Bold stance:
If you're running a successful business that's built on top of open-source software and you're neither contributing code to these projects nor donating money to them, you're not only a freeloader, you're actually harmful to the entire movement.
You should take an interest in the sustainability of these projects as they ensure the likelihood of your own success and future.
@fribbledom
I concur! ☝️🙂
Rant follows:
People feel they deserve to get things for #free, get upset and give bad ratings to free #apps that have ads even when it's been disclosed beforehand that they're ad-supported or when there's a fee for premium/fancy features.
#Creators #developers deserve to get paid! They're entitled to make a living. Companies that give you #value deserve to make a profit so they can pay their #employees and stay in #business. 😠 #work #jobs #service
@cybastl @evelynyap @fribbledom This precise problem is that I'm leaning towards starting a public interest company to support my #interpeerproject - on the one hand, the "public interest" part both allows for the collection of donations, and requires a charter to uphold. If that's phrased right, it's much like a non-profit.
On the other hand, it's a company - so you can act as a commercial provider towards other companies without raising eyebrows.
@cybastl @evelynyap @fribbledom And unlike the Mozilla Foundation/Corporation clusterfuck, you can't really use it to pay yourself massive salaries while firing half your staff.
@cybastl @evelynyap @fribbledom There is a school of thought of "don't spend money you don't have to" I've been put into a position to argue against...
The people offering their work to you gratis generally need the money more than some faceless conglomerate!
@evelynyap @fribbledom
https://www.theolognion.com/open-source-maintainer-apologizes-for-having-a-day-time-job/ 🤔
Totally agree. Once you realize what effort it is to maintain open source projects, you get a total different view on it.
People devoting their spare time deserve some benefit, either in form of contributions or donations.
Companies just freeloading FLOSS is a nogo...
Apparently 99% of people don't even don't seem to know the slightest about this problem and happily pay shitloads of $€£¥ to companies.