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Comment on Paying people to work on open source is good actually

onlinepersona@programming.dev ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

My fundamental position is that paying people to work on open source is good, full stop, no exceptions. We need to stop criticizing maintainers getting paid, and start celebrating. Yes, all of the mechanisms are flawed in some way, but that’s because the world is flawed, and it’s not the fault of the people taking money. Yelling at maintainers who’ve found a way to make a living is wrong.

Fully agreed. Puritans of any kind are annoying and can’t think for themselves. Opensource can’t exist in this world without somebody that has money and time to write it. If we want more opensource, we need to pay those writing it to spend more time doing so.

If you really think you can live outside of capitalism in a capitalist world, go off the grid. Posting on the internet is already proof that you’re failing your own ideals.

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h3rm17@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Why? I use the internet to share media and culture via P2P. Is that failing my ideals? Also I don’t remember Stallman being a commie, to be fair.

And opensource CAN exist without people paying the mantainers, people have being giving things away to the community since time is time This trend of companies paying mintainers is relatively new.

Plus, on the other hand, as long as it is full open source, I can’t see why anyone would have a problem with the maintainers getting paid, specially through a foundation via donarions and/or crowdfunding.

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- onlinepersona@programming.dev ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  Why? I use the internet to share media and culture via P2P. Is that failing my ideals?
  
  “If you really think you can live outside of capitalism in a capitalist world, go off the grid.” are these your ideals?
  
  Also I don’t remember Stallman being a commie, to be fair.
  
  What does that have to do with anything?
  
  And opensource CAN exist without people paying the mantainers, people have being giving things away to the community since time is time
  
  Giving money in return for code is payment. A donation is payment. A maintainer getting money during their day job and then working on opensource in their free time is payment.
  
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  - h3rm17@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    No, but I mean it IS possible to take steps against and live outside capitalism while inside capitalism is possible. It’s a grayscale, not “all or nothing”.
    
    Meaning, that open source not being paid is not inherently outside capitalism.
    
    Yeah, sure is. But they are crowd sourced paymemts, instead of corporate payments.
    
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    onlinepersona@programming.dev ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I think we are agreeing with each other: life is not black and white and puritans want to make it.
    
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