- cross-posted to:
- linux@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- linux@lemmy.ml
cross-posted from: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/49194514
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Pay for your FOSS! I’ve paid far more for my FOSS than for any proprietary software.
If you believe in subscriptions, then subscribe only to FOSS software like Bitwarden, Tailscale/Netbird, etc.
Find your favorite FOSS projects on Open Collective and support them there.
And above all else, treat FOSS devs and maintainers with the utmost respect! They are the unsung heros who are building the only alternatives to the corpo-dystopian hellscape of proprietary, enshitified, slop software.
Send a message to a dev today, just saying thank you to them for everything, and asking if you can send them a tip if possible.
Folks, let’s treat each other lovingly please, FOSS has freed us, give back what you can, and never take it for granted.
To all the devs, maintainers, tinkerers, supporters, FOSS educators, and helpful community members across the FOSS world, thank you so much, and much love. ♥️
I like Projects that provide an IBAN. I don’t want to pay 3% to paypal or stripe just to donate to a FOSS project.
Open source should be funded by the tax-payers, or all code should be forcibly open-source (something like AGPL)
Any other models feels like they would create perverse incentives
Also recurring donations feels like a better way than one-time tips
How do you decide which open source projects are worthy of taxpayer money, and how much does a given project get?
I have a couple projects I’ve put up in GitHub as open source. Would they qualify? Or are you just talking about well known open source projects like Linux?
Same as all other tax funded projects, by some elected people who likely have no idea about the project.
Joking aside, we will see more of this funding due to governments moving to open source software as they tend to want to fund their own stuff.
By which country?
Saudi Arabia.
All of them? Maybe an international consortium that pays devs in their home currency.
I’m sure many people could point to hundreds of dangers around open-source programs relying on government funding. Yet, I can’t argue that it seems to be a necessity.
I mean, look what happened with TCP/IP.
A fucking disaster for humanity on a global scale
???
So what’s the problem with those protocols?
For example, the developer of asus-linux.org who made the kernel contributions for Asus ROG laptops and the accompanying ROG Control Center recently walked away, due to exhaustion.
Anus Linux, you say?
I couldn’t find anything about this on the Asus Linux blog, am I just dumb and looking in the wrong place? I use Asus-linux and didn’t know about this :(
Edit:
unfortunately it seems that bullshitters who make shit up on the spot have made their way over to Lemmyboo meFor myself, I make sure I’ve done my due diligence before I might accuse someone of dishonesty, rather than making a minimum effort.
From his Kofi: https://ko-fi.com/flukejones
I’ve burned out on LKML and many many other parts of the FOSS world. It’s exhausting. As such, I will not be working on Linux for asus device. It’s not something I can devote huge chunks of time to for free anymore.
Thank you everyone who has donated something over the last years.
Same on his Patreon
Same deal with lawyers that go into public interest. It pays super low, compared to corporate and similar that has money to throw at their employees.
A lot of FOSS projects are freemium based which seems viable for larger more complex projects.
In these projects it’s common to see the developer get paid for adding features on top of the core version, for a SaaS version, for custom development, or for offering support.
Other projects with a lot of community interest - and a good “community manager” style organizer can attract contributors in the form of pulls, bug testing and reports, and widespread use which generates valuable marketing. These projects only exist because of the labor of love from the whole community.
If only there was a way to fund open source projects so we both could have better software for the world and paid employees…
I think you can guess which government body already do this. Just take a shot.
Big question is: how many of us are funding foss projects?
It isn’t difficult, and with how popular some are, it wouldn’t be long before the projects could hire one or more full time devs at good rates.
I support a few big projects I use every month through liberapay.
I think the bigger question is how many corporations are supporting foss projects? I’m sure a lot of us contribute a bit here and there if we can and I’m sure it makes a difference - but if some of these corporations, making billions of dollars profit, contribute just a tiny fraction of their wealth it could make a huge difference.
It’s the same argument as recycling, turning off lights, walking instead of driving etc. etc. - yes there are 8 billion of us and if we all do it, it will make a difference, but the difference we make is still not significant compared to corporate greed.
We are being gaslit to accept yet another scenario where we socialize the cost and privatize the profit.
A corporation has no obligations towards foss projects, no different to any individual being made to fund them.
This isn’t true, a lot of corporations use and benefit from the foss and they should be supporting those projects.
They should also be supporting projects that could replace the applications that they spend millions on each year. When your CIO says that they are using ‘whatever corpo system’ because a viable open source project doesn’t exist, they should start funding the non-viable projects so they can become viable.
I’m going to be honest, I have no idea how open source works. I can’t imagine maintaining anything more than a tiny library that I can ignore six days of the week.
Also: open source relies on good jobs. You can only do it if you have a well paid low stress job with good hours. Those have been in short supply recently.
I think the free time covid gave, followed by the free time the layoffs gave, and AI have been patching / hiding the fact that the core model of open source is completely unsustainable in its current state.
It’s funny how common this mindset is in the self-hosting community: “If I’m running it on my own hardware, the software should basically be free… maybe I’ll toss a tiny ‘tip’ if I feel generous.”
The logic seems to be that since there’s no ongoing server cost, the developer’s time, skill, and effort must somehow be worth nothing and that we should magically fund the entire project through some hypothetical cloud version that they themselves will never use.
It’s like showing up to a brewery with your own growler and expecting the beer to be free because you didn’t use their glass.
I’m sorry, but I can’t agree with this. If the software is free, then it’s free. It’s up to the authors how they want to license it.
Personally, I write code and publish it in the hopes that it will help someone. If someone comes in and says “there’s this bug, fix it!” I will only do so if it will benefit me, or if I feel like it.
It’s up to the authors how they want to license it.
Plus or minus some amount of piracy, sure
Oh for sure!
The article and discussion here is about open source software which is not free software. Thats where the problem lies it is assumed that open source software has be free.
Freedom in software does not mean free software.
Thats where the problem lies it is assumed that open source software has be free.
But the article is not talking about this scenario. They’re specifically talking about open source software that’s also free software:
Your favorite apps run on code maintained by exhausted volunteers.
So it’s perfectly fine for some users to expect the software to be free.
The real problem is that some project owners have a sense of duty to maintain their creations no matter what, leading to burnout, which is the point of the article. The article also details ways to fix it. Some of those involve the users being proactive (e.g. taking the initiative to donate consistently), but ultimately it’s up to the owner to take some action. Like I mentioned, if I publish some code for free, I don’t mind my users to expect that my software will always be free. But if they think I’m going to lose sleep trying to meet their demands without compensation, welp, they are dreaming.
So are closed source developers.
But at least they’re paid
I don’t understand much about the finances of the FOSS world, but do companies like FUTO help at all? I don’t even know how FUTO makes money, to be honest.
They’re not a company, FUTO is one rich guy.
FUTO is both a company (LLC, to be specific) and a rich guy.
Hey, it’s their problem for choosing to be a developer. That’s the worst job ever, with the overtime and shit.
