orib.dev: Paying Open Source Programmers
With the recent Log4J vulnerabilities, there’s been a lot of discussion about how to pay open source programmers.
I don’t know how open source developers should be paid.
If a company is using an open source project as an element of their product, they have a vested interest in keeping the lights on, and ensuring that the project is healthy and well maintained.
And people who chose to maintain code in the open source world should certainly be paid for their time: They’re often doing better and more impactful work than many employees at large tech companies.
But monetary involvement from companies has a way of warping products that are otherwise written out of joy. Features are added to please paying stakeholders, ent…
orib.dev: Paying Open Source Programmers
With the recent Log4J vulnerabilities, there’s been a lot of discussion about how to pay open source programmers.
I don’t know how open source developers should be paid.
If a company is using an open source project as an element of their product, they have a vested interest in keeping the lights on, and ensuring that the project is healthy and well maintained.
And people who chose to maintain code in the open source world should certainly be paid for their time: They’re often doing better and more impactful work than many employees at large tech companies.
But monetary involvement from companies has a way of warping products that are otherwise written out of joy. Features are added to please paying stakeholders, enterprise bullshit invades and establishes a foothold, and the products become worse
Maybe the problem is open source itself.
Should there be less open source targetted at companies, and more commercial-hostile open source licenses?
Let the commercial world hire people to build bespoke solutions for them.
Log4j should have been a company.