[mcherm]

This seems to be solving the wrong problem.

As far as I can tell, the problem is not that we lack good mechanisms for making payments to open source developers and deciding how to allocate such funds. The problem is that cash donations are rare and small. A small handful of developers are supported very richly by being paid full-time tech employee salaries to work on open source; a handful of groups like the Python Software Foundation occasionally get together enough donations to fund a developer or small team part time; and aside from that there just isn't much money contributed.

[rndhouse]

I don't believe enough public software developers ask for or expect to receive donations.

The macro goal of OpenFare is to put in place a mechanism that developers can use to receive funds for developing public software. If there is a demand for donations, it needs to be brought to the surface. I don't think we're adequately over that hurdle.

Many content creators (youtubers, gamers, ...) get paid a lot. I think that there is room for public software engineers to ask for their share.

[cromulent]

Thanks for moving the needle.

Millions of companies use open source without contributing anything. I have a theory/daydream that:

a) a new foundation could be created with a new licence, whose only purpose is to accept payments and distribute them, with max x% overhead

b) that licence would stipulate that by paying a nominal yearly fee (e.g. 10 hours average developer cost in your country) you would get all-you-can-eat commercial use of such licensed software

would lead to software adopting that licence, companies paying that fee as a no-brainer, and in time would mean that those millions of companies would at least give some money, without warranty etc, that would be distributed somewhat fairly.

Which would no doubt be massively imperfect, but better than now.

[WJW]

I want to be optimistic about this, but I don't think the result would be that every company would sign up for this. Rather, every company would implement their own 10-liner library for adding ANSI color codes to terminal output. The whole system of smallish dependencies you add in on an as-needed basis only works when the cost of adding them (INCLUDING the transaction costs, the cost of dev hours spend on convincing the procurement dept, etc etc etc) is cheaper than the cost in dev hours of just writing it yourself.

In addition to this, if a company pays for software the devs they buy it from had better respond quickly to security vulnerabilities and feature requests. The standard FOSS "this software is provided as-is, without even some guarantee of fitness for purpose" is not really something that would fly in a commercial contract.

[rndhouse]

> the cost of adding them (INCLUDING the transaction costs, the cost of dev hours spend on convincing the procurement dept, etc etc etc) is cheaper than the cost in dev hours

I think this gets to the heart of the matter. The goal with OpenFare (for non-FOSS) is to minimize this overhead cost. I believe that it can be minimized to a point where it is negligible. For FOSS it is already negligible. The method for minimizing that cost is to make a predictable pattern familiar and ubiquitous.

> had better respond quickly to security vulnerabilities and feature requests

That depends on the deal. If you buy software for $.01 what do you expect beyond your expectations had you paid nothing? Software support can't be assumed just because money is trading hands.

[cromulent]

Yeah, the $BIG-CO companies I work for have many many developers and projects. Once they realize that they pay a small yearly fee (compared to seat licences for Intellij etc) and that saves tons of time, they would pay it for sure.

The "no warranty, express or implied" is an important part of the licence.

[rndhouse]

Umm, I could be wrong, and you might be referring to what I have in mind. But your dream sounds an awful lot like the OpenFare Commercial License (non-FOSS) idea:

https://github.com/openfare/openfare#micropriced-commercial-...