Comment by zackmorris
2 years ago
The feeling of entitlement people have around open source is unsustainable.
Do you have standards? It doesn't sound like you do.
People with healthy boundaries set standards for themselves as far as what they give to others and what treatment they accept in return.
I think the fallacy in your argument is that you're blaming contributors for noticing that they aren't being compensated for the work they've done, rather than blaming others for using that work without giving anything in return. I see your sentiment reflected in society in the way we treat low-wage workers with disdain for not doing more lucrative work. You're applying the principle of rugged individualism to a systems-level problem.
A healthier way to approach this would be to list a number of possible solutions and debate them in an open forum like this. When we find solutions but fail to adopt them, then that's a criticism of our agency. We are all failing ourselves by failing open source contributors. Then we can look beyond that to find the reasons why. Which are obvious because they are the same as with any other power imbalance. The fault lies with the wealthy and powerful people and corporations who profit from free and low-wage labor. The solution is to organize labor into a unified front so that exploitation can no longer happen.
Our failure to solve open source compensation is analogous to failing to stop suffering in developing nations which provide labor and resources for wealthy ones. Your argument places guilt and shame on workers instead of identifying exploitation by the wealthy, which might be better spent on something like an open source endowment or UBI more generally.
I dont think that is what the person you were replying to is saying.
> I think the fallacy in your argument is that you're blaming contributors for noticing that they aren't being compensated for the work they've done, rather than blaming others for using that work without giving anything in return.
Is anyone being forced to work on open source software? Unlike low wage jobs, where you could be forced in order to pay bills, eat, nobody is forcing anyone to work on open source ventures.
Just because you do something useful does not mean you are inherently entitled to compensation in the form you want.
If you are being forced to do something against your will that is bad. If it is some hobby you happen to like doing that is totally ok.
> The solution is to organize labor into a unified front so that exploitation can no longer happen.
Lol. What type of leverage do you think open source devs have to form a union? Open source in many ways is designed to remove all economic leverage from source code. Its not a bug its a feature.
Edit 2: you're right, I read the parent comment backwards. They're saying that people using open source code have no right to place demands on contributors. This is a teachable moment for me, so I'll leave my thought process below, even though it doesn't apply now.
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If I follow your logic, then you're saying that there's no economic incentive to work on open source software, since it's not compensated financially. Which seems to create a paradox:
A) Capitalism doesn't apply to open source software because there's no exchange of capital for labor
B) Capitalism applies to open source software because it generates billions of dollars of revenue for people and corporations
It sounds like the only rational act under capitalism is to not work on open source software, since the work is not compensated.
Meaning that any solution we come up with will act outside of capitalism.
Can you present a solution that works within capitalism to fund open source software?
Edit: I forgot to mention that the primary power of organized labor is to withhold labor until compensated. For open source, that might look like deciding as programmers to withhold all of our contributions until we solve this. Since we won't do that, we're all scabs supporting the status quo.
To put it in the broader context (outside of what the start of this thread was) - i view it similar to painting.
Do some people get rich selling paintings, sure some do. Do most people? absolutely not. Is that a problem, i don't particularly think so.
People paint for a variety of reasons, some ecconomic, but most not. Similarly people contribute to open source for a variety of reasons, some ecconomic some not.
> It sounds like the only rational act under capitalism is to not work on open source software, since the work is not compensated.
Broadly stated, i agree with this. Unless you have some specific angle or business model, contributing to open source is a terrible way to get rich.
While it would be nice if my contributions made me a millionaire, i don't see it as a fundamental injustice that they don't. I knew that going in and did it anyways. If i wanted big bucks i would be optimizing my life to work at FAANG and that has its own set of trade offs.
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> I think the fallacy in your argument is that you're blaming contributors for noticing that they aren't being compensated for the work they've done, rather than blaming others for using that work
That's the exact opposite of what they are doing. They are blaming the users for expecting more than they should. They should expect nothing more than literally just the current version of the code, as is.
Thank you, you're right, I read the parent comment backwards.
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