[staltz]

Author here. "People writing open source software are not being exploited." Well, I got the curiosity to check the data after having just met with people writing open source software. So I think if you make that claim, you should back it up with at least non-zero evidence. I have done my part.

[solidasparagus]

Okay. You claim that Electron is a below-the-poverty-line project - one of the projects where people are being 'exploited'. Electron is a GitHub project and GitHub got acquired for $7.5B. That doesn't seem particularly 'exploited' to me.

(Why you compare GitHub's acquisition price to the amount of money being put into open-source instead of seeing it as money being put into open-source is beyond me)

[staltz]

On Electron, I wrote this in my article:

> ... such as Prettier, Curl, Jekyll, Electron. This doesn’t mean the people working on those projects are poor, because in several cases the maintainers have jobs at companies that allow open source contributions.

Then,

> Why you compare GitHub's acquisition price to the amount of money being put into open-source instead of seeing it as money being put into open-source is beyond me.

Because Microsoft, as a public company, cannot make an acquisition the size of 20% their profit that year without a clear plan for ROI on that cost, and this will likely happen through some integration with Azure, since the GitHub CEO reports to Microsoft's VP of Cloud and Enterprise. And even if GitHub is seen as a platform that supports open source (therefore money into the platform being a positive for open source), it is weird and unfair for a support partner to earn significantly more money than the core persons involved in open source.

[solidasparagus]

How are the Electron project creators and core contributors not 'the core persons involved in open source'?

My point is that it's like saying "software developers don't make much money when you exclude corporate salaries and stock bonuses". These open source developers are nowhere near the poverty line and coming to a conclusion that these projects aren't sustainable doesn't make much sense.

Edit: maybe your point is that the donation model isn't sustainable. But it reads like you are trying to make a bigger statement about open source sustainability given statements like:

"I was able to calculate how much yearly revenue for a project goes to each “full-time equivalent” contributor. This is essentially their salary"

"More than 50% of projects are red: they cannot sustain their maintainers above the poverty line"

"Unless companies take an active role in supporting open source with significant funding, what’s left is a situation where most open source maintainers are severely underfunded." (this reads to me like 'unless you include salary and stock, software developers are poor')

[staltz]

> How are the Electron project creators and core contributors not 'the core persons involved in open source'?

I didn't say that and would not have agreed to saying that.

Notice what I did say, though:

> "Unless companies take an active role in supporting open source with significant funding"

When a company has employees working on an open source project, such as Electron, that is an active role in supporting open source.

There are different projects, some are internal company infrastructure that was open sourced (React, Electron, Angular, etc), and some are built by hobbyists/indies (Unified, Prettier, Core-js, etc). Companies definitely take a good active role in the first type, and less so in the second type. However, quite often there are projects of the second type being used as dependencies in projects of the first type, as well as in proprietary software, of course. This is why I raise the need for even more company active involvement in open source. It's more about requiring their participation in the culture of gifting (because open source is a commons), than it is about requiring specific donations on specific projects on a transactional basis. In my article I address why companies typically don't participate in open source commons: because companies have a financial brain that guides them towards profit and competitiveness, not gifting. This is why we must "rewrite some rules of society".

[solidasparagus]

> It is weird and unfair for a support partner [GitHub] to earn significantly more money than the core persons involved in open source

>> How are the Electron project creators and core contributors not 'the core persons involved in open source'?

>>> I didn't say that and would not have agreed to saying that.

?

> requiring their participation in the culture of gifting

If it's required, it's not really gifting, is it?

> why companies typically don't participate in open source commons

Open source has never been better supported by corporations. Billions (probably tens of billions) of dollars are being poured in to open source. redis was a hobbyist project and now it's backed by over $100M in corporate money.

I just very much dislike this view that open source is in a bad place because it doesn't fit some moral judgement of how money should work in open source. It's like Stallman's campaign for 'freedom' as long as your view of 'freedom' is exactly the same as his.

[justin66]

This is not responsive to the parent poster's point. You appear to have a disagreement about the meaning of "exploited," not about the data.

[JackFr]

You have a weak understanding of how an argument is made.

I accept all of your evidence prima facie, and yet I still reject your premise. Figure it it out. I've done my part.

[ricardobeat]

Exploitation implies helplessness. Writing OSS is a choice. I think the subject is a lot more complex than that, but that’s the parents’ point.

[eeZah7Ux]

> Exploitation implies helplessness

No it does not. Look at the definition.

[jasonlotito]

> Exploitation > 1 the action or fact of treating someone unfairly in order to benefit from their work: the exploitation of migrant workers.

A license exists that denotes the requirements for using the software. This license is decided by the creator. It's the creators "requirement" or "demand" for using their work. Some open source projects choose to use multiple licenses, like the GPL + another license business can use.

Some go with MIT which demands a lot less from both parties.

As long as the license is followed, it's assumed that both parties are being treated fairly as they've agreed to follow the license. Considering the creator chose the license themselves, it's safe to assume they agree with its premise, and anyone following the agreement they went with isn't unfairly exploiting them.

e.g. It's a fair trade.

The creator also benefits by attracting additional talent to the project because of the license being used. If the license was not an open source license, would they have attracted that talent?

To suggest that these companies are unfairly exploiting these individuals, you'd have to show why agreeing to the terms the creator set out is unfair, especially when other common and easily accessible licenses exists that solve these very issues.

[Insanity]

I guess the parent means that some people don't have a choice in their situation (or not as much). Open source maintainers do have this choice.

I like contributing to OSS and do so frequently for fun. But the idea of it being a (sole) source of income is scary unfortunately.