
The perils of mixing open source and money - _pius
http://david.heinemeierhansson.com/2013/the-perils-of-mixing-open-source-and-money.html
======
hacknat
_It 's against this fantastic success of social norms that we should be
extraordinary careful before we let market norms corrupt the ecosystem._

I consider myself a reasonable person. This quote makes me angry. This comment
seems willfully obtuse in my opinion. Not noticing the immense institutional
support and money behind Rails is truly silly. I don't want to come off as
mean spirited, but he is very silly for saying this.

The open source projects that are popular like Linux, nginx, and other system
ops stuff are obviously popular and have benefited immensely from indirect
money (in terms of institutional support). They are vastly superior compared
to anything a company could built closed source. We often cling to the idea
that open source software is superior to closed source software, but a quick
survey of the landscape of open source software will show that this is
patently false. Where there is obvious demand for a software product that lots
of interested parties need just to maintain operability, the open source
solution will usually be vastly superior if not mildly better.

But, take a look at the vast amount of software that is created on github that
is open source and you will see a lot of (self-admitted) crap (I have made a
lot of self-admitted crap). This crap might have the kernel of a good idea in
it, but it never got the time it needed. I'd actually like someone to name an
open source software project that we all know and love that hasn't benefited
from immense institutional support.

David, not all of us get to be part of incredibly profitable companies that
can afford to fund our adventures in coding. Suggesting that Rails hasn't
benefited from institutional support and money is just deceptive and something
I can't stomach. It's something we can't measure, but that doesn't mean it's
not there.

~~~
cjo
> I'd actually like someone to name an open source software project that we
> all know and love that hasn't benefited from immense institutional support.

Honest question, what about Debian? I know they had a year of FSF sponsorship
back in like '94 but they seem to be heavily volunteer based with even the
Project Leader keeping a day-job to pay the bills. I know they take in
donations but they're generally who I point to as an example of what a
Free/Open Source Software project can be.

edit: '93-->'94

~~~
adestefan
Debian has ample bandwidth and systems donated to them to keep their build
system, mirrors, and other infrastructure up and running.

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forsaken
As someone who worked on an Open Source project for years with no
compensation, adding sustainable funding to it was very motivating. Money is a
very weird thing, but getting money for the continued existence of your work
is fantastic validation and support.

It's easy to work on things for free, but how do you know that people value
them if they simply use them for free. Attaching money to a pursuit that was
previously free can also act to greatly encourage the continued existence of
the project in the face of burnout and uncertainty.

~~~
_delirium
For me, it depends on the money, the project, and my financial situation. With
a stable salary currently, I often find attempts to make money from my side
projects more demotivating than motivating. If it's something I actually find
interesting, it's a hobby. Maybe it's writing software, maybe it's editing
Wikipedia, maybe it's writing essays. That feels like a good use of my time,
and I get to decide if it is or not. But then if I try to find a way to make
money at it? Now it turns into basically a job, where I need to figure out how
to monetize it, and in all likelihood the hourly rate will end up depressingly
low. So I'd rather just spend my hobby time as I choose and not worry about
monetizing it.

More subtly, I find that having monetization as a goal of a side project can
creep in in a lot of ways that aren't really beneficial to the project. Take
even just writing something. Sometimes I'm frustrated by the information
available online on a subject, and want to spend a bit on writing something to
set the record straight. Sometimes this makes sense to publish myself. Other
times it makes sense to write or improve a Wikipedia article. This is an
interesting tradeoff, because it's basically trading likely many more views
(therefore likely more impact) if I write it on Wikipedia, versus more control
and authorial credit if I post it myself. From a monetization perspective,
writing on Wikipedia is rarely the optimal choice; but from the perspective of
getting the information out there, it sometimes is.

------
ssivark
I get the feeling that many comments here, coming from developers who engage
with FOSS consider the infusion of money to be a step in the right direction.
Imagine like-minded people being able to contribute to a kickstarter targeting
their itch, which some developer plans to scratch.

I think the picture the OP has is closer to the situation in scientific
research, where you can replace kickstarter funding by grants from a funding
agency. Many would claim that today's science research situation is broken,
with scientists chasing grant money and low-hanging "high-impact" fruit,
instead of taking risks working on the really challenging problems (large
time-scales and investments) with uncertain results.

I think both perspectives have their place and it is important to have a
balance between the two. In the case of research, one can argue that tenure is
supposed offer security as opposed to an industry job, but it's also true that
incentives are strongly tied to research productivity, and it's next to
impossible to do research without research funding. If I understand the OP's
perspective, he's okay with companies paying for developer time (kinda like
tenure) as opposed to developers chasing grants. OP is drawing attention to
the possible consequences of going overboard in this newfound
enthusiasm/method for funding FOSS.

------
avenger123
It's an open marketplace. The project still has to have merit to be funded via
Kickstarter or similar venues.

The best use of this strategy has been integration of South into Django
itself. The funding for this went above and beyond what was expected as
everyone released the immense value of getting this work done. Also, I don't
believe anyone is getting rich doing this. In the case of South, there was a
genuine request of "hey, I can do this, but I can't make too much progress in
my free time".

Using Ruby on Rails is a little disingenuous example too. It's had the backing
of its main company (37signals) since its inception.

I do believe that these things will self-adjust itself. On face value, DHH
makes interesting arguments. But, projects that are getting funding are being
done by people that are already intimidate with the project. Also, the rates
that are being set for the hours that will be involved are hardly market rate.

What I love about this new model, is that it can push projects into the
mainstream whereas companies start getting involved and allow their employees
to spend time making fixes and improving the projects.

Another example of this was Microsoft's financial support for the jquery UI
team for building the grid. They funded I believe at least one developer's
salary to get the work done. I don't think anyone would argue that this was a
bad move as the jquery team was still in control of the project and the
timeline (which has definitely been pushed back with regards to the grid).

~~~
general_failure
Rails did not have the backing of 37 signals. It was created by dhh in his
spare time.

~~~
avenger123
I do understand that. But once it was created, it has been used by 37Signals
and to some extent driven by their requirements and ongoing support. At this
point, it doesn't matter but in the early releases it likely made a
difference.

------
andmarios
I think the article is more about crowdfunding and open source.

Until now every single awesome open source project has managed to take off
without a kickstarter campaign. Nowadays everyone promises to deliver an
awesome open source project if you first provide funds.

I have donated to many open source/free software projects, either directly or
through crowdfunding when they had a specific goal (eg libre graphics meeting,
a full time dev to refactor kdenlive).

But I am really skeptical of someone who wants money before he delivers
anything. Free software needs the kind of love that money can't buy in order
to be successful.

I will gladly help free software projects but not so gladly free software
promises.

------
sheetjs
Money isn't just for working full time. Sometimes you need hardware or
software for compatibility testing. For example, suppose you were trying to
build parsers/writers for PSD or XLS files. To test on older versions of
photoshop or excel, you need access to those older versions (and most likely,
the contemporaneous hardware). Those are real costs.

I also think the point regarding focus is misguided: if the money is
specifically for embellishments (e.g. 100% compatibility), then you are in
fact more likely to embellish

Finally, Ruby on Rails happens to be an exceptional example in terms of
traction. Most open source projects never come close because the addressable
market is smaller (the set of all people supporting a particular ruby gem is a
subset of the people interested in ruby) and in those cases a bit of extra
money is enough to take a hobbyist effort to a production-level product. That
extra work takes time and money (for example, sitting there and validating
certain results by hand) and oftentimes won't happen with an open source
project.

------
snowwrestler
I think it's fair to say that products like Linux, Apache httpd, Firefox, and
Wordpress are the gold standard of open source software projects. One thing
they all have in common is a core of contributors/managers who are
professionally employed full-time on these projects.

In addition, many of these projects benefit from contributions by programmers
who are employed elsewhere, but are permitted/encouraged to contribute on
company time.

Basically, I would argue that open source and money have always been
inextricably mixed and always will be. If you don't want to suppport a
particular person or project, that is of course your right, but I don't agree
that funding is some sort of alarming development.

------
mwfunk
Funding future software development through Kickstarter is a really dangerous
proposition, even more for the person receiving the funding than the people
who contribute to it. There've been success stories, but when things go bad it
can ruin someone's life and credibility.

Maybe I'm wrong, but just from passive observation, it seems like for projects
which haven't even been started at the beginning of the Kickstarter campaign,
success stories are the exception rather than the rule.

It's so easy for someone to not manage expectations properly, especially in
the early stages when they're trying to get the attention of potential
backers. It's so easy to underestimate the time involved in any sort of
creative venture that isn't 100% specced out ahead of time, whether it's
software or an RPG supplement or a gadget or whatever. Software development
time in particular is insanely difficult to predict.

I strongly feel like Kickstarter is best for projects that are essentially
complete, but need funding for mass production or other costs related to
distribution. The danger from Kickstarting open source projects isn't so much
from money somehow polluting the goals of a project, as it is from the whole
thing just blowing up into a nightmare for everyone involved. It's hard enough
to predict timelines and establish requirements and manage expectations for
one manager, I can't imagine what it would be like when trying to keep
hundreds or thousands of managers happy and on the same page.

------
justinmk
> Thousands, collaborating for a decade, to produce an astoundingly
> accomplished framework and ecosystem available to anyone at the cost of
> zero.

Well, I am sure DHH means "nominal cost", but the cost is certainly not zero.
But it degrades economic discussion when people misuse the word "cost" to mean
"currency transacted". Inevitably one of the interlocutors wanders down the
trail and marvels, "the cost is zero, so much resources were saved!"

Well no, the cost is not zero. Things other than currency were transacted.

------
joydeepdg
All open source projects are not the same. All the people running open source
projects are not swayed by money. Some projects are much more complicated than
a web framework. These projects need funds for progress to be made. Case in
point - OpenBSD. I love the project and their approach. I also feel they
genuinely need funding to keep improving the system. Another example - LuaJIT.
Great project, does not have a load of contributors - so I won't mind funding
Mike if it means he spends more time on LuaJIT. Another example - SQLite. I'll
just send in a donation because its so damn good.

------
quadrangle
All this amounts to: society is better when we're motivated for things other
than money. The best development is done for other reasons. Capitalist claim
that profit is the main motivator is nonsense, and FLOSS developers know that.

So: the answer is to keep FLOSS development from getting funded????

The real answer is for everyone to have a Basic Income so that we can all eat
and have a roof and healthcare at a minimal level. Then people can make all
this great FLOSS and do it even better and it will pay off for the world FAR
more than if we tried to pay directly for the development work in a type of
market exchange system.

But given the actual state of the world, giving a FLOSS developer some money
to pay his rent while he focuses on FLOSS is NOT a bad thing.

------
coleifer
Thank you for writing this. I think it's valuable to step back and look at
whether accepting donations is in line with the set of values that led to open
source in the first place.

I am reading Ben Franklin's autobiography and came across this quote which I
think also neatly sums up a point you omitted:

"...as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be
glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we
should do freely and generously."

------
collint
Money is influence, the source of that money is influential.

What are the perils of the other sources of money in open source?

For quite a long time the best documentation and guide for using Rails was a
book.

Quite a few of the top contributors to Rails have published books about it.

Documentation is very much a weak point for open source. Should we criticize
those who contribute to open source and request money for the documentation?

If not, why spread FUD around the idea of asking for direct monetary support
of the code itself?

------
freshhawk
I've made the same argument before as well. Also thinking of the great
overview of market/social norms in Predictably Irrational. It consistently
gets ignored when talking about trying to inject money into open source.

Now I read a well written article on HN about exactly the question of how to
encourage open source without ruining the exact thing that makes it work and
think "Hey, there will be at least a bit of an interesting discussion in the
comments. Maybe some new ideas about how to retain social norms while
encouraging more open source work".

So was the point hard to understand and I only think it was clear because I'm
on the same page? Why are there barely any comments on point, and the majority
seem to just have wilfully ignored it and written whatever was on their mind
concerning the author, open source and money in general?

~~~
informatimago
Yes, this is a complex subject. I like to cite the Venus Project in these
cases, but while it provides a seemingly simple solution, reaching such a
situation will be very complicated both for ideologies to fight, interests to
overcome, knowledge to be gained, etc.

A citizen revenue seems to be the easiest first step in this direction. You
could think of it as a generalized kickstarter project, without the potential
drawbacks of kickstarter.

~~~
dllthomas
_" The Venus Project is an organization started by self-educated structural
engineer, industrial designer, and futurist Jacque Fresco. Fresco's project
aims to restructure society through worldwide utilization of a theoretical
design that he calls a resource-based economy. Those ideas use a version of
sustainable cities, energy efficiency, natural resource management and
advanced automation with a global socio-economic system based on social
cooperation and scientific methodology."_

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Venus_Project](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Venus_Project)

------
jcalvinowens
Something like 75% of Linux kernel developers are paid for their work. It
seems to be working pretty well for them.

~~~
xs_kid
Sure, paid by companies, they aren't asking for funds in kickstarter.

------
fhd2
I somewhat agree with TFA, but I think it fails to consider that there are (at
least) two different types of open source project:

1\. Rails, nginx and other stuff that is used by developers generally has a
higher chance of getting useful contributions and institutional support.
People use this stuff professionally, if they run into a limitation, they
contribute back for pragmatic reasons.

2\. Firefox, Ubuntu and other open source consumer products are pretty hard to
do with nothing but unpaid volunteers. Some projects pull it off (KDE comes to
mind, although several distributions employ devs to work on it), but in
general it seems pretty hard: Even if you find enough skilled developers, what
about UX? What about design? What about marketing? What about PR? Would
Firefox have made it in 2004 without the NYT ad?

------
seiji
When was the last time DHH was worth less than a million dollars?

------
nairboon
Unconditional payment will probably have the highest impact on open source
development, either through the government as a basic income or through the
people like gittip: [https://www.gittip.com/](https://www.gittip.com/)

------
erikb
I feel what you write is all correct. I would never worry about this influence
of money, though. The thing is, if you take off the fluffy pink glasses, which
hurts and takes a long time going step by step, you'll see that open source is
about money since pretty much forever. Yes there are a lot of people doing
some effort for free. But they are not the major influence. Major influence
means Linux, Mozilla, Canonical, hack even things like GitHub etc. It simply
wouldn't work in this dimension without money. Thus even though all your
points are correct and already happening out there, there is still a booming
open source world and there are still people having fun.

------
shizzy0
He talked about inter-project conflicts due to injecting money into the
system, but I think the intra-project issues are the bigger problem. Suppose
the head developer receives $10^n for fund raising. Does this encourage or
discourage other potential contributors from working with the developer? We've
mainly been participating in a gift economy: You've given to me; I'm happy to
give back to you. However, if I've got a big feature that I can contribute to
this newly funded project, might I hold back since I'm not going to get a cut
of any of these funds? The problem seems exacerbated as the funds grow larger.

------
harshagowda
I have used korean site [http://www.naver.com/](http://www.naver.com/)

Its almost cluttered as amazon

------
donniezazen
Is he using some sort of static site generator for blogging? whatcms.org has
failed me.

