I've Soured on Open Source

https://greaterdanorequalto.com/ive-soured-on-open-source/

by shprd • 2 years ago

37 90 2 years ago

You can also make opensource software, not maintain it, get it forked so someone else will actually do the heavy-lifting, someone who maybe wants to gain money out of it, but he will still get to credit you because of your GPL license. I guess this globalized turbocapitalist mindset is making you not see open source and free-as-in-beer as what it is: you write code, everybody can read and fork. So, you can have a 1 million dollar gift, or a 30$ one... it's still a gift. This is what is anti-capitalistic, and I'm sorry you don't get it.

diggan15• 2 years ago

There are two miserable fates [...] Nobody ever uses your code [...] Everybody uses your code

That is indeed a sour take. What about in-between, where me and lots of other people are happily sitting?

if that code becomes too useful, you have somehow fucked up because you now have a second job

It only becomes a second job if you allow it to. You can tell people "No, I don't want that feature" or "No, please don't send any unsolicited PRs", and no one can do anything (to you) about it.

The world is rarely black and white with clear lines, and same with open source. No, it won't solve capitalism, and no my code isn't exactly the holy grail, but neither I or users of the code I wrote expect that either. And that's fine.

jefftk2• 2 years ago

That's right. I wrote and maintain a bunch of small things, because they're useful to me and I hope they can be useful to others too. The most popular is probably iciff. I haven't released anything in a bit over a year because it's essentially done. People don't bug me about it, and if they did I'd ignore them. If you told me some large company was getting a lot of value out of it that would be fine with me: the whole reason it's public is so people can use it.

Lardsonian• 2 years ago

I see it as a good way to show your skill/experience if you're looking to get hired.

2OEH8eoCRo0• 2 years ago

Saying no still takes time and in a popular project I'm sure it's exhausting.

You're free to not respond or read requests at all.

diggan15• 2 years ago

Saying no still takes time and in a popular project I'm sure it's exhausting.

Compared to the alternative of saying "Yes", at least it takes less time :)

You're free to not respond or read requests at all.

Absolutely! GitHub kind of ruins this by not allowing us to turn of Issues/Pull Requests (not sure which one you cannot disable, but one of them), but ignoring is a valid strategy too.

bsnnkv• 2 years ago

I expect to see more and more written on this topic as we fall deeper into late stage capitalism.

Open source is how software developers are conditioned and socialized into participating in their own exploitation under capitalism.

diggan15• 2 years ago

Open source is how software developers are conditioned and socialized into participating in their own exploitation under capitalism.

Feel free to expand on this, as I don't understand how putting a MIT license on my projects contribute to "my own exploitation under capitalism", and I'd generally call myself an anti-capitalist so I'm missing something here.

meiraleal3• 2 years ago

Corporations have the capability to make 1.000.000x more money with your code than you and they won't give you a penny. You don't seem to care, up to you. But some people are soured by it, that's up to them, no?

HKH22• 2 years ago

What about open source users? Haven't they been liberated from exploitation somewhat due to the work of open source developers?

meiraleal3• 2 years ago

What about open source users?

You mean Big Tech and startups? Totally liberated. Yeah. So much that now they are developing AI tools to remove developers from the equation using open source software :)

BeetleB4• 2 years ago

Yet another post from someone who didn't understand open source, and now does. We've seen these posts for well over a decade - why did people assume otherwise?

Open source is just fine. Your expectations around it were not.

gavinhoward4• 2 years ago

This is partially why I began to look at source available more: https://gavinhoward.com/2023/12/is-source-available-really-t... . And what I found is that source available can still be good for end users, leaving us most of the four freedoms, including control, while discouraging dealers.

the_mitsuhiko6• 2 years ago

I see a real risk that we're throwing out the baby with the bathwater and will end up with a lot of useful code hidden behind terrible licenses. Rather than going source available with a dual licensed commercial license, maybe go the middle way of Fair Source[1] which gives you an exclusivity period for commercialization but later turns into Open Source.

Disclaimer: I'm one of the people behind that model.

[1] https://fair.io/

senko4• 2 years ago

Parent's post explicitly listed FSL as a possible solution. We also recently adopted it in our startup. (Edit to add: I think his beef with FSL is just that it's not OSS. I like the "fair" term as sort of in-between commercial and FOSS).

Agree that if non-lawyers (or corporate lawyers with no experience in open source licensing) craft something, they might regret it down the road. Better to pick and choose between now plethora of available options.

senko4• 2 years ago

Nice analysis!

I agree that there shouldn't be a stigma against licenses that aren't FOSS. There's no shame producing software that's not open source, and if you're open about it (ie not calling it FOSS if it isn't), sharing it under a different license (such as the SAMS licenses you mentioned).

Today "open source" is often a marketing term (if any proof is needed, see LLama :), often "let's build a community of users on our discord as a loss leader into our startup sales funnel" term, and ... in a very few cases .. "let's build together, rising tide lifts all boats" thing.

01HNNWZ0MV43FF4• 2 years ago

Radical copy left like agpl already discourages tons of people, so I just use that

the_mitsuhiko6• 2 years ago

I think the AGPL is complicated and it requires further investigation before picking it. And AGPL with and without a CLA is a completely different beast, and if you take contributions then you really need a CLA unless you, yourself are okay with the implications of the AGPL.

(I wrote I about about my challenges with the AGPL recently here: https://lucumr.pocoo.org/2024/9/23/fsl-agpl-open-source-busi...)

000ooo000• 2 years ago

It is interesting how otherwise smart, talented people rationalise the donation of their labour to an entitled majority who have no idea about or interest in the person or motivation behind the work. Who cares right? Just keep the free shit coming.

diggan15• 2 years ago

talented people rationalise the donation of their labour

Second comment now stating this or something similar. I don't understand where the connection of "My projects are MIT" <> "Donation of labor" comes from, is it my own labor that is being donated to myself? The public? Something is missing in these arguments y'all are making.

meiraleal3• 2 years ago

Setting up repos, implementing a good git workflow and managing a community are some but not all free work a free software developer needs to do besides making the code public.

shprd3• 2 years ago

I don't understand where the connection of "My projects are MIT" <> "Donation of labor" comes from

When people open source their code they usually think people like them would benefit from it and appreciate it. Like I made this project, I might as well share it. But in many popular projects, you have a sole maintainer struggling to keep a roof over their head, while issues from companies (disguised as individual employees) requesting features and reporting bugs pile up, taking advantage of their labor and keeping them busy till they burn out.

The main issue is the majority of companies often don't contribute back, they just consume, they're a burden leeching off free labor.

sergiotapia• 2 years ago

i wrote some popular projects, and honestly whenever I see an issue pop up i don't like it. i work on it in bursts whenever i feel like it. i wrote it for fun. i wonder if there's a setting somewhere where it's like use it at your peril, this is a for fun project or something.

diggan15• 2 years ago

i wonder if there's a setting somewhere where it's like use it at your peril, this is a for fun project or something.

Yeah, it's called a "license" typically and my favorite one includes "THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND" which you can refer people to if they are trying to "force" you to implement some feature/fix.

senko4• 2 years ago

I'm tired of people soured on open source.

FFS if you don't like it, just don't do it. You don't owe anyone anything.

If you want to get paid, find a business model that works for you. Open source is not a business model.

If I had a dime for every time someone complains they can't make a living volunteering, it'd fund my own open source efforts.

pif• 2 years ago

If I had a dime for every time someone complains they can't make a living volunteering,

What do you mean there? That I cannot choose my tasks, my hours, my responsibilities, my involvement... and my salary as well?

The world must be coming to an end!

mmcgaha• 2 years ago

I have never fully understood the motivation to work on OSS. Don't get me wrong there isn't anything that I write on my personal time that I have a problem sharing with others or even making PD. What I don't want to do is to be responsible for software that I am not being compensated for (compensation does not have to be money). I have children, grandchildren, animals, and personal goals that require my time so I just cannot see trading away these things to maintain software. I can see how software could be part of my personal goals in a way similar to building a cherry sideboard but the difference is that no one will request features or bug fixes for my sideboard after it is completed.

diggan15• 2 years ago

There seems to be some implicit connection between "work on OSS" and "maintain software" which isn't a required part anywhere.

The only thing required for you to make something FOSS is to make the code public with a FOSS-compatible license. Your responsibility as the author ends there, unless you take it further yourself. You don't owe anyone bugfixes or implementing new features. If they want those, they can implement them yourself.

ghaff7• 2 years ago

It's probably a bit more complicated than that.

I don't think it's really morally wrong to just walk away. No different than if you got hit by a bus.

On the other hand, you maybe did create something that people now depend on and walking away is probably causing a lot of anxious moments, possible security breaches, and downtime.

Not sure of the right answer. You did something for free. But shutting everything down one day can cause harm.

tenebrisalietum• 2 years ago

I mean if you don't have the time to work on OSS then don't, and there is nothing wrong with that. Also, working on an OSS project and refusing feature requests is OK - let them fork it.

Many OSS projects have a community around them that help each other, talk about things, and are cool places to learn about specific things. Of course many used to, and they do not anymore. Things do change over time and that's OK as well.

azzentys• 2 years ago

I just cannot see trading away these to maintain software.

That's fine. Not everyone has to do OSS. It's similar to volunteering for charity (weak analogy).

ChrisMarshallNY4• 2 years ago

I feel that folks seem to have moved away from the "enthusiastic hackers" of the 1980s. We used to write software for fun. We enjoyed it, and learned from it. These days, there has to be an "exit plan" for everything.

Having a project that is all mine, and not being limited by managers, is really important. If I want to learn a new technology, I just write a library to support it [0 - 1].

If it takes off, I find some folks that would be interested in running it, and hand it over to them. I don't really mind, however, if my stuff never gets any GH stars. I write software for myself.

[0] https://littlegreenviper.com/series/bluetooth/

[1] https://github.com/RiftValleySoftware/RVS_BlueThoth

camgunz3• 2 years ago

Yeah I've super enjoyed talking with people about various topics around my project. That's a big benefit that maybe doesn't get enough play: you'll probably attract people with similar interests as you, if not also similar values.

camgunz3• 2 years ago

For me, I built something I needed, released it as MIT, and then the community improved it beyond my ability to do so. That's pretty amazing, and for me it was well worth the effort. I also got a huge career boost out of it. My experience isn't everyone's, but I'm at least one data point in how FOSS can benefit authors.

krunck• 2 years ago

I think the problem is the author's attitude. If suddenly my open source project becomes super popular and I don't have the time to give to it then that's a problem. I choose my own priorities. The open source software does not choose for me.

the_mitsuhiko6• 2 years ago

I think the problem is the author's attitude.

I am in the fortunate position where Open Source has been a true life changing community for me. I benefited greatly over the years from it, in both life experiences, jobs and opportunities. However the moment in which a project turns from great and fun to a massive pain in the butt is years after you have first created it and the motivation that originally brought you to it might not be applying at the present day any more.

For me the only sane way out was to pass the helm and recognize that there is no path for the things I have created to be compatible with a business model that makes sense to me. (I built libraries and frameworks)

That itself takes a lot of life experience. With all the experiences I gained about this, I would never go and tell someone that their attitude of feelings are wrong.

ChrisMarshallNY4• 2 years ago

For me the only sane way out was to pass the helm

That's what I did.

The good news is, the folks that took it over, have added so much good stuff, that my original code is almost gone.

I've written software that was still in use, 25 years later. It gets "stepped on," along the way, and that's actually great. It can be ego-deflating, but I've found the cure is to walk away, and work on something new.

cortesoft• 2 years ago

This seems more like souring on the idea of developing open source software in your free time, which I totally understand.

I personally think open source works the best when it is created by developers working for a company who are writing software that supports, but is not core, to the company’s actual product.

A company decides to allow the developers to open source it so they get free, outside, collaboration and the prestige and publicity of having open source projects.

Ideally, a majority of the contributions will be from developers working on the clock at their main jobs, where they use the open source project.

It is fine if some people contribute on their own time, but the bulk of the work should ideally be paid for by an employer.

ghaff7• 2 years ago

I totally agree. If someone has let developing open source software become an all-consuming nights and weekends project without compensation or any other real path to personal benefit, they probably want to take a step back if they're not feeling the love any more. Passions are fine up to a point but past that point they shouldn't feel they're compelled to continue.

bryanlarsen• 2 years ago

Agreed. Open Source is also a great way to pursue the "commoditize your complements" business strategy.

thesuperbigfrog2• 2 years ago

Open Source is just a way to share a project with the world.

It is not an obligation to maintain the project: Read the license terms.

It is not an invitation for others to contribute, though many projects welcome bug reports, feature requests, and contributions.

Rich Hickey's "Open Source is Not About You" provides some great thoughts about it: https://gist.github.com/richhickey/1563cddea1002958f96e7ba95...

mindslight• 2 years ago

The problem starts with the old but highly important distinction of calling it "open source" instead of "libre software".

"Open source" puts narrow emphasis on the code itself, downplaying how that code is actually used, and the resulting abilities of its users. In the "open source" paradigm it makes perfect sense that you can study a piece of source code and even modify and run it locally, but then when you want to actually practically use that software, often to interact with other people, you're strongly incentivized to use the centrally controlled (aka proprietary) SaaS instance/copy/fork. This dynamic of stripping user agency and providing a canned product in its place is what allows businesses to view your project and your effort as a raw materials to be mined.

"Libre software" keeps the emphasis on user freedom. Having the ability to modify and run the code is a necessary, but not sufficient part of that. SaaS is an attack on user freedom from shortcomings of the GPL3, just the way Tivoization was an attack on user freedom from (perceived and commonly held) shortcomings of the GPL2. By keeping the emphasis on user freedom, we can easily perceive these types of attacks as taking away user freedom. Whereas by focusing on one mechanism "open source" encourages identifying with operations of the attackers - eg that common fallacious refrain that you can always make your own centrally-controlled clone of a given site.

woodrowbarlow• 2 years ago

it sounds like the author was looking to achieve some level of "success" in the open-source world. finding "success" (depending on your definition) is possible, but i think it's a mistake to go in looking for it. open source is and always will be the holding up the foundations of everything we build. it's our most important shared resource. without open source software, the software industry would not exist. full stop.

jph• 2 years ago

Counterpoint: I write open source software that lots of people use, and I receive approximately 95% thank yous, 4% simple requests for help or features, 1% attacks/hacks/complaints.

The secret (IMHO) is keep it simple, so people know what they're getting and can figure out how to be successful.

70M downloads of my oldest project, Ruby unaccent port: https://github.com/sixarm/sixarm_ruby_unaccent

200K downloads of my newest project, Rust testing macros: https://github.com/sixarm/assertables-rust-crate

Open source authors inspire me every day to create, improve, and share. The point isn't money; the point is helping each other learn, explore, and grow.

camgunz3• 2 years ago

I run https://github.com/camgunz/cmp and I think I'm in the middle of (well, maybe closer to nobody but not nobody) the "nobody" vs. "everybody" extremes. The thing I think I had/have going for me was that there was a clear end to the project: build a MessagePack implementation that doesn't allocate. Could it be better? Could I remove the ancient, not working Travis CI badge? Could I roll it into something bigger? Sure, but I haven't been motivated to do any of that, and it seems like everyone's reached some equilibrium of happy. I've also been lucky enough to get great contributions from people, everything from fixing compiler breakage to making floating point support optional. It hasn't been zero work, but it has been gratifying.

I do question the kind of "open source project takes over the world" model, the GCCs, the Apaches, the Linuxes. Those projects are of great importance, so even if you have a small group of contributors the responsibility is still large and weighty. It's even more so if you've suddenly got a huge community to manage. That kind of thing feels a lot less like a hobby and more like either a job or a lifestyle (e.g. you hang out in an IRC/email window all day and manage the community, and you like it), and I'm not sure how sustainable a lifestyle it is. So maybe I agree with OP here.

I wonder if there's something to like, creating some kind of barrier to interact. Like, if I want to file an OpenBSD bug I have to work pretty hard, so some filtering is happening. Filing a bug on GitHub is very easy, so anyone can jump on there and demand whatever they want.

Mathnerd314• 2 years ago

I think there are use cases for open source. E.g., you write some throwaway code, and want feedback - the obvious strategy is to publish it open source. It becomes clear that the app you are working on is not a viable business - maybe the code is useful to someone else, and if you were tracking licenses properly it costs nothing to publish it. Some types of software, like compilers, I simply wouldn't trust if they are not open-source.

But it's also true that it is easy to buy into some strange ideas like "sharing is caring" and end up going past reciprocal altruism and into territory where you are working for free.

woodruffw• 2 years ago

I think there's a basic contradiction at the bottom of a lot of the angst over OSS, sustainability, etc.: there are a lot of OSS people who simultaneously want their projects to be important, but also don't want the responsibility (in a basic civic, not legal sense) that comes with being widely adopted.

If you don't want your projects to be important, there are well-trodden ways to send that message to companies that attempt to extract wealth from your free labor: you can close and ignore their issues, send them nastygrams, etc. But if you do put effort into making your projects easily adoptable, I don't think it's crazy that companies do in fact come knocking.

(This is a non-normative position: I don't think any of this is particularly fair. But I think it's telling that there is a huge pool of OSS that companies mostly ignore, since it gives of "go away and don't rely on me" signals.)

ncruces• 2 years ago

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.

Just let that sink in.

bachmeier• 2 years ago

I don't know what the answer is, I just know that I've stopped feeling good about people sinking so much of their time, energy, and good vibes into this work, only for their good intentions to be taken advantage of.

"If you release your code under the GPL, large companies won't touch it."

"The GPL isn't as free as these corporate-friendly licenses."

It's too bad the corporate talking points took hold and convinced so many people that open source means "free as in free labor". I've seen people berated for choosing the GPL. Use the GPL if your goal is to contribute to the open source ecosystem. Choose another license if your goal is the honor of having a company with billions in revenue using your software for free.

cxr• 2 years ago

This would be a great comment without the fake quotes.

like_any_other• 2 years ago

Like most of these articles, it looks at open source, or rather, free software, through a purely economic lens. But free software is not primarily about economics, but about empowerment and sovereignty. I like having a text editor/browser/OS/chat client & protocol/compiler/video player/etc. that aren't closed binary blobs full of ads, telemetry, DRM, and subscription services (or printers betraying their owners with invisible tracking dots).

The concern is not theoretical, as protesters in Hong Kong discovered when "their" phones refused to run software they used to organize: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongkong-protests-apple-i...

The FSF is clear on the motivations: A proprietary program puts its developer or owner in a position of power over its users. This power is in itself an injustice. - https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/proprietary.html

The links on that page give many other examples of why free software is necessary.

thesuperbigfrog2• 2 years ago

"Either the user controls the software, or the software controls the users":

https://youtu.be/Ag1AKIl_2GM?t=57

carapace• 2 years ago

Open Source never made sense (to me. I'm a Free Software partisan.)

but y'all, capitalism is winning, and Open Source isn't changing that fact by an appreciable margin.

Open Source was a capitulation to capitalism. That's what differentiates it from the Free Software movement. The whole point was to woo business interests.

you have somehow fucked up because you now have a second job. A second job that doesn't pay,

That's a classic case of "Don't do that." Charge people money to write and maintain software, of course! That is valuable economic activity.

Don't charge people to copy software that is already written. That is regressive and holds back human progress and economic wealth creation.

The entire point of computers and software is that it makes wealth easy to duplicate! You write a machine and then everyone can use it for free (technically there is a cost but it's so incredibly tiny that it's negligible.)

We should take advantage of this to reconfigure the economic system to take care of everybody (and the global ecology) and live happily ever after.

retropragma• 2 years ago

There is no responsibility in open source. It's the wild West. Anyone with expectations of you is simply new to the scene and doesn't get it yet.

Forking is a thing. People don't do it enough. GitHub doesn't make it easy to find active forks.

I've Soured on Open Source

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