Open Source Developers Are Exhausted, Unpaid, and Ready to Walk Away

Comments

• rockstar1215@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  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.

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  • Randomgal@lemmy.ca ⁨9⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

    Careful bro you’re making it sound like exploitation has been normalized in the name of ‘free software’, but actually… Oh wait.

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  • elbarto777@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

    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.

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• Lettuceeatlettuce@lemmy.ml ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  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-distopian 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. ♥️

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  • illusionist@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

    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.

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• morrowind@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  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.

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  • bus_factor@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I have a job like that, but I also have kids, so…

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• Blackmist@feddit.uk ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  So are closed source developers.

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  • papertowels@mander.xyz ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    But at least they’re paid

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    • voodooattack@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Image

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• themurphy@lemmy.ml ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  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.

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  • sj_zero ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    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.

    • non_burglar@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Love the enthusiasm, but let’s stop casting this as an end-user-only problem. The real issue is, once again, large corporations using and taking advantage of oss while putting ZERO money or work back into oss. It’s victim blaming with extra steps, and us blaming each other is exactly what the real culprits want.

      If it makes us feel better that we can pay on a regulsr basis for these things, great. But massive oss projects can thrive on a few of us donating.

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    • GreatBlueHeron@lemmy.ca ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      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.

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    • Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Then they would just be paid but exhausted

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    • vatlark@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Liberapay is really nice. I like the payment options they have to minimize the fees, like making 2 years of small “monthly” payments in a single charge to your bank card.

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  • sj_zero ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    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.
  • DoGeeseSeeGod@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    The brain! No the stomach!

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• smeg@infosec.pub ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  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.

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  • quick_snail@feddit.nl ⁨28⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

    Anus Linux, you say?

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  • rishado@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    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 :(

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• simonlm@sh.itjust.works ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I read this blog post yesterday and it was insightful.

  Seems like we could solve multiple problems in one go here…

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  • quick_snail@feddit.nl ⁨24⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

    Fuuuuck that!

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  • KaKi87@jlai.lu ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    The consequences of what that article proposes is we’re gonna be back to this period of history where companies were all using proprietary technology that self-taught devs won’t ever learn and that students will only learn if they can afford a school that can use it, in addition to poor developer experience because of maintainer agenda being driven by money rather than community requests.

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  • nik9000@programming.dev ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I liked the article. It sung to my heart. I’ve been in this world for a while. Lived through the failure and hyperacalars just taking without giving back.

    I don’t know what to think. But I’m not happy with where we are and it’s nice to hear someone else talking about it.

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  • obsoleteacct@lemmy.zip ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I’m all for ethical licensing, and defensive licensing, but you’ll likely end up with an unmanageable soup of various licenses that everyone is nervous about misinterpreting. You lose efficacy and everyone will just default back to the same handful of licenses we’re currently using.

    I think unless it was a small number of crystal clear alternative licenses with broadly agreeable terms, you’d get chaos, followed by complacency.

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    • quick_snail@feddit.nl ⁨18⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

      More likely, people’s work will get thrown into the bin because its poorly licensed.

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• possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  All of the large scale projects are developed by enterprises

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• modus@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  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.

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  • frongt@lemmy.zip ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    They’re not a company, FUTO is one rich guy.

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    • TomAwezome@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      FUTO is both a company (LLC, to be specific) and a rich guy.

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    • Novocirab@feddit.org ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      And not to forget: FUTO is evil.

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    • modus@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      That was my intuition after looking around their site

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  • _g_be@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I know how futa makes money

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