
Ask HN: How does our industry value OSS projects? - sloppycee
Hey HN, I&#x27;m doing some research into how important OSS is to our industry, and how companies give back.<p>I&#x27;ve created a simple survey to get some data, to turn into a proper post. It should only take about 5 minutes to complete, and requires no private information to participate:<p>https:&#x2F;&#x2F;goo.gl&#x2F;forms&#x2F;4eWaiuTg2pmoVN1I3<p>Thanks!
======
akulbe
I think, as a corporate culture, we find an immense value in it. We use open
source stuff like crazy.

The problem I see is that, as that same corporate culture, we're not
contributing back to the same projects we use code from so freely, at anywhere
close to the same rate.

I asked about doing that, on one project I'm involved in, and was told not to
get involved with OSS contributions, because of potential legal/liability
issues.

It made me sad.

~~~
kluck
I had a very similar experience. In some companies I work at, it was/is even
considered bad practise to use Free Software because it is believed to be more
unstable. That is just a very broken attitude (one should always check if the
actual requirements and available money for a software matches the features
and costs of a given software, be it free or proprietary).

~~~
akulbe
While I am big on OSS, and giving back to the community... let's be realistic.
Some of it really _is_ bad.

There are definitely issues on some OSS projects, like inability to reach
consensus, and some upstream devs doing things that break stuff for a large
group of people, and not caring much about the consequences of some of the
technical decisions made.

OSS is awesome, and can also be problematic, all at once. I'm not ready to
dismiss it as a whole, though. Some orgs have that approach, and just throw
the baby out with the bathwater.

I think it's important to go in with your eyes open, and be aware of the
potential risks.

~~~
amackera
For the stuff that IS good, and adding a lot of value, are the creators /
maintainers recognized (other than through twitter followers, etc.)

What are we doing to keep the good projects afloat?

------
amackera
Interested to see the results from this, I know we use open source like crazy.

