[chamakits]

This reaction from the owner of the Godot forums really reinforces my frequent realization of what a miracle it is that any large open source project exists, and how hard it is to try to get any monetary compensation from open source.

Some key members of the Godot project attempted to commercially monetize their future efforts in a way that will likely benefit the community at large. Unfortunately some parts of the community believe this is either a betrayal or that they should also be compensated equally without being part of the same commercialization efforts they are taking on. Both of these groups are providing value to the community, and one group attempted a way to get compensated.

When I started programming and learned about open source, I greatly benefited from it and hoped that one day I’d give back. But the reality is that unless you are prepared to sacrifice your free time for thankless work, you should reconsider.

Unfortunately things cost money, and the way to pay for things is to get paid for spending time working. And that time and mental bandwidth competes with open source. You’ll be doing the same type of work that you could be paid for if you were doing it for a company. But you aren’t. It’s just as hard work as the work done in the time people sacrifice in exchange for a salary, but you won’t get monetary value out of it. And you are opening up yourself to criticisms and demands and stresses to the same level or higher as if you were under employment and as if you were compensated for it. But you aren’t. It’s thankless work for which if you are expecting compensation you are likely to be disappointed. And if you find a possible way which could allow you to contribute to the community leveraging your past experience, but the work is no longer free or shared with the community you’ll be criticized for it.

Anyways, long winded way of me saying; it’s a miracle open source projects exists. And it’s also a miracle that people can dedicate their time to manage communities around them. They are both valuable, and they should both be done with the realistic expectations of getting nothing back in return. But I’ll give my thanks to those that do it.