Core-JS chief complains open source is broken, no one will pay for it

Denis Pushkarev, maintainer of the core-js library used by millions of websites, says he's ready to give up open source development because so few people pay for the software upon which they depend. "Free open source software is fundamentally broken," he wrote in a note on the core-js repository. "I could stop working on this …

[nintendoeats]

That bit by Victor Shepelev disturbs me. I am in favour of all the sanctions we can put on Russia, but that doesn't mean that I am not aware that they cause significant harm to ordinary people. The degree to which an individual citizen can benefit or suffer due to the actions of their government far exceeds the amount of influence they have, particularly in a dictatorship.

Naturally, I also understand why somebody whose homeland is being destroyed wouldn't be interested in the above. Not being in either situation, I simply feel sorry for both of them being caught up in some particularly heinous geo-politics.

This said, I have difficulty interpreting the relevant section of the OP. I'm not sure what point he is trying to make or avoid. I do agree that open source and politics should be kept apart as much as possible, and while that may be idealistic everybody does have a right to their own ideals.

FOSS is broken, people need funding to work on it, GIFs at 11.

[bombastic bob]

FOSS is broken,

Not really. You can still work on it for free or get someone else to take over the project if you cannot volunteer.

people need funding to work on it,

Some do some do not.

If I write a FOSS thing that is useful to me getting programming gigs, then it helps me personally to work on it [I have and do].

If others also benefit, you can at least partially rely on them to submit patches and just manage it.

Contributions in the form of patch/test are extremely helpful. I prefer this over money as I have all of my income from other/different sources, and fixing the FOSS code would indirectly help me personally. But yeah, it is often hard to work on FOSS _AND_ earn a living at the same time. I just get too tired to work on the FOSS.

So as far as I am concerned, "in kind" contributions of quality patches and testing are as good as donations for a community supported project.

Customized software and support definitely generate revenue, though, and it is that "value added" part that earns the most, my 25¢ worth.

[Orv]

You're not wrong, exactly, but the fact is most FOSS projects never attract that much attention from other developers; they mostly are one-man shows.

As far as helping land a job, why would a company hire you when you've already demonstrated you'll work for free?

FOSS is all too often the equivalent of artists being asked to do work "for exposure."

[Ignazio]

> some do some do not

And we know from other statistics that those who can afford to do the work for free often are the ones already privileged with higher salaries, better job security, etc etc.

I say that as one smack bang in the middle of the classical western privileged class, and maintains a few (tiny) open source projects. We lose the contributions of a lot of smart people who are too busy making rent because the industry is skewed against their gender, skin color, religion, etc. It's not a problem created by open source but it endures the consequences regardless.

[pprometey]

First, imagine that they came to your house, killed your mother, raped your wife, took your children away - and then say that those who silently looked at all this have nothing to do with it.

Doesn't fit...

[nintendoeats]

Imagine if you are inundated with state media about how your nation's army is fighting and dying to liberate an oppressed people who wish to be part of your homeland, and if you speak out against that message you risk terrible things happening to you and your loved ones.

From an armchair, it's easy to blame people for not acting out against the actions of an oppressive and information-controlled regime, it's much much harder to actually do it. That's why oppressive regimes get to keep existing. Ask yourself, what would you actually do if you were in that situation? It takes exceptional courage and skill to stand up and make progress against a force like the Russian government, and I cannot blame people for not being exceptional (though I will heap praise on those who are).

I don't resent a Ukrainian for hating the Russian people to a man, but that doesn't oblige me to do the same.

[romeerez]

https://github.com/zloirock/core-js/issues/1051 he blames Ukraine for what Russia is doing. Ask yourself, what would you actually do if you were in that situation? Ah, blame the victim and turn on "no politics" mode.

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed. There is no such thing as an innocent Russian - people living under far more brutal domestic regimes (e.g. Ceasescu) than Putin's have stood up and done something about it, and in eras where access to the truth was much harder to come by than today. Russians don't believe Putin's lies because he is a master at the dark arts of manipulation or somehow they can't fight back, they believe them because he is a master of telling the Russian people what they already wanted to hear.

(Source: many years in both Russia and Ukraine; it's a shame, but Russians are beyond saving.)

[jilocasin]

Putin's ambitions have thrown a wrench into a lot of things ....

It's a shame that Putin's desire to have a legacy and recreate the supposed 'glory' of the former USSR is causing so much pain and suffering, not just to those directly involved in the conflict, but the collateral damage visited upon ordinary Russians who aren't directly involved and may not even support the actions of their country.

Even if the reasons, which I imagine is propaganda and a thinly veiled justification for invading a neighboring country, were true, that's not how things are handled in the modern civilized world. Annexing sections of countries, or even whole countries doesn't just happen and can not be justified just because *some* folks living there want it to be. Heck, just look at the province of Quebec, Canada. They've wanted to be their own country forever, or Catalonia from Spain. If the folks living in western Ukraine really wanted to be part of Russia, and if Putin's excuse was actually true, they could just emigrate to Russia. Easy peezy.

Ironically, it looks like one of the things Putin was afraid of happening, Ukraine joining NATO, is going to happen sooner than it might have done otherwise as a direct consequence of his unprovoked invasion.

At the end of the day, individuals living in Russia appear to have few choices; hope that the conflict ends, preferably with a Russian withdrawal, leave Russia. Otherwise, they'll just stuck in the cross hairs of this mess for the time being.

p.s. If the world, especially the US, had stood up to Putin in Crimea, I don't think he would have tried to invade Ukraine proper and the world would have been spared this mess.

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet he decided to come back to russia. Denis doesn't care about the international affairs of his country. So why should we feel pity for him and make up excuses to why he blames Ukrainians (the victim) in the war his country is waging.

[seldom]

The poor guy

Oh my god, that all happened to him, the poor guy. Where did you hear this? I missed it on the BBC, can you give us a link because I'm sure the BBC would have reported it.

[VoiceOfTruth]

Where were you?

-> I am in favour of all the sanctions we can put on Russia

And how about some sanctions on the USA for murdering 1,000,000 Iraqis? Lost your voice? Or is it a case of when the USA does it it is OK?

[nintendoeats]

Re: Where were you?

For one thing, I'm not American. For another, I have always been opposed to the Iraq war (not that it means much since I was 12 when it started). The American government has done much that is questionable or illegal, and it won't for reasons I'm quite sure I don't need to iterate.

I'd actually prefer that NATO could provide direct military assistance to push Russia out of Ukraine, but there's that whole pesky WWIII/nuclear bomb issue.

[nintendoeats]

Re: Where were you?

Sorry, should have read "and it won't answer for those things".

[jilocasin]

Re: Where were you?

The Iraq invasion, in my opinion was a thinly veiled attempt of moneyed interests to seize upon the chaos of 9/11 and try to and control the rich oil wealth of the country. If the US really wanted Saddam Hussein, they had the ability to do a surgical extraction, just like they handled 'pineapple face' in Panama.

It was wrong, it lasted entirely too long, and ended very reminiscent of Vietnam. It's a good thing that Biden finally ended that farce. It's a shame none of the other presidents had the strength to end it sooner once they conflict was started.

So no, the US invasion of Iraq wasn't 'justified'. But just as the actions of one murder can't be used to justify those of another, one unjust invasion can't be used to justify another. That said, the US wasn't trying "annex" Iraq.

[Igor_O]

Are these problems FOSS problems? Not at all - this is Denis problems

"I am in favour of all the sanctions we can put on Russia, but that doesn't mean that I am not aware that they cause significant harm to ordinary people. "

I'm an ordinary people from Ukraine and Russia cause significant harm to me bombing my city, killing people everyday and destroying power plants around.

Are problems described in the article are FOSS problems? No. This is Denis problems. He kill somebody on road incident, his country kills hundreds civilians everyday and destroy country infrastructure. Why I should anybody consider Denis problems as FOSS problems? I don't see any connection. Denis life is his life and his choice.

[jilocasin]

Re: Are these problems FOSS problems? Not at all - this is Denis problems

Unfortunately, it appears that Denis might be the main, or even sole, developer of a valuable bit of open source software that many many other bits of software are dependent upon.

So unless someone else steps up and either co-develops this bit 'o software with him, or forks it and begins maintaining it, his problems are unfortunately FOSS' problems.

Are you willing to take over development? Do you know someone who will?

That's the only way to make Denis' problem *not* a FOSS problem.

[Igor_O]

Re: Are these problems FOSS problems? Not at all - this is Denis problems

"Unfortunately, it appears that Denis might be the main, or even sole, developer of a valuable bit of open source software that many many other bits of software are dependent upon." -

this situation is common for open software. If library is valuable and main contributor die, or get in prison, or lost motivation - then souces are forked and supported by community. It is how FOSS model live and works for years.There are lot of examples around - starting from Matplotlib, to raiserfs, and so on....

Denis have problem - his income drop from 2400$ to 400$? OMG! Do you think this is problem for FOSS?

"Are you willing to take over development? Do you know someone who will?

That's the only way to make Denis' problem *not* a FOSS problem."

I never use his library and most likely will not. I'm sure somebody from Node community will handle this, as it happens many times before.

[Grogan]

Re: Are these problems FOSS problems? Not at all - this is Denis problems

That's the thing, if it is that important, someone surely will :-)

You're not stuck with some whiner that takes his marbles and goes home, the project can be forked at any time. Someone with a commercial interest can pay someone to do it, and then THEY will probably leverage it to make money (support, customization or other added value etc.)

Ask the project leads from XFree86 if, in hindsight, they are still indifferent to everyone banding together to work on the Xorg project fork because of an added clause (minor, IMO, only attribution to the project) clause they didn't like. Development moved way past them, quickly and they were left sitting in the dust. It was kind of sad... announcements kept up and they had some releases but there wasn't much momentum.

It is a mistake to think that people downloading your code from github and the like are going to pay you, though. Some will donate, but after they have it's going to peter out. These will more likely be individuals rather than companies using your software to make money, too. Business is GREED.

[Potemkine!]

The Exploited

Good will being commercially exploited by others? No kidding.

There's nothing new, and this will last.

[Snake]

Re: The Exploited

Exactly. These workers aren't "unappreciated", their work is very appreciated once their [free] work is monetized for the Powers That Be and their quarterly reports.

And that's the issue, and I've said it before. FOSS is looked at as this great salvation to what ails the system, but once you give something to someone free...and into a system where they all openly allowed to monetize it without any requirements to feed the benefits back down the line...all you will end up with is manipulation and abuse of the system. That is terribly sad to say, but truth from history. Removing guardrails does NOT mean that everyone travels without hindrance, it means that someone will jump the kerb and decide that everyone else is an inconvenience to their progress.

TL;DR

We can't have nice things.

[SundogUK]

Re: The Exploited

This isn't abuse. This is specifically how the system is designed to work. If you don't like it, don't participate.

[jilocasin]

Re: The Exploited

Which of course is why licenses like the GPL and AGPL were created.

Either pay up with *real* money, or pay with code, nobody gets to ride for free.

[sabroni]

Read this yesterday

This guy has been giving away incredibly valuable work for his entire career and is now wondering why no-one wants to pay him.

Shows that you can be really brainy in one area and absolutely fucking clueless in another.

It's sad but ffs, spend some time on planet earth buddy.

[TonyHoyle]

Re: Read this yesterday

To a manager free = worthless. I had to learn that the hard way when I was younger. Used to do free work for charities.. Literally had one suddenly blank me and say they were going to 'hire a professional'. Like lady, this is my day job, you should have been paying about £1k a day for that work.

These days I've no problem submitting bug fixes for OSS projects but beyond that, cash or GTFO.

I really do sympathise with the guy, but he needs to walk away and start making some real money.. he doesn't owe those companies anything. So it'll break? That's on them.

[Bullet Brown]

Re: Read this yesterday

I agree with this. The businesses who rely on core-js and the ones Denis will probably end up working for to work for to make a decent living won't think twice about firing him or anyone else anyone if it adds to the bottom line.

In fact they would be baffled by anyone asking "what about all the hard work i did for you because I thought it would be good for the community?". They might even think that was funny!

Denis doesn't owe anybody anything. One day we might live in a better world but for the moment he needs to be as ruthless as the people who are exploiting him.

[werdsmith]

Re: Read this yesterday

I've always felt that if you take somebody else's work and use that person's effort to make money then you owe that person some of that money. Open source software would then improve considerably, even the stuff that is already good.

There are some software vendors who sell licenses for software that cost more than the software helps to contribute.

[mgeisler]

Re: Read this yesterday

Have you heard of Free Software, as compared to Open Source Software?

[Jason Bloomberg]

Re: Read this yesterday

I really do sympathise with the guy, but he needs to walk away and start making some real money.. he doesn't owe those companies anything. So it'll break? That's on them.

It's depressing isn't it. I do wonder how many have thrown in the towel and given up on trying to improve the world with "fuck it, I'm out", have had no choice but to do so.

[Pascal Monett]

"Free open source software"

I'm sorry, what in the word free do you not understand ?

You propose your code freely for all and then you're surprised that people take it without paying ?

Hint : if you hand out sandwiches and say that they are free, you won't get paid either.

[Andy The Hat]

Re: "Free open source software"

I agree that FOSS is broken - as soon as "those that can" make massive profits out of others' voluntary work and expect them to continue to support it, volunteering usually becomes unpalatable. Open source is fine, free and donated to the world as-is is fine, free and maintained/supported by volunteers ad-infinitum is unsustainable in the real world.

[midgepad]

Libre

You don't do the washing up after someone else cooks, do you.

Free is an overloaded word in English.

You've taken Libre as gratuit.

Theres time for some prizes.

Not for you though.

[werdsmith]

Re: "Free open source software"

You propose your code freely for all and then you're surprised that people take it without paying

There are processes for rewarding people for their contribution to profits. A consequence of choosing not to do so is what this article is about.

[Anonymous Coward]

So is Feross Aboukhadijeh going to put his hand in his own pocket then, yeah?

[crg the new one]

There's a new trend in hiring

So Accenture, who won't write a (very buggy) line of code unless you pay them millions, now are asking candidates for open source projects they've contributed to, and want to see their open-source GitHub. Same for Cognizant, Atos and many others.

So they ask their clients for millions to fix the bugs they themselves introduced, but expect developers to already have offered their work for free in order to become employees?

Weird.

[Anonymous Coward]

As an Iranian developer commited to open source, I really dislike Shepelev's comment. I don't know Pushkarev and what he thinks about Russia or Ukraine or war, but I'm a simple citizen whose country's (unelected and illegitimate) government supports Putin's cause with drones and missiles. I never had any choice in this matter, I was never asked my opinion, and I know fellows who are jailed, tortured, banned from leaving the country or executed only because of protesting the status quo. If it was up to me, or most Iranians for the matter, Iran was more supportive of Ukraine than Türkiye's Biraktar and Putin would have been treated the same as it is now by most western countries, as the horrors of Soviet occupation of parts of Iran are still fresh in the Iranian collective memory. The more Ukrainians understand this and stand with the people and against tyrants, the more support they would recieve from sympathizers.

PS. Even leaving or liking a critical comment like this in a website is considered treason by the Islamic Republic law.

[Ken Hagan]

I am not remotely surprised by your comments and have great sympathy for your predicament. Thank you for posting.

It appears that some people have difficulty in imagining what it would be like to live under a tyrannical government, despite History's best efforts to provide us with so many examples.

[Snowy]

If you want to get paid

Do not release you software for free.

[bombastic bob]

Re: If you want to get paid

I would qualify that statement.

If you want to get paid, do not release your software for free WITHOUT a revenue path, such as paid support, customization, or some kind of value that you personally benefit from that's related to it.

If I write a FOSS program to do XXX and it is related to the normal kinds of work I do, then I can haul XXX along with me wherever I go and make it a selling feature for my software development services. Hiring me to contract develop a YYY that can use XXX as its basis and save a month's work _IS_ a benefit, and you can haul your FOSS portfolio around with you wherever you go.

(Also helps to write up a free license for using a customized version AND customer keeping it closed source, and reference the online repo so others can maintain it later)

[Snowy]

Re: If you want to get paid

Nicely put :)

[Will Godfrey]

It's not FOSS that's broken

It's the greedy bastards that would steal off their own family to make a profit.

[bombastic bob]

Re: It's not FOSS that's broken

Well, you have to assume human nature and make an incentive for greedy bastatrds to actually pay you, that's all.

Indirect pay COULD be adding "contributor for ZZZ" to your CV/Resume and examples of your code [when asked]

[fg_swe]

Bingo

One way to fix Denis' income problem is to put his great work on the CV and apply for a job where his skills can be used. Lots of software engineers do this, myself included.

On the other hand, he could simply turn to the Qt business model and demand payment for all bug fixes and new releases. Maybe that would work, too.

[Jason Bloomberg]

We will fund 'job creation schemes' to pay people to move trees from one hole to another so I fail to see why we can't do the same, provide 'social funds' or whatever, to support and encourage those contributing to society out-of-band - mentors, artists, entertainers, carers, helpers, those who lend their engineering skills to undertake repairs for others, those who write code which others use, and more besides.

The real shame is most have no expectation of reward, but often don't even receive a kind word, sometimes get exactly the opposite.

But what would I know; I'm some kind of godamned commie.

[SundogUK]

If my taxes are being used to pay people to move trees from one hole to another, I'm going to be having words.

[NotAWookie]

So many of the commentators here seem to think the problem doesn't apply to them. Like, somehow the ecosystem could function without OSS.

If we need it, and it's breaking, definitely what we should do is blame the poor saps who have carried it this far. Well done humans.

This is why we can't have nice things

[SundogUK]

"If we need it, and it's breaking.." Tough shit. Pay someone to fix it.

[spoofles]

On the shoulders of giants

It's tough for developers in FOSS.

They cannot ignore that their project benefits from other projects because those projects are also FOSS but they also need to eat.

As core-js is popular why not fork it to free and premium versions with core functionality in the free version and desirable features offered under a BSD type license?

Would this break things or make broken things worse?

[Ken Hagan]

Re: On the shoulders of giants

I know nothing about core-js, but I'm struck by your assumption that it could be split into a useful core and a desirable extra.

[Plest]

That's why so many FOSS projects are going commercial

Lots of FOSS developers are pissed off with people abusing them, telling them the software is shite when the're working for free and giving you a quality product, that they're simply closing up shop, moving their hard work to commercial licenses and telling people to pay or **** off. Who can blame them? I wouldn't want to make all that effort and all people do is ****ing moan about getting something for nothing.

I love using FOSS, it's often amazing and being able to peer under the curtain and learn how to write proper software is amazing, but I wouldn't blame any FOSS developer going commercial, less grief, less stress and more cash to pay the bills. A tragic loss to lose software but they've got bills to pay and lives to lead.

[tekHedd]

Re: That's why so many FOSS projects are going commercial

All of this describes my brief encounters with free software. Oh, I still submit patches and publish my forks and so on. But, the end users will be rude and demanding, other developers will steal your code, and nobody will give you money.

The only license I publish new projects under is the WTFPL, on the assumption that developers will steal the code. And to remind myself that if I thought what I'm publishing has value I shouldn't be publishing the source at all.

[Igor_O]

I'm FOSS developer from Ukraine, Odessa. I,m developer of quite popular HTTP client library for Dlang for more than 5 years now.

When it comes to war and sanctions against agressor, you can't separate "ordinary" and "unordinary" people. Russian rockets do not distinguish ordinary and nonorfinary peoples when they hit our sities. Sorry, but this is war as it is and this is Russia who started it. So, let Denis send his thougts to Putin and other war supporters.

Re reward to FOSS developers - there are several form how this could be done, not only user donations. I will not get into details here, just short list: almost every orogramming language have funds to support some imoirtant projects. Large companies have funds with same goal. Alsi developer can work for full or part if day to company which use his library. Also he/she can set up private company to provide support for his product.

All this works in real life.

With regards..

[Janko Hrasko]

KGB won't pay you anymore?

Thinking about it, this is probably an attempt to get some dosh to pay off the conscription officers, so that he won't have to go to Ukraine to meet his maker.

I couldn't care less.

[AdamWill]

broken?

"Open source does appear to be broken"

People keep observing this. It's been going on for decades. And yet here open source still is, launching spaceships and running just about everything.

It occurs to me that F/OSS climbs a wall of worry in the same way as the stock market does - thoughtful, educated people worry constantly about all the things that will definitely cause it to collapse any second now. On occasion, bad stuff actually happens! And yet in the long run...numbers keep going up.

[jilocasin]

Re: broken?

That really depends on what you are talking about.

It is my firm belief and hope that the least restrictive FOSS licenses die out. It's the classic gratis vs libre debate.

Licenses like Apache & BSD are free for everyone and anyone to do with what they want. Incorporate it into their own closed projects, Fork it, lock out the original developers and commercialize it, anything. With the notable exception of things like standards, all you are doing is working as unpaid labor. There's nothing that anyone who's using your software has to do to re-compensate you for all of your hard work.

Licenses like the GPL, AGPL are also free for anyone to use, but, and this is the important part, if they want to change it, or improve it they have to share their changes with the rest of the world. If they want to make it a part of a commercial product that only they benefit from monetarily, they can't without convincing the original developer(s) to license it under different terms, probably involving the exchange of money. These licenses don't let other companies freeload off of the work of the original developers.

Think about it, the number of BSD desktops is exceedingly tiny compared to the number of Linux desktops, same with servers, same with cell phones. The main difference is the license the two are developed under. Where is most of the BSD code used? In commercial operating systems (hi Apple and Microsoft) in closed appliances, and ironically enough in Linux.

Completely unrestricted code, again excepting standards, begins with crazy rates of adoption as commercial and noncommercial entities start using it. Inevitably it leads to a dying off. Devs get burned out, commercial entities lock it up and monetize the heck out of it, and it gets adopted by exploitation resistant licenses like the GPL. The original unencumbered development dies and development instead continues in secretive companies or under more equitable licenses.

The sooner folks realize that crazy as he is at times, Richard Stallman was right about a few things. In the end you have three choices; get paid to develop for a company, get paid to develop free software in freedom, code, and possibly money, to develop software under an equitable licence, accept the fact that you're basically working as unpaid labor. If it's a hobby, something you just love doing, then there's nothing wrong with it. But realize which path you've chosen at the beginning of your journey.

[BlokeInTejas]

Over simplifications

Basics:

If something is vital, and you've given it away - you've given it away.

If something is useful, and widely used - you've given it away.

If something is crap, and you've given it away - you've given it away.

If you want to be reliably paid for something you've built, you have to NOT give it away.

Not giving it away has implications, too. Perhaps if you sell it, you need to have a support contract. You have time to fix bugs from thousands of customers? Is your software guaranteed correct and/or free of harmful bugs? You going to take responsibility for damages when your stuff breaks and a system fails?

Giving it away moves responsibility for dealing with side effects to others. This, too, has enormous value. Most vendors of stuff have to offer guarantees and repair and replacement; someone writing free software may have internal pressures, but has no external obligations.

The reality is if you were giving it away and now wish you hadn't - too bad. Just don't do it again.

[fg_swe]

Dont Scare Us

" Is your software guaranteed correct and/or free of harmful bugs"

Not a single I.T. software company operated on that premise. Rather, they will send you weekly updates.

Open Source is in most cases not systemically better. You get quarterly bug fixes for most of them, too.

A software business is first and foremost about selling your stuff effectively. You can always fix your bugs later.

Proof: MSFT, Oracle, IBM, SAP.

Indeed, your business must be able to respond to bug reports in a useful way.

(Having said that, auto, aerospace, rail and medical are different. You really must have powerful design+testing processes in place. A software patch cannot fix a car crash from a faulty ABS brake. This mostly implies good documentation, too. See ASPICE, V-model. And even these industries use the hairball Windows to run their crosscompiler and other essential tools.)

(IT hardware is not much better. See FDIV bug)

[unix.beard]

If you're going to work on a FOSS project as important as core-js, you need to develop a community. You can't do this by yourself, or you will suffer. You become the single point of failure. If you're not good at building community yourself, then you need to find someone to help you who is.

I was struck by the contrast with Daniel Stenberg who developed curl announcing his latest release:

"6 changes. 3 CVEs. 173 bugfixes. By 78 contributors out of which 42 were commit authors."

[Lost Neutrino]

Free and Open Source but without monetisation

FOSS is not broken. It is exactly what it is - as defined in any of the many well-known and OSI-approved Open Source licenses that every dev is free to choose.

If I publish my code under a permissive license, than that is what I agree to. I cannot, and should not, complain later when someone decides to commercialise it. I can always take that as a compliment, though :-)

But I do like the thinking behind some of the new-ish "Fair-Code" license models, e.g. the "Sustainable Use License" from n8n.io. You can do everything you want - just as you would with a permissive OSI license, including distributing the code to others. But only if you do so free of charge for non-commercial purposes. If you monetise and make money with it, for example, by selling it as a SaaS product, then we should talk about commercial licensing.

I like that - all the freedoms in the spirit of Open Source but without the nasty smells of commercial abuse (think Elasticsearch and AWS).

[fg_swe]

QT Business Success

Maybe QT can be an inspiration for the future of Open Source ?

Impressive Numbers:

https://www.qt.io/group

[fg_swe]

Dear Denis

1.) Sorry to hear you are caught in Great Power Conflict.

2.) You must play business hardball.

3.) From now on, release any (or most) releases and bugfixes under a commercial license. Also see the Qt business model. If they cheat you, obfuscate some of the code and insert a copy protection mechanism.

4.) Make your international users/customers pay for new releases and bugfixes by bitcoin. They also pay bitcoin ransoms, so they surely can pay you, too.

5.) If 2-4 does not work out, switch to a different project/job.

[mrn3]

Tea

Won't tea.xyz fix all of this? It will reward the open source folks.