Comment by mcpackieh
2 years ago
> I keep reading from project leaders like ESLint’s things like “if only they paid $1 each…” as if that made any economic sense at all. If they paid $1 each, you would not hand thousands let alone millions of users.
From another angle, if I gave a dollar a month to every Free Software program or library I used that month, it would cost me thousands of dollars a month. Obviously that isn't realistic. I have donated to projects before but those products need to individually make the case to me that my donation is needed. Expecting users to donate to every project they use by default just isn't realistic. Most projects won't get donations from most people most of the time; that's just the way it is. Developers should be at peace with this before they decide to personally commit themself to a project.
I don't think anyone is expecting you to donate to literally every project you use. However, say your business is to build and sell a product done in JS. You already have a bunch of JS devs, whom you may have even bought those sweet MacBooks. Let's also say, you're invested in keeping the code quality high, which you boast about in your product web page. Why not donate a $100/month to the JSLint project which is part of your toolchain anyway and helps you achieve your goals? The annual cost is probably less then you'd spend on the toilet paper for the office. You get a maintained product, they get some money to support their efforts. It's clearly a win win.
That's a fine pitch for the merit of donating to ESLint, but if that pitch isn't working for the developer then he should either make peace with doing the work for free, or stop doing the work.
Yes, completely. If there's no business contract in place, it's hard to expect compensation of any sort. It's all hinged on the other party's willingness to recognize the value in keeping the project alive. Very few do.
Welcome to the pre-2000's, when it was possible to actually make a living from selling software, without having to bundle it behind a SaaS paywall, hardware devices,...
Serious question: is it not now?
I have worked hard to escape closed source, commercial software, but I still purchase several box products (FamilyHistorian and SuperMemo come to mind immediately) from small companies. I acknowledge e.g., Microsoft or Adobe can make a killing by making their products subscription-based, but is that the way small companies (who can accept the lack of continuous income and charge a significant portion of full price for major upgrades) have to go?
HN is a good mirror for that.
Every time someone posts a project that happens to be closed source, and asking for money, there are several voices reaching out for the pitch forks and torches, how dare someone charge for XYZ when FOSS alternative (less functional mostly) is available.
Hence why only those doing enterprise consulting get the nice toys.