This is getting stupid. Now one can’t even make a reasonable polite question with praise without being asked if they pay.
Bun raised millions of dollars and was acquired by a commercial entity which bragged in the same blog post of reaching $1B. They’re not a guy with an eyepatch and a tin can out on the street.
Open-source developers should be compensated, but they don’t have to be. You can’t reasonably offer your work for free then complain someone isn’t paying you. If you want to be paid, charge for it.
Signed: A long time open-source developer who has dedicated years of full-time work to useful projects without compensation or raising VC money or being acquired.
Come on, whenever a project is discussed on hackernews, there is always one comment of "why are you working on X, when you should be fixing bug Y?!".
We are all software engineers on here (or at least many of us are), we all know how project management and prioritisation works right? We can't work on everything all at once.
given the alleged context, X being something "reported in 2023, still affecting us 3 years later", is this not a reasonable PM / priority decision to question?
> Come on, whenever a project is discussed on hackernews, there is always one comment of "why are you working on X, when you should be fixing bug Y?!".
That is not what the question is about, which you’ll see if you engage with it properly in good faith. There is a single question in the comment (indicated, as one does in English, by a question mark):
> How do you feel about all the constant concerns being raised about the quality of the project lately?
Everything else is context and opinion to explain the question.
I do know why your post is downvoted, and I disagree with it. Here is my upvote.
I read the link that you shared. This is genius. To quote:
> Community backed
> Fody requires significant effort to maintain. As such it relies on financial support to ensure its long term viability.
> It is expected that all developers using Fody become a Patron on OpenCollective.
I can remember years ago reading some posts/writings from none other than Richard Stallman (yeah, that guy). He was talking about charging people for a copy of the source code to your open source project. At the time, I thought it was weird and did not make sense. This is basically the same thing but in 2026. After watching so much bullshit around open source projects (basically, assholes expecting free service for whining the loudest), I have come to the conclusion that "money talks" and helps to realign incentives that are warped by open source.
Are you being ironic or serious? I can see both pros (encourage people to see themselves as customers) and cons (less initial adoption) to the licensing, although I'd maybe leave bug issues open for everybody.
This is getting stupid. Now one can’t even make a reasonable polite question with praise without being asked if they pay.
Bun raised millions of dollars and was acquired by a commercial entity which bragged in the same blog post of reaching $1B. They’re not a guy with an eyepatch and a tin can out on the street.
Open-source developers should be compensated, but they don’t have to be. You can’t reasonably offer your work for free then complain someone isn’t paying you. If you want to be paid, charge for it.
Signed: A long time open-source developer who has dedicated years of full-time work to useful projects without compensation or raising VC money or being acquired.
Come on, whenever a project is discussed on hackernews, there is always one comment of "why are you working on X, when you should be fixing bug Y?!".
We are all software engineers on here (or at least many of us are), we all know how project management and prioritisation works right? We can't work on everything all at once.
given the alleged context, X being something "reported in 2023, still affecting us 3 years later", is this not a reasonable PM / priority decision to question?
> Come on, whenever a project is discussed on hackernews, there is always one comment of "why are you working on X, when you should be fixing bug Y?!".
That is not what the question is about, which you’ll see if you engage with it properly in good faith. There is a single question in the comment (indicated, as one does in English, by a question mark):
> How do you feel about all the constant concerns being raised about the quality of the project lately?
Everything else is context and opinion to explain the question.
I think the question still deserves a proper answer.
No it doesn't. No opensource dev need to answer anything, if you dont like it, fork it and do the work yourself.
Maybe it can be better phrased as "I think this question doesn't deserve that answer"
No, open-source maintainers don't owe you anything if you don't pay for it
I have said the same many times here on HN. This in/famous blog post really changed my view: "Open Source Maintainers Owe You Nothing": https://mikemcquaid.com/open-source-maintainers-owe-you-noth...
I have similar problems with product I do pay for, and I still get told I have no say. FO/OSS distinction is a red herring.
At some point it need to be made clear; it's not a legal obligation, but a reputational challenge.
Please observe a policy of extreme wisdom: https://github.com/Fody/Home/blob/master/pages/licensing-pat...
I do know why your post is downvoted, and I disagree with it. Here is my upvote.
I read the link that you shared. This is genius. To quote:
I can remember years ago reading some posts/writings from none other than Richard Stallman (yeah, that guy). He was talking about charging people for a copy of the source code to your open source project. At the time, I thought it was weird and did not make sense. This is basically the same thing but in 2026. After watching so much bullshit around open source projects (basically, assholes expecting free service for whining the loudest), I have come to the conclusion that "money talks" and helps to realign incentives that are warped by open source.
Are you being ironic or serious? I can see both pros (encourage people to see themselves as customers) and cons (less initial adoption) to the licensing, although I'd maybe leave bug issues open for everybody.
What aspect do you think dominates?
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The answer is because YOU haven’t fixed it yet. Chop chop, we’re all waiting on you.