Sustainable open source will stay a dream
I’m not saying it doesn’t suck for this person, but product market fit is a thing for open source too. If people need it they’ll use it and contribute until something better comes along. If not, your idea wasn’t the one. That doesn’t mean it’s not possible. Nearly my whole life runs on open source software, so it’s pretty clearly sustainable.
over the years, using “open source” has become an excuse to avoid paying for software
Um. Yes. And to be blunt: obviously. And in return, I give away software I create for free whether people need it or not, and try to give back in the form of contributions too. But I’ve never once given up my day job for it. Would that be nice? Maybe. But open source software is more frequently sustained by passionate people using and expanding it for their own projects and not by expecting people to pay you for your efforts when you’re likely not paying (nodejs, github, ahem) for the software you’re building it on anyway.
Hate to see this, but there are definitely people who are takers and have the nerve to be entitled at the same time.
- You, as an open source maintainer owe nothing to anyone. Never feel compelled to do anything in your project that doesn’t make you happy.
- you should 100% be able to charge for your work. I applaud you for that.
- There are more of us out here who want to support open source int he right way. Know that.
- thank you for the project you made and shared. Truly.
Damn
You should do a better job updating your documentation so that people do not waste their time like I did. This change to closed source was announced where, exactly? All of your READMEs and documentation sites do not mention this. Very easy to be confused and very disappointing to me that this went closed-source.
Not only did you sell out, you also removed all the old versions that were released under an open source license so that others couldn’t continue to use out-of-support versions. DISGUSTING.
tl;dr get off GitHub and npm entirely if you want to do the closed-source thing, kthx.
Sorry for this and others. That’s a horrible experience.
And they justified with
I’m having a mental health crisis right now. What I said was wrong, I could not see that a few days ago. Take whatever you want from that. I am sorry. Please stop piling on now that I have removed everything. I am seriously ill and need to stop being involved in anything for several months.
(Leaving the end out as it can be triggering, talking about death)
I don’t know what to make of this.
Then they started complaining that the image search plugin was not compatible with Apple Silicon.
What kind of psycho fucking does this.
You have no idea. I once did an open source library that became somewhat popular and shit like that made me give it away to a consulting company that will happily attach a quote to the bullshit requests.
As in my case it was a library I also got the university students demanding I do their homework for them, which is another delightful group.
Unfortunately, college kids are still very much kids, even if they’re over 18. Which means a lot of them are dicks.
…I fucking hate teenagers.
Fundraising is skill, and it needs to be learnt, I have looked at a fairly large chunk of open source project that are successfully funded and i think that is what sets them apart.
I think it is important that users should have a very clear understanding of how you are doing, if you need X money to keep doing this, there should be a pop up saying you need X money on the software and it should be very hard to miss on the website and read me.
Will some people not like that? probably but you can’t please everyone and you shouldn’t let a vocal minority determines how things happen.
At that point, you’ve become a business. So yeah, you need skill to fundraise.
I think opensource software should always be dual-license. One FOSS for personal use, and an aggressively limited license for commercial use.
Fuck the companies, they will always take and never give anything back. They won’t give you money anyways, so might as well shut them down.
At that point, you’ve become a business. So yeah, you need skill to fundraise.
or a non profit, and not surprising running a business or a non profit requires the skills to manage a business or a non profit, iirc the software freedom conservatory and maybe the SPI say the can help with fundraising, but you need to be modest and consider you might benefit from learning from other people.
Fuck the companies, they will always take and never give anything back. They won’t give you money anyways, so might as well shut them down.
That’s just factually wrong, for example most of the contribution to the linux kernel are from companies, blender development fund is a good case study for this (see how much each corporate sponsors pays)
It was a hyperbole that companies never give back, but for every company that donates, how many don’t?
If the companies would give back even a fraction of what they generate by using FOSS, then it would be viable for a lot more people to be a FOSS developer.
