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Comment by diggan | Hacker News Reader

> taking advantage of their labor and keeping them busy till they burn out.

But how is that the companies fault that people are unable to say no? At one point, individuals need to be strong enough to say "No, I can't help you with that" just like if someone asked you for money on the street and you don't have enough yourself. Is it the beggars fault that you're unable to ration your own money?

> The main issue is the majority of companies often don't contribute back, they just consume, they're a burden leeching off free labor.

The companies aren't "consuming" anything just as much as digital piracy isn't "stealing". The code is there, they can use it if they want. If something doesn't fit their use case, they can change it themselves, or ask someone else. Then it's up to that "someone" to say yes or no.

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> But how is that the companies fault that people are unable to say no?

Are we seriously blaming the victims now that they're not strong enough to stand up for themselves? Do you go to people who got bullied or fallen for a scam and tell them you could have said no at any moment, it's their fault completely? The offender just asked nicely for your credit card information, they did nothing wrong, you just had to say no. Sorry, they played a fair game, you lost.

> The companies aren't "consuming"

What? what do you call companies who only come to a project to ask for features requests and then take that feature and disappear?

> The code is there, they can use it if they want.

But.. no one is complaining that they simply used some open source code that was published online. Why do you make up ridiculous arguments by yourself and then proceed to mock them? I'd understand if you misinterpreted my point but are you really oblivious to the struggles of open source maintainers? Or you're just downplaying it or something else? What's going on here?

Yes, they could have said no. They could have not released the code to begin with. But that doesn't change that they were taken advantage of.

There isn't any "victims" here? If a beggar asks someone for money, is the person the beggar asks a "victim"?

Not sure how much strength is required to have when a AWS employee asks for a feature in your issue tracker and you either ignore them, or just say "Nope".

> What? what do you call companies who only come to a project to ask for features requests and then take that feature and disappear?

They can ask for features all night long if they want to, if there is no interest from maintainers to implement something, then it won't happen. The company can fork the repository if they want, and that wouldn't be wrong.

Assuming that big/profitable users of FOSS libraries are required to contribute back (with time or money) just muddles the waters further, as no one is required to do anything, as a producer of code or consumer.

> But.. no one is complaining that they simply used some open source code that was published online. Why do you make up ridiculous arguments by yourself and then proceed to mock them? I'd understand if you misinterpreted my point but are you really oblivious to the struggles of open source maintainers? Or you're just downplaying it?

You and others seem to constantly misrepresent what FOSS explicitly means, and start involving some implicit rules about what FOSS means and should be, like you have to build a community, or you have to accept patches from others, or you have to reply to feature requests. None of those things are required, and it hurts the community further by pretending those things are needed to call a piece of code FOSS.

> There isn't any "victims" here?

What do you call the state that indie open source maintainers are in right now? Lack of business mindset? Skill issue?

> You and others seem to constantly misrepresent what FOSS explicitly means, and start involving some implicit rules about what FOSS means and should be

I thought "the vision" and a major corner of open source is others contributing and building on top of each other? Which of the following is more FOSS:

- Putting your code online and saying no to requests

- Collaborating together and contributing back?

Why do you refuse to promote the second option? How does it go against FOSS? To me, it sounds much healthier for the ecosystem and more along the spirit of FOSS. I'm not sure what definition of FOSS make you blame those frustrated with the lack of contribution and trying to promote it.

> What do you call the state that "indie" open source maintainers are in right now? Lack of business mindset? Skill issue?

If I had to call it something, I guess it would be something along the lines of "Not realizing the control they have over their projects".

If you're writing FOSS not to earn money or build a business, and AWS employees approaches you asking for features, you as a maintainer has the power and control to say "Nope", and no one would bat an eye, because that's the contract they implicitly signed by using your software in the first place.

> Which of the following is more FOSS

Neither, as neither are actually related to FOSS at all.

The first is a process you can apply in order to remain sane if there is pressure to implement features you don't care about and don't want to implement.

The second is something you can do on top of FOSS if you want, or not. Choosing one over the other isn't more/less FOSS.

> Why do you refuse to promote the second one?

I don't refuse that, I promote plenty of communities around FOSS projects, and probably wouldn't had a career in software at all if it wasn't for FOSS, and most of my time daily is spent doing FOSS.

> How does it go against FOSS?

It doesn't go against, but people need to appreciate there is a difference between "Building a community" and "Publishing FOSS". One does not mean the other is required, either way.

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