Hacker News Reader

Comment by bruce511 | Hacker News Reader

I don't think he's suggesting everyone should abandon OSS. he's still using it, and contributing.

I think he's saying that his "professional journey building OSS" is over. ie his day job needs to generate income.

The abuse part exists in all software, free and commercial. But it's especially galling when you did the work for free. OSS also tends to attract, um, shall we say, those who are likely to be uncomplimentary. (Spending money on things means you're more likely to like it.)

The root point though is well made, and another annedotal data point - relying on random "companies supporting you with voluntary payments" is not a business model, and fundamentally misunderstands how businesses work.

Hint - If you don't -invoice- then youre not getting paid.

View on HN

> I think he's saying that his "professional journey building OSS" is over. ie his day job needs to generate income.

I agree that he’s saying this. But FTA:

> Open source is great, but it's not sustainable. We self-sabotaged ourselves over decades, and now we're at a point where it's hard to turn back. Publishing source code for the greater good is a noble cause, but to be honest, I think that over the years, using "open source" has become an excuse to avoid paying for software.

I interpreted this as something beyond just his personal position, and seemed like a broader indictment of the OSS model.

There's OSS at the large-scale level (Linux, Firefox, Postgres) where the model is clearly working and sustainable.

There's also OSS at the "one man band has a small project" level, where, IMO, the sustainable model has yet to be figured out.

At the one man band level, it works fine if it is a hobby. The problem is figuring out how to make a living supporting a small project.

It works OK if the small project is a byproduct of a day job whose primary purpose is something else.

Seems like this is true at the larger scale as well. For example, IBM and SGI etc helping to improve Linux in the 90s / early 00s.

> There's OSS at the large-scale level (Linux, Firefox, Postgres) where the model is clearly working and sustainable.

Is it, really? At "the large-scale level" of the project, perhaps -- but what do we know about how "sustained" individual contributors even to those projects feel they are being?

The LWN folks have some stats about employment of Linux contributors. Most contributions are paid, but the volunteers ("None") beat a number of companies by changesets and by lines changed.

https://lwn.net/Articles/964106/

> OSS also tends to attract, um, shall we say, those who are likely to be uncomplimentary.

I maintain several small open source projects. The bug reports are generally helpful and the users very polite. People regularly thank me for my work and I cannot recall a single negative interaction. The trick is: my target audience are computer musicians :)

So you, as opposed to your customers, are just as grumpy and rude as the rest of us...? ;-)

Sorry, couldn't resist. But your observation -- basically, that if you want non-rude users / customers, don't direct your product at programmers / hackers / geeks -- is so common as to be almost a truism. Why is this? Are we all assholes, or WTF?!? Do we have to be?

Sigh...

> don't direct your product at programmers / hackers / geeks

On the contrary! My users are programmers/hackers/geeks. The difference is that they use my software to create (experimental) art. Many have a non-technical background, though. I guess that creates (or requires?) a whole different mindset. These people are genuinely happy that the software exists because it helps them to be creative and express themselves.

> So you, as opposed to your customers, are just as grumpy and rude as the rest of us...? ;-)

My background is in music, so I am not really a typical tech guy (although I've been programming since I was a kid). I might be a bit grumpy at times, but that's because I am from Austria :p

> I might be a bit grumpy at times, but that's because I am from Austria :p

Ja ja, alles Böse kommt aus Österreich: Hitler, Schwarzenegger, Fritzl... No, wait, turns out the Governator is a good guy[1]!

OK, sorry, never mind.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4e1BndTE6Lg

> OSS also tends to attract, um, shall we say, those who are likely to be uncomplimentary.

I disagree. I maintain a reasonably popular project (25K stars on GitHub) and a large majority of people reporting bugs / asking for features are polite and not entitled. Of course, those exceptions sting overproportionally.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com