Maybe it's just me, but I don't think the solution to the open source funding problem is to force people to pay for it. I think that goes against the spirit of open source. If there is forced payment, or even the expectation of payment, then we're not really doing the whole original open source thing, we're just doing bad source available commercial-ish software.
I think the solution is for people to understand that open source goes both ways. Unlike what this post says, users don't owe maintainers anything, but maintainers also don't owe the users anything. If I build something cool and share it freely, why should users expect anything from me? Why should you expect me to maintain it or add the features you want? I think we need a mentality change where less is expected from maintainers, unless funding is arranged.
After all, it's free and open source. No one is forcing you to use it. Don't like that I'm not actively developing it? Submit a PR or fork it. Isn't that what the original spirit of open source was? I think that open source has been so succesful and good that we've come to expect it to be almost like commercial software. That's not what it is.
Even though I like JS/TS, I agree... not to mention that at even 10x the suggested amount for paid accounts, or even $1 per private repo per month, it still wouldn't be significant to any individual developer... More along the lines of thanks for the cup of coffee money as opposed to income money.
As suggested, I do think there should be room for grant funding, especially in the case of govts switching to open-source (LibreOffice, Linux, whatever) and open-source individuals and orgs can apply and granted each year dependent on actual use. Though, even then, govts should probably do more for funding, but I don't want a situation where the org just spends more money than they actually distribute for dev (looking at you Mozilla).
Not sure if github publishes their subscriber numbers but there may be quite a few, at least corporate?
Personally I used to pay 7/month for personal use, then when MS bought it it went down to 4, and one day when my card expired I noticed I'm not using any of the paid features and private repos are now free... so now I'm paying 0.
> I think that goes against the spirit of open source
Strictly speaking open source originally was not to do with whether you paid for something or not, it was that if you did pay for it, you got the code and had the rights to make your own changes.
Think Free speech, not free beer, or the software equivalent of right to repair.
> This is a capability that makes sense to have to use when absolutely necessary.
I definitely disagree with this. Currently there is no reason to believe we'll ever have sentient AI, or AGI or whatever term you prefer, much less a runaway one. There is definitely reasons to worry about governments using this power in an era of increasing authoritarianism, I mean we're talking about this because it is literally happening right now to cover up a massacre.
I don't want the power to turn off all communications to exist, because I don't want my political enemies to have it if they win an election.
This is also my problem. I am currently using my docked Macbook instead of my much more powerful desktop running Linux, even though I also want to use Linux more.
Why? Because as much as I want to get rid of my dependence on tech giants, Apple's products are just so damn good, and they Just Work^TM, especially with each other.
Having used Linux on/off for many years, I can say that it's definitely gotten better, but I am still waiting for the year of the Linux desktop. It doesn't have to be as polished as my Mac, but I'd like to at least not have to fight with Bluetooth especially, and things like the dongle for my headset not working and other issues like that.
I think we're always going to have that: there will always be That One Software that doesn't work on Linux, and you need to keep another OS around just to run it. I was able to get rid of Windows everywhere in my home except for one gaming PC, where I keep it around just for Fortnite, because of Epic's insistence on using their nasty kernel-level anti-cheat. So I keep that one machine around isolated from the rest of my network, for the sole purpose of playing one game.
I'm now in the process of un-Appleing my home too, and it's going pretty well, but I know I'll need to keep a single Mac somewhere in the corner of my garage in case I need to use Xcode to build an iOS app or something.
I think the solution is for people to understand that open source goes both ways. Unlike what this post says, users don't owe maintainers anything, but maintainers also don't owe the users anything. If I build something cool and share it freely, why should users expect anything from me? Why should you expect me to maintain it or add the features you want? I think we need a mentality change where less is expected from maintainers, unless funding is arranged.
After all, it's free and open source. No one is forcing you to use it. Don't like that I'm not actively developing it? Submit a PR or fork it. Isn't that what the original spirit of open source was? I think that open source has been so succesful and good that we've come to expect it to be almost like commercial software. That's not what it is.
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