[caseyross]

Open source, historically speaking, is an implied social contract:

I as the developer do something nice for the world. I therefore hope that you, as the user, will pay it forward.

When this ethos is subverted by people who don't pay it forward, who just see "Free!" and unthinkingly take and take without ever thinking to give anything back, it rubs people the wrong way.

[xyzzy_plugh]

> I as the developer do something nice for the world. I therefore hope that you, as the user, will pay it forward.

Why do you believe this to be the case? While I applaud the notion, it is sadly divorced from reality. The notion of "nice for the world" or hoping users "pay it forward" is not, historically speaking, part of the social contract.

The social contract has been roughly either "you, the end user, are granted free access to the source code of these programs, in perpetuity, to use, modify or distribute as you see fit, while either preserving or discarding these properties (depending on the license)", or "this body of work is unencumbered by copyright or liability, enjoy".

> people who don't pay it forward, who just see "Free!" and unthinkingly take and take without ever thinking to give anything back, it rubs people the wrong way.

No? It doesn't. If I write some code and slap the BSD or MIT license on it, it's gone. I've gifted it to the universe. That's the point.

I grow tired of this rhetoric that open source is somehow coupled to community contributions and donation based funding. It's not! Sure, that may happen for some projects, and it's wonderful that it does, but it is decidedly not a characteristic of Open Source.

SQLite is Open Source, yet your contributions are not welcome. Linux is Open Source, haven't you bought Linus a coffee?

[madeofpalk]

I don't think so, historically speaking.

"Open Source", historically speaking, was the right (and obligation) to have the ability to modify the source code of software you use. There was nothing about 'paying it forward', but rather giving users the freedom to control the software they run.

[pbhjpbhj]

The parent comment to your's has been my understanding (using FLOSS since last year's of last millennium), why do you find it not to be true that there was an implied social/moral contract with free-libre software?

[hnfong]

Because that's revisionist history?

Do you have any written evidence that this was a commonly accepted "social contract"? Because I've been using FLOSS since last year's of last millennium as well and I've never heard of such attitudes until recent years. (Even today, I rarely see OSS project leaders actually saying they expected all users to give back something -- it's mostly other users who somehow assume everyone else needs to do so. And if I may say, making presumptions on the intentions of OSS developers is a bit... presumptuous to say the least, even if well intentioned.)

One of the few "giving back" contracts I'm aware of is the GPL. Which explicitly states in the license that you need to open source your modifications if you distribute the binary. Vim nags you a bit to donate to Uganda children, but that's explicit as well.

[pbhjpbhj]

You demand evidence, implicitly, but give none ... calling something revisionist (suggesting purposeful misleading, ie lying) without any backup is, um, a bit unfriendly. Maybe it was just that people in projects I came across followed that pattern of share-and-share-alike?

>Even today, I rarely see OSS project leaders actually saying they expected all users to give back something //

I've never seen it _demanded_ of anyone. Also, I think it largely went away in the early 2000s, as more, varied licenses came online bringing OSS a much broader base.

Pay-it-forward seemed to be a growing movement across society (well before Oprah latched on to it) but particularly on the 'net/burgeoning web. I used Slackware as my primary and got a lot of code from Sourceforge as well as using Debian and RedHat packages later.

Perhaps it was our approach [my, and other people with this impression]. That the first [and only] FOSS license I heard of was GPL, that the movement rallied (to my recollection) around that banner and so the idea of giving back was embedded -- I'm not a programmer. My self-apportioned part early on was to share Linux, help people with compilations and installs; act as a helper and advocate I suppose. It wasn't an explicit obligation, maybe it comes from transactional thinking having grown up in a Western Capitalist society under right wing governments?

[I'll have a dig around for some sources if I get chance.]

[xyzzy_plugh]

Because there was never an implied social/moral contract. If you want something, put it in the license. Don't shame people for adhering to the letter of the license.