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On Open Source and the Sustainability of the Commons (ploum.net)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Much have been said about the need to pay Open Source developers for their work and the fact that huge corporations use open source software without contributing back.

Most articles I’ve been reading on the subject completely miss the mark. Plenty of commentators try to reinvent some kind of "free software but with forced contributions" or "free software but non-commercial". Those are naive and wrong. If you impose limitations, it’s, by definition, not free software anymore.

The problem is not about Open Source or Free Software. The problem is everything else.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The way to get money from libre software is to sell support services.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

That, and sponsoring, are the current and main avenues. Yet, it's been shown they're not enough. Hence, the discussion...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I think that many developers are poor at or unwilling to work on marketing efforts or creating independent business relationships, so getting hired by a company like RedHat, Microsoft, etc. to work on a project is the way they sell their services.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

If you impose limitations, it’s, by definition, not free software anymore.

All licenses impose limitations of some kind. Especially the GPL.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Excellent article.