alt Hacker NewsI admire this mindset, and this is what I try and do as well with my projects.
But for larger projects, on which the giants rests, (I'm thinking cURL, ffmpeg etc.) it most likely stops becoming/feeling like charity. Especially, since a lot of people do not see it as charity, and thus tries to force the maintainer(s) to do even more unpaid work.
Replies
gorgoiler • today at 2:23 PM
I think one has to go clear eyed into freely licensing one’s software. It’s hard to declare you’re giving up all rights and that the IP can be used in any way, only to later say “no not like that!”
If you want a cut of your licensee’s revenue then it’s ok to say so in your licensing terms.
The onus is on the maintainer(s) to work on the project as much as they can and want to, if people are creeps who try to socially manipulate maintainers to do free work, I think we need mechanisms to help mitigate that. For example, I think maintainers should be encouraged to delete GH comments they find offensive or harassing. It's their domain, they should keep it in a way they find enjoyable.
But turning open source into a job? No thank you! Adding money to something, overwhelmingly almost always in my experience, makes it that much worse and stressful. Money is not the answer!