[phoronixrly]

Sharing the source code (under an OSS license) with its users is one's only obligation from an ethical standpoint.

If its only user is the developer themselves, then they're already doing more than they're ethically required to by sharing the code.

People must come around to this view and the 'volunteer open-source maintainer/developer' role must be left only to people who enjoy doing it. Require payment for your services otherwise.

[bruce511]

I would suggest that the goals of the author matter here. Obviously across so many authors you get different goals, and hence different requirements.

Part of this is understanding what your goals -are-. It's really important because without that target it's easy to be subsumed by other people's goals.

Are you writing this for you? Or you want to build a large user base? Or you want lots of contributors? Or it's a marketing exercise for your startup? Or.....?

For example, if your goal is to write code and post it, then you're done. If your goal is marketing then really you'll spend more time marketing the project than writing it. If your goal is a huge user base, well you better fix bug reports Pronto and so on.

If your goal is to get an income from this and go full-time then that's the problem you need to solve first (before you start writing code.) Have a plan for income - nake that clear from the start.

Of course goals change, that's OK. But make sure what you are doing lines up with your goals. That's the only way to succeed.

[pessimizer]

The problem is that a lot of people are doing OSS to get work, or to get better work. Almost all of them really, lately. So although they don't have a boss (irt the software), they're desperate to impress, and to please, and to network, and they feel a lot of pressure. Every request is like a demand, so when those requests are petty, or entitled, or feel like a nuisance, it's like they have a horrible boss that's yelling at them and trying to destroy them. They're terrified of a fork; it's like everybody getting up and moving to another table in the cafeteria when all you want them to do is like you. Also, it's a lot of work, and can stack up, and you're doing it for free as basically specwork. They also half the time have to do their real jobs that actually feed their kids, unless they can work on FOSS that their job is willing to pay for.

They shouldn't do it for free, they should use every means and trick available to make it worthwhile for them to do and to get themselves paid. They need to survive for FOSS, for the software. Which means that they have to make sure the license is open and the source is available, and that it's ethical, because that's why it's worth fighting for. So everything that's ethical and open, very preferably GPL, do. If you have to write closed software to get yourself paid for your GPL software, do it. Eventually you can open that closed software up too, when (and not before) you can afford to. All FOSS licenses have different business implications, and ultimately income implications.

Morally, it'd be better if there were no software copyrights and everybody was allowed to inspect and modify all the code that they interacted with, and we all shared. You also have a moral obligation to feed yourself and your family and not go nuts, though, to have some security.

If you're not one of those people, and it's just a hobby and a charity thing for you, that's wonderful and ideal, bless you. You may have already made all your money. If you have to make a living from it though, don't let yourself be bullied into compliance and submission to the users because you need them to like you, to get work, to survive. Do whatever you have to do to be self-sufficient. It's hard out there, and you might have to be hard. Not mean, just firm about the amount of care and interest you have about individual strangers' problems with what you gave them for free.

You can leave a lot of people disappointed that they're not going to get more from you for free, yet still be ethical. Being ethical, being open, leaving people in control of their devices and in control of their lives, that's the point. Keep ethics at 100%, and put pleasing the most people as a (far) lower priority than paying your rent, and taking a vacation every once and a while, with the kids, and having health insurance.

Taking care of yourself means more FOSS in the world, more people free of black boxes in more areas of their lives. The OP seems wise.

[rikroots]

> The problem is that a lot of people are doing OSS to get work, or to get better work. Almost all of them really, lately.

This is exactly why I started my canvas library back in 2013. Hundreds of job applications were generating near zero interview invites. Then a recruiter told me that I was failing because I didn't have a portfolio of code to show prospective employers. I was so desperate (mid-40s looking to break into the tech industry) that I grabbed something I had been fooling around with (trying to make pretty animations in a canvas which I could share on a web page), slapped it on GitHub and started learning about PRs and stuff ... all to impress prospective employers.

It took over a year, and hundreds more applications, before I finally got a job offer.

> If you're not one of those people, and it's just a hobby and a charity thing for you, that's wonderful and ideal, bless you.

I still work on the canvas library. I'd like to think its a hobby/charity thing. The reality is that I go through bouts of obsessive computing that can take over my life for weeks at a time - I lost last Christmas to building a better text layout engine for the library.

The one thing I'm grateful for is the library's unpopularity. No issues or PRs for me to triage/manage; no users making demands etc. It's just me making stupid demands on my energy and time, which I do my best to control.

[dolmen]

If you lost last Christmas, you are already burned out. Have a break, and don't lose the incoming one.