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Tell HN: When is it okay to ask for money as an open source maintainer?

14 points by armini ↗ HN
The MIT License is a permissive open-source software license that grants users broad rights to use, modify, and distribute the software. While it covers legal aspects, it does not address the various time burdens faced by open-source maintainers. Time burdens that are out of the scope of the MIT License include:

Issue tracking and bug fixing: Maintainers need to manage and address the bug reports and issues raised by users and contributors, which can be time-consuming.

Code review: To ensure the quality and consistency of the project, maintainers must review and provide feedback on contributed code.

Documentation: Writing and updating documentation is essential to help users understand and utilize the software effectively.

Community management: Maintainers must build and maintain a healthy community by responding to questions, managing discussions, and dealing with conflicts.

Release management: Coordinating and managing software releases, including versioning, packaging, and distribution, can be a complex task.

Continuous integration and testing: Setting up and maintaining testing infrastructure, as well as ensuring the software passes all tests, requires considerable effort.

Security: Maintainers need to stay vigilant about security vulnerabilities and promptly address them when discovered.

Marketing and outreach: Promoting the project, attracting new users and contributors, and staying engaged with the community are essential for the success of an open-source project.

Fundraising and financial management: Some projects may require financial support for infrastructure, events, or even to pay contributors. This requires fundraising efforts and financial management, which can be time-consuming.

Legal issues: While the MIT License covers some legal aspects, maintainers may still need to deal with other legal matters, such as trademark disputes, contributor agreements, or compliance with third-party licenses.

18 comments

[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 62.2 ms ] thread
adastra22
Always. No one has any demand on your time.
armini
Yeah, I've been doing a lot of interviews with maintainers & they are the nicest people who are always generous with their time https://www.youtube.com/@thanks_dev They need to know that it's okay to ask for money on things that are out of scope. More importantly the community should step up & support them when they ask for money. I've seen a few people comment "you signed up for open source" & that attitude needs to change if we want to promote the ecosystem & make it more sustainable.
p-e-w
There are tens of millions of people and organizations that constantly press complete strangers for money in exchange for doing absolutely nothing for them, and you are asking when it is OK to politely request that people you provide a service for support you financially?

When did this kind of hand-wringing become the social norm in open source? I don't remember that being the case 10-15 years ago. I honestly find it embarrassing to read such posts.

armini
I respect your opinion & understand your point. Maybe that's because 10 to 15 years ago fortune 500 companies weren't extracting as much value & putting this much pressure on open source maintainers. Here's a recent twitter thread that demonstrates the problem & how the community really feels about supporting maintainers https://twitter.com/anehzat/status/1638809705966612483 & https://twitter.com/ljharb/status/1638958313198211072 I also know a lot of people that have been subject to tech layoff but expected to continue maintaining packages long after they have departed from companies. There's no doubt that fortune 500 are getting huge benefits from the open source movement especially with the introduction of tools that help increase the pace of development, communication & feature requests. This was not the case 10 to 15 years ago...
p-e-w
> putting this much pressure on open source maintainers

What "pressure"? You mean baseless demands to work for free?

Just tell them to fuck off.

> I also know a lot of people that have been subject to tech layoff but expected to continue maintaining packages long after they have departed from companies.

Just tell them to fuck off.

This is the real world. Growing a spine is not optional. If telling random beggars to shove it is the difficult part, I strongly recommend to work on that before learning yet another cool frontend framework.

cpach
Very much this.

And for those that for some reason don’t want to use the exact phrase “fuck off”, let it be known that you can say the moral equivalent of this phrase while being super polite – you still need to be firm though.

zamnos
The particular phrase you are looking for is "fuck you, pay me." With the help of ChatGPT, we can translate that to:

"I must respectfully insist on receiving payment for the services rendered. Your prompt attention to this matter would be greatly appreciated."

[deleted]
(comment deleted)
wutania
Please ask for Github Sponsors! However, I do see how broken the financial ecosystem is for open source folks. There are some things that I think open source needs:

- discoverability of open source projects that need funding - the actual runtime usage of different open source projects - priority to fix open source bugs with bounty

armini
Github sponsor is a good option like what happened recently @canva but that's firefighting as it's not sustainable for all maintainers to keep asking companies for money https://twitter.com/anehzat/status/1641372068997652480 It would have been better if maintainers ask companies to fund them & their transitive dependencies using platforms like https://thanks.dev/ (I work for them). That helps everyone in the ecosystem.
wutania
thanks for sharing thanks.dev! This looks really cool. This is something I've been looking for.

It seems more like for a one time donation, right? Imo it would work better in a subscription model / base on real production time usage rather than just dependency tree. But this is a great start for sure.

It could be a new badge for companies, like how buildings get those sustainability badges, but for companies who pay for OSS!

zzo38computer
The MIT license does not mean that you cannot ask for money. You can ask for money if you wish to do so. However, if it is properly supposed to be "open source", then nobody should require to pay licensing fees, and anyone should be freely allowed to make copies, modified or unmodified, and distributions, including other programs. If you wish to ask for money for code review and other stuff, OK, and then someone who does not want to pay (or cannot pay) can do it by themself instead if they wish to do so. Even so, open source does not necessarily mean that you have to accept contributions at all (whether you accept payment or not), but other people can distribute a modified version and can accept contributions if they wish to do so.
mellosouls
You can ask for money at any point.

Whether your request is seen as "okay" will be subjective and be influenced by the quality of the software, its utility and how the request is framed and enabled - eg via GitHub sponsorship etc.

Your listing of arguments of why people should pay in your post is of dubious relevance because most people here already know that, and while nobody is entitled to your time, neither are you entitled to anybody paying for it if you choose to go the open source route.

However you could always link to a "why you should consider supporting this project" style page that explains those factors to users who may be unaware; or - for instance - provide complementary service levels/"professional" versions at a cost.

version_five
Is this just some gpt crap you pasted in? The title is interesting but the "tell" doesn't really add anything. If there's a question or comments, the personal circumstances or thoughts should be more interesting than a trivial list of how maintainer time is spent.
armini
I used GPT to fact check against MIT inclusions & exclusions. In the comments I have tried to share instances of it happening if you hadn’t noticed. I admire your attention to detail but not your hostility…
nowaymrjose
Open Source i different for different people. At first it came out of universities and academics releasing software to create the first and current ecosystems. These people were paid. There are also people that work on open source in their spare time - they get paid to work, and release things because they can. There are people trying to prove their skills to get employed later. There are big companies sponsoring choice requirements for their own benefit. There are dirt-poor people with some mad skill-sets who should probably balls-up and ask for some money.

Whoever you are, it is best to explain up-front what you offer and what you need.