

OSS is one of the few remaining examples of actual public cooperation without a profit motive. Injecting capitalism into it is just going to ruin it.

Having the funding model ("is it sustainable") be a separate concern from the codebase ("what's the best way I can make this library/framework") is a GOOD thing to keep separate, almost like the editorial vs advertisement/sales divide in journalism.

It's also a good test to see whether an individual project is worth turning into a business. If not, it can (and arguably should) just remain someone's pet project, a labor of love rather than another cheap money grab.

I don't want Github to turn into the Android app store, with a bunch of useless apps charging $0.99 for some basic functionality.

This is the critical issue. There is no lack of itches to scratch, or people willing to scratch those itches, so there is no reason to apply market optimisation techniques to that part of the problem. In fact it will provably mess things up [1]

I do think non-market approaches, such as basic income, could be a useful way to help some people to focus more on valuable FLOSS-work. Non-profits, foundations and various coalitions can employ some people, and public spending could be a part.

But I also think there are things n short supply that markets could help with, complementing, rather than supplementing, FLOSS-work. The Linux-kernel is largely created by companies driven by market forces as far as I understand, even if the central administration is largely neutral.

So the market could drive investment in specific initiatives like qa, security, specific capabilities and such, where the central project is a non-profit driven cooperative.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivation_crowding_theory

> I'd rather see small projects come and go as time permits,

What this really amounts to is that you/large companies like the work you get for free.

> OSS is one of the few remaining examples of actual public cooperation without a profit motive. Injecting capitalism into it is just going to ruin it.

This is so far off the mark. The profit motive made OSS what it is today. The only issue right now is many OSS devs aren't being paid/appreciated for their efforts.

> Having the funding model ("is it sustainable") be a separate concern from the codebase ("what's the best way I can make this library/framework") is a GOOD thing to keep separate, almost like the editorial vs advertisement/sales divide in journalism.

Agreed, but remember what you're paying for is the service of packaging. The idea is the package maintainer can keep the garbage out. That's what you're paying them for.

OSS is in many ways a market distortion. And that's good for some and horrible for others (e.g. grade school teachers used to get paid much, much less in real terms than they do today). A small fee for commercial, production use of Ubuntu's packaging service, a portion of which funds devs? I'm not certain that's a bad idea.

Why is it open source software if the goal is make money off of it? The problem is devs shouldn’t feel like their hobby became a job, they should stop maintaining the code if it becomes to much of a job, or commercialize it. Have a fork that is private and monitized with extra features.

The street performer example was spot on, the existence of a package and its promotion doesn’t entitle it to compensation. What if the performers suck and detract from the passerbys park experience? Are they entitled to compensation for indirectly listing to music they didn’t want to hear in the first place?

> Why is it open source software if the goal is make money off of it? The problem is devs shouldn’t feel like their hobby became a job, they should stop maintaining the code if it becomes to much of a job, or commercialize it. Have a fork that is private and monitized with extra features.

Why isn't it? Did Linux stop being OSS when Linus first got paid for developing it? Plenty of devs would love to do the same and make a few dollars from their hobby project!

> What if the performers suck and detract from the passerbys park experience? Are they entitled to compensation for indirectly listing to music they didn’t want to hear in the first place?

I made top level post re: these questions[0], but I'd make a few addendums to the article:

1. a packaging service for FOSS should always be free for non-commercial use, 2. for commercial use, the pricing should not be on a per package basis but priced for the service of packaging the packages and the pricing should be modest, 3. substantial portion of which (>50%) should then go to the FOSS devs based on their install base, 4. this should except the standard installation, which should receive a highly reduced share.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31961092

Not really. I'm usually the guy at work advocating that we pay for some service rather than trying to reinvent the wheel. And if I solve some small problem, I push for the company to open source it without a financial and branding push behind it so that other devs can benefit. Not everything should be a capitalist competition.

Patreon and buy a coffee are good models too. And devs are hardly starving to begin with.

I just think some stuff shouldn't be monetized. I on occasion contribute back to OSS too, and it's nice to be able to do that just for fun, as a hobby. Some things turn out better when people are able to detach them from their livelihoods, whether that's a short story or a musical instrument or a small side project. The profit motive ruins a lot.

It's not like funding a project magically increases its quality, either. Then it distorts PRs and roadmaps by making funders de facto product owners. I've run into issues trying to contribute back upstream because it didn't meet the needs of their corporate sponsors. And there will forever be a conflict of interest from that point forward between profit and other concerns.

Besides, the big OSS projects seem to survive fine as is. The small ones aren't making anyone rich and IMO they shouldn't. I wouldn't want my pet weekend project to become another source of financial stress, or have to figure out which lib is best based on pricing models. It sucks the joy out of sharing reusable software.

> The profit motive ruins a lot.

"I think it's fine for me to make money off certain things, but not for others" and "You're not doing it the right way" is just not a defensible position.

It's like those teachers from an earlier time. Yes, it was really nice for some. We had small classes and a very high quality of instruction, but at the expense of some people were not getting paid what they were worth.

NCAA is another good example. You may like the idea of the student athlete or playing for the spirit of the game, but is that fair to a kid who wants to use his name, image, and likeness rights to make money for himself? Does it make more sense for the university or the NCAA to own these rights?

> I've run into issues trying to contribute back upstream because it didn't meet the needs of their corporate sponsors.

What you're saying is -- the problem will exist no matter what we do. I think it's better that people get paid, if we can pay them.

> And devs are hardly starving to begin with.

And software companies are definitely not starving either. The most advantaged persons in this distorted economy are the users. Having Amazon pay a few dollars is not going to hurt anyone.

> The small ones aren't making anyone rich and IMO they shouldn't.

I agree the article's particular model is not the one I would have chosen. I think there are better ways to do this. See my other comments for how I might do it.

What? There's nothing stopping any dev from charging for their OSS software (and many do, whether individually or as a core part of their business, like Red Hat).

I'm not anti-people-charging for software, whenever they want.

I just don't want OSS communities taken over by profiteering, the same way that the Android marketplace became a cesspool for get-rich-quick crappy apps, or YouTube is filled with automated advertising spam, or the Stack-republishing spam sites. Monetization destroys organic communities -- that's my problem with it.

It's one thing to say teachers should get paid more -- and I fully agree -- another thing to say that say that volunteers contributing to a community project need to be fairly compensated. When you start paying volunteers, it both changes the underlying motives, attracts different kinds of contributors, and also diminishes the emotional reward of their work.

Not saying people can't get paid for indie projects and free (as in freedom) projects, but that there is also value in free (as in dollars) software -- not really just because it's free, but because it creates a different kind of culture and community around it.

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