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by alangibson 1613 days ago
Micropayments just repeat the same old mistake of applying individualistic solutions to problems that can only be addressed collectively.

We need a trade organization like the RIAA that collects and distributes royalties from profitable business for developers.
2 comments
watwut 1613 days ago
That would turn open source into trick and bait fraud.

What about ... slapping license you are actually ok with. It is 100% fine to sell software for money, closed source, open source, free software and completely restricted.

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alangibson 1613 days ago
> That would turn open source into trick and bait fraud.

That's not possible. It would all have to be clearly stated in the license.

> What about ... slapping license you are actually ok with.

You would have to slap on a licence saying the trade org represents you, etc.

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watwut 1613 days ago
The whole debate is about open source with licenses that do in fact allow corporations to legally use it for free. And open source advocates of the past spent a lot of effort ensuring them it is so.

There are licenses that don't allow such thing. And afaik, corporations avoid those libraries or pay for alternative license. The people however don't complain about these.

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tpoacher 1613 days ago
the two seem orthogonal issues.

a foss collective could act as the enforcer of the openfare license, sure.

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alangibson 1613 days ago
I see the issue as 'how do we get resources to OSS contributors'. Micropayments will never be more than a pittance as long as it has to compete with "free"
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rndhouse 1613 days ago
For a user of the software, free might have downsides that micropayment-funded-at-scale might not have.

If all users chip in $1/month, perhaps it adds up to something significant.

I think the challenge is to minimize the overhead costs of that process.

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