The Lack of Compensation in Open Source Software is Unsustainable \ stacker news ~bitcoin

The Lack of Compensation in Open Source Software is Unsustainable trstringer.com/oss-compensation-broken/

4472 sats \ 47 comments \ @elvismercury 17 Nov 2023 bitcoin

This is about open source, but has obvious implications for btc. Interesting to see how the btc ecosystem has responded to the challenge, and compare to ways other large products like Linux, postgres, Python, etc., have made do.

Is a more systematic solution possible? I know there are various lists where btc-related devs can solicit funding; there are different grants by companies that are good stewards. Every so often a mega-whale from the past surfaces (e.g., Pineapple fund) and throws money around. Is it enough? Is danger ahead?

Also: sorry to front-run HN bot, but this is a topic of particular interest to me.

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1049 sats \ 12 replies \ @kepford 17 Nov 2023

Been hearing this since I started in tech back in 2006. It is maddening to me how few open source projects even consider bitcoin as an option.

There is also this pattern of framing support as tipping or buying a cup of coffee when it should be framed as value for value. If you use this project and receive value you should return that value back to the project.

IMO bitcoin is the solution here. Lightning payments to OSS contributors similar to how the V4V splits work in podcasting 2.0. It might work using Nostr.

1768 sats \ 7 replies \ @kepford 17 Nov 2023

Imagine a site similar to SN for git. Basically, if Github adopted lighting zaps. If you could zap someone for their resolution of an issue. Or for a release? I'm not the first to speak this I know but it seems so obvious to me after using SN. SN is going to go down in history as one of the first demonstrations of how bitcoin fixes this.

430 sats \ 6 replies \ @ek 17 Nov 2023

SN is going to go down in history as one of the first demonstrations of how bitcoin fixes this.

I'm as excited as I am terrified about this happening, lol

Maybe I should start building my citadel like @DarthCoin, lol

121 sats \ 5 replies \ @DarthCoin 17 Nov 2023

He's not wrong... We must pay somehow all these OSS software. Donating to centers like TEN31 or Geyser or whatever other faucets that can manage better the funds, but somehow we would need a specialized flow.

Also zapping sats for each download we do or use, is not a bad solution. We have to realize that this "free" for all we use is not going to be sustainable. Being sovereign doesn't mean everything is free. Not at all! I could says that is the way around!

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @duvel 18 Nov 2023

I like that. I would definitely zap some sats to download open source software. But it depends, if you're downloading a package that contains hundreds of open source packages, it could increase massively.

200 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 18 Nov 2023

most of them already have Geyser donation campaign pages. Is quite easy to support them like that. But of course DYOR first and don't just throw with sats to dead projects or scams. Be aware of scams!

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @kepford 17 Nov 2023

Exactly. I really have an issue when you work for free and complain that no one is paying you. It isn't sustainable. I don't think it is feasible to expect fiat corporations to support OSS. Don't get me wrong, they should because it is in their interests but we need to come up with non-fiat based funding for software outside of bitcoin software. But, the devs gotta realize bitcoin is the answer.

10 sats \ 1 reply \ @DarthCoin 17 Nov 2023

I could see in the future something like: release a limited version of the app for free and then release an advanced version for paid subscription or one time payment.

50 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 17 Nov 2023

There will be many models tried and probably entirely new things that weren't possible before. The question is, how long until devs stop listening to people that hate humanity and start looking to those who are trying to make it better. It really gets old listening to devs complain about money and yet have no interest in bitcoin.

Many will have to touch the stove and get screwed in order to learn.

142 sats \ 3 replies \ @elvismercury OP 17 Nov 2023

I like the V4V idea, but my guess is that it will never amount to anything substantial, because it violates @k00b's favorite kind of determinism.

If the incentives allow people to free-ride, they will. Free-riders, like the poor, you will always have with you.

325 sats \ 1 reply \ @kepford 17 Nov 2023

You will always have free-riders and I'm not suggesting V4V is the answer for everything. I guess I'm saying it isn't even being tried effectively. Think about it this way.

A single ad impression for Google or any ad supported platform is very small. Sometimes fractions of a penny. But at scale it is a huge amount. What I'm suggesting is that if we used bitcoin's layer two systems we could more effectively support open source. It isn't feasible to use the fiat layer twos for this. Nostr and SN are good examples of how micro payments can work.

You could also require people to pay to use the software using the same tech. Really, the only solution for burned out devs is for devs to set their own expectations and boundaries. There are probably more burned out dev blog posts than there are bitcoin obits. If you write OSS code and don't realize it can be thankless work then I don't know what to tell you. We have tools and people ready to help you monetize it.

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @elvismercury OP 17 Nov 2023

You will always have free-riders and I'm not suggesting V4V is the answer for everything. I guess I'm saying it isn't even being tried effectively.

That makes sense -- I agree that LN in particular makes entirely new ways of relating economically possible; SN is a case in point, as you mentioned. It will be cool to watch it unfold.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 17 Nov 2023

Basically, when you have a revolutionary tool like bitcoin it flips the world. Support models that didn't work might work now. Ad models might work in new ways. Pay per use might work. Pay per download might work. There are other models we probably haven't even considered.

428 sats \ 2 replies \ @WeAreAllSatoshi 17 Nov 2023

Disclosure: I didn't read the linked article.

I find SN's open source contribution compensation model to work well. I think in the README for SN's repo, it suggests doing up-front negotiation for the amount of sats you'd like for a given piece of work. I haven't ever done that, I just defer to k00b based on what work I do. I'm not sure if others have done it, either.

Just to be clear, I didn't start, nor did I continue, contributing to SN for the sats. I contribute because I enjoy it, I get to learn hands on with new technology which grows my skillset as an engineer, and I have had the time to do so. But the sats are a nice extra benefit!

441 sats \ 1 reply \ @ek 17 Nov 2023

Just to be clear, I didn't start, nor did I continue, contributing to SN for the sats. I contribute because I enjoy it, I get to learn hands on with new technology which grows my skillset as an engineer, and I have had the time to do so. But the sats are a nice extra benefit!

I feel you. I know when I started contributing, the first sats were a huge surprise. I started to mention that I don't want to get paid. I just want to show support. To show @k00b I believe in SN and he's not alone.

He sent me sats anyway, haha

But I guess it's the same for @k00b. He also wants to show appreciation for good work :)

216 sats \ 0 replies \ @elvismercury OP 17 Nov 2023

Where the hell did I read this ... oh yeah, here.

Giving someone money is maybe the least thoughtful way to show someone you value them but there's no mistaking that you value them when you do.

729 sats \ 1 reply \ @ek 17 Nov 2023

Also: sorry to front-run HN bot, but this is a topic of particular interest to me.

Haha, no worries! @hn is a news provider of last resort :) also, the story hasn't hit #1 on yet (it's #5 atm) and maybe it won't ever, so maybe @hn wouldn't have posted this anyway.

Now to the topic:

I've read some comments on HN mentioning the friction for donations and how Github sponsors makes it so easy.

SN has a ticket to pay upstream according (or used to have? I can't find it right now) to the "significance".

I wonder if OSS donations via BTC could become a trojan horse? If you complain about not getting funded, would you complain about the currency? Or would you start to get interested? I think if we have more and more "conflict of interests" like this (people who think BTC bad but they have problem X where BTC might be a solution), adoption will grow.

For example, I've already seen some projects include addresses from various coins in the output of npm install. They are still outliers however.

I would love to see more P2P donations. If you need an organization, that just adds more friction even though the organization is there to decrease friction. But it's still friction compared to the "ideal world".

If I can just put my LN address somewhere where people will see it and they can easily donate, this should already be enough, no? Or a subscription model like Mutiny.

163 sats \ 0 replies \ @elvismercury OP 17 Nov 2023

I wonder if OSS donations via BTC could become a trojan horse? If you complain about not getting funded, would you complain about the currency? Or would you start to get interested?

I love this idea. My take is that anything that promotes 'real' use, even if the use only lasts for the handful of minutes that it takes to cash out using Strike or Cash app, is super high leverage, way higher than somebody just buying $100 of btc in case it 10x again someday. The ripples that it sends through the universe, the lines of force that unfold in the ecosystem.

My main thing is not the money but the mental load. Decisions are expensive! I don't have the expertise to evaluate someone's worthiness of a contribution; and it also seems futile, much like some people feel about voting -- does giving $5 to some random dude really matter? And should I allocate to a known star, or to some unknown?

I think this is highly relevant to SN, actually. That's one of the really ripe opportunities for economic analysis.

I think what Chaincode, Brink, Spiral grants, etc., do is really really valuable for this reason. Assess, curate, encourage. But probably not a solution for the broader problem.

451 sats \ 4 replies \ @BitByBit21 17 Nov 2023

I like this idea:

money = contributions * usage.

I'm not a developer myself but being a professional translator for 20+ years I have contributed in a number of OSS projects as a translator for the last 2 years. I think translation is even more undervalued so we see a lot of poor localizations (at least in Spanish) which sometimes can be even misleading. Of course developers play a more important role but a big part of the success of their projects relies on the ability to reach wide audiences in a trusted manner. I know that some of the projects I've contributed to have good financial support but all the money go to developers and designers even if translators contribute on a regular/voluntary basis. Maybe it would be a good idea to integrate these OSS projects with Nostr and use some kind of zap splitting so that it includes all contributors. For instance, this is kind of the approach of Amethyst for every new release.

21 sats \ 3 replies \ @elvismercury OP 17 Nov 2023

Translators get a raw deal everywhere. It's only relatively recently when you can even figure out who the translator is on most books.

It's interesting to hear you say that coders and designers get the love and support. My assumption was that code is relatively rewarding, and relatively easy for someone to work on by themselves, and to combine that work with the larger group; whereas design was much harder to apportion, more heavily front-loaded, hard to decompose, etc., and so relatively a thankless and difficult job in OSS. Do you have a different perspective?

(This is also why I was curious if there were btc design types in this SN post about Spiral's recent doings. @moneyball, @art, @gbks, any insights on this? Did I get it wrong?)

228 sats \ 0 replies \ @BitByBit21 17 Nov 2023

In relation to designers I was referring to some particular projects, so maybe this is not always the case...

249 sats \ 1 reply \ @gbks 20 Nov 2023

What a big topic. I'll just share some general thoughts.

In terms of total funding, you have to keep in mind the ratios of designer to developer. Based on this research, a 1:10 designer to developer ratio is common. For researchers, it's even less, and I assume for translators as well (open-source might be a bit different than in companies, but probably somewhat close). That also means the amount and sources of funding for those specializations is smaller and harder to find, and it can feel like there's underrepresentation (which there might actually be). I hope we can help with design representation in that area with the newly founded Bitcoin Design Foundation.

As far as being harder to decompose, I think that doing the work in public and documenting it well goes a long way. For example, I do that on my weekly update. Signaling your plans, showing the actual work-in-progress and output, no one can argue that you didn't do worthwhile work. It also helps get input and buy-in along the way. But it's a skill that has to be learned and not everyone is comfortable being so public. Either way, you're more likely to get compensated if you can make a good case for your contributions.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @BitByBit21 20 Nov 2023

Thanks for your input and for sharing those interesting data. You raise some interesting points and I'm happy to know that designers are leading the way. I totally agree that we should be more proactive and vocal to show why our work is valuable too.

619 sats \ 3 replies \ @Lumor 17 Nov 2023

I've been considering a solution were lightning addresses are added as metadata to libraries and applications, and the user (company?) can periodically blast them with sats. Maybe the OS keeps track of how much one uses the various parts, and its up to the user if they want to especially boost one component. Devs could potentially boost certain dependencies they feel strongly about more than others.

There are projects in various systems to generate SBOMs - information about software including all dependencies. One could probably use that.

228 sats \ 1 reply \ @dieselbaby 17 Nov 2023

I really like this idea. I think it would have to be included in some format though that would be free from manipulation or removal, it shouldn't just be included in plaintext format so that anyone who had access to the code could just delete it or change it. Perhaps there could be some kind of webring-style service setup on nostr or a similar platform, that existed using a weighted trust kind of model, to ensure that people who were added to it for receiving payouts for contributions were individuals/developers who were known to other people who were known to be actual, contributing developers. Basically, if person A is a prominent developer who is known by many people, but person C is a developer who also contributes but isn't known by many people -- as long as they have one person (person B) in common, who can vouch for them, so to speak, it would enable their inclusion. Kind of similar to "social proofs", if you are familiar with the concept.

Could have any software/projects built that wanted to include it, just include the webring service thing as a dependency/included library, and it would periodically sync up with a web URL/nostr node that could push an array of the different lightning addresses, etc.

228 sats \ 0 replies \ @Lumor 18 Nov 2023

Glad you like it!

Yeah, ensuring malicious people don't replace the lightning addresses of the component maintainers is critical. The same thing goes for not having dependencies which are clones of the actual library, just with added malware.

Payments per component would further incentivize devs to fork their dependencies as soon as they run into trouble with them. And then keep the forks alive, to have their own payment address set.

Guess that leads us further towards some kind of reputation-based system like what you suggest.

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @errhead 18 Nov 2023

I know the guys at Alby are working on this issue. they suggested adding this to my PeerTube plugin's package.json for future funding.

"funding": { "type": "lightning", "url": "lightning:donkimberlin@getalby.com" },

577 sats \ 0 replies \ @dieselbaby 17 Nov 2023

The mega-whale from the past surfacing to throw money around is absolutely NOT ENOUGH and you are absolutely correct, there's an unbelievably huge problem in the open source community with people not being suitably compensated for their hard work and dedication.

If more people in the general public were aware of just how many critically important libraries/frameworks/technologies that are relied upon by the vast majority of the internet in order to keep things functioning, are being maintained by like maybe at best a handful of individuals (oftentimes not even that many, sometimes as few as 1 person -- and in almost all cases, they aren't being compensated whatsoever), perhaps it would open folks' eyes to just how dire the situation is.

I would really recommend anyone who is interested in this topic, to read this piece I'm linking below. It was an open letter written by the sole developer who built/maintains one of the most important and widely used javascript libraries on the entire internet called core-js -- anyone here who has ever done any kind of webdev work involving js has almost surely used it, at least as a dependency, at some point -- but for those who aren't developers, here's some context to appreciate:

core-js (at the time of the article, which was almost a year ago) had over 9 billion downloads via NPM (~250 million/month) & more than 19 million Github repositories have core-js as a dependency.
core-js is used on roughly ~50% of websites, with ~60-75% of the top 100 websites also using it -- including sites like: Amazon.com, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, Twitch, OpenAI, Yahoo, Microsoft.com, Whatsapp, LinkedIn, Netflix, Pornhub, eBay, Binance, Apple.com, Paypal, AliExpress, Spotify, etc. etc. etc.

So yeah, this should give you an idea.

Anyway, I will not go on further about this, you can read the article here if you're interested, it's kind of long -- but to basically summarize, this guy has labored over this, mostly by himself, for YEARS, since 2014.

Part of his predicament is his own making as he didn't advertise or really ask for money for a long time. A lot of the people who contribute to open source projects like this, have a problem asking for donations, as what tends to happen -- which happened with the core-js developer -- is you risk facing immense backlash from a group of super entitled people who are of the opinion basically "go fuck yourself, I'm entitled to your work for free, I'll fork it or find someone else doing it if you don't wanna give it to me for free".

His donations were totaling a whopping $57 a month. Eventually npm implemented some things and with some other sources (most of it coming from another FOSS collective) he was able to get it up to $2500 a month. The really gross thing -- there wasn't a single corporation/company representing any of the top 1000 websites -- many of which use his library, who provided any kind of money.

Perhaps the worst part of this is that, since the developer is Russian, in addition to receiving an endless torrent of hatred and vitriol from unhinged lunatics calling him a fascist, etc. online, the few sources of income he had were slowly eliminated or shut down because of things like sanctions, github sponsorships weren't available to him, paypal wasn't available, none of that stuff. One funding company, Tidelift, was even scummy enough that they froze his pending payout of $1000 and then ghosted him and left him unread on emails for months, giving vague statements about "the war" as to the reasoning.

Anyway, it's not all dire, it does seem that after writing this open letter, he received a lot of people who chose to start helping out. I myself donated to this guy, sent him some bitcoin actually and it seems that some others have as well, last I checked the wallet he had posted had almost 1 BTC in it, which is cool. It's a shame though that it had to come to that stage.

So, then...

What's the solution? What can be done to help with this worsening issue of developers on open source projects essentially being ripped off?

Well there are a few things. Firstly I would say that developers who are releasing stuff in an open source manner and are developing in the open should immediately take a look at WHAT LICENSING MODEL they are utilizing for their code releases. Sadly, most people don't even bother really looking into this too deeply, and wind up using something without considering all of the ramifications of what they are choosing.

Open source and "free software" doesn't necessarily mean free as in "free lunch" -- it means free as in freely available. This is largely lost on a lot of normies and end-users, but even a lot of fellow developers will sometimes fall into the trap of thinking that because they want to do things in an open source manner, that somehow this also means that they owe the public anything. This isn't true. At the very least, there should be a lot more thought put into considering some of the licensing models that support true open source/non-profit/community use and contribution, while not screwing yourself over as a developer/contributor in the case that your project winds up getting used by or attempted to be rolled into something that's being developed by one of these huge corporations with tons of cash. If such a license type doesn't exist, perhaps it needs to be made. I don't have all the answers, I just know what I have seen and experienced myself.

Github sponsorships works pretty well, it's super easy to use and a lot of people are already on Github regularly, so if you have a repo on there that you want to get funding/donations on, it's not too difficult to make these requests visible to those people most likely to be making donations; contributors and end users of your work.

493 sats \ 0 replies \ @anon 17 Nov 2023

This is indeed a huge structural problem. What is needed is a drop-in library to manage this:

Lightning payments for time of use/functions
The user gets to choose their rate IE paying is optional or you can choose to pay at 50% or 200% or 0% of the default prices
Receipts are generated for payments so that paying users can get privileges/badges eg in the discord

447 sats \ 1 reply \ @ConorOkus 17 Nov 2023

https://spiral.xyz/blog/a-framework-for-sustainable-open-source-bitcoin-development/

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @elvismercury OP 17 Nov 2023

You Spiral guys are such good eggs.

409 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b 17 Nov 2023

Someone built a command line tool to pay sats to all project deps on github assuming the deps had a payment file in their root or something.

It was posted on SN over a year ago but my memory or our search isn't good enough for me to find it.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @duvel 18 Nov 2023

I think it's already possible with Alby if you put a certain meta tag on your website. That is custodial indeed, but it's a first start to get going for some. Then you could have non-custodial and custodial Lightning options.

228 sats \ 0 replies \ @EthnTuttle 17 Nov 2023

https://opensats.org/

Seems to explicitly exist to help with this issue. strongly suggest looking into it when you have the desire.

I assume this was one of the orgs alluded to in the post but wanted to put it out there for those unaware.

228 sats \ 0 replies \ @nemo 17 Nov 2023

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21 sats \ 0 replies \ @bluematt 18 Nov 2023

One easy thing you can do to contribute to OSS, ignoring the maintainer issue, is report issues in a clear, concise, understandable, and friendly manner. One of the issues the freerider problem has created is that users using open source software often fight to work around issues, without ever reporting them. While this isn't super helpful for projects short on maintainer time, at least filing issues helps them understand what is going wrong and potentially fix it. Of course filing an issue and being pompous or rude isn't acceptable, but filing issues that are clear and well-documented is a great contribution!

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @ShortSimon 17 Nov 2023

If only we had a digital currency system where a revenue split from the use of software could automatically be paid to the devs

100 sats \ 0 replies \ @Jon_Hodl 19 Nov 2023

I feel like Geyser could be part of this solution. It's like a perpetual crowdfunding campaign that only accepts bitcoin.

If more open source projects even accepted bitcoin donations, I am sure that bitcoiners would be willing to contribute even small amounts via lightning.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Coinosphere 19 Nov 2023

I think you are underestimating the developer's mentality. Sure most have to pay bills, but even then they have pet projects and passion for something else, like freedom tech.

Most new devs that have yet to make a name for themselves also have to pick a passion project to gain experience from. Retired devs strictly only have time to work on passion projects, feeling they have little time left on this earth to do something meaningful.

So while money incentivizes a lot of various kinds of projects, the ones that we should care about, such as those that can change the world for the better, often have plenty of developers trying to make a difference, no money required.

Nobody volunteers to make accounting software.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @GlobalThreat 18 Nov 2023

agreed, our investor told us get to 1k stars then they'll talk to us. so now i gotta to marketing too.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @brandonsbytes 17 Nov 2023

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0 sats \ 3 replies \ @JesseJames 17 Nov 2023

If you got into the OpenSource movement for compensation, you got the whole idea backward...

367 sats \ 2 replies \ @nemo 17 Nov 2023

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205 sats \ 0 replies \ @elvismercury OP 17 Nov 2023

Yup.

And more generally, setting aside morality and the free-riding economic issues: if the open source peeps are producing something that "we" really care about and value -- in this case, a vibrant btc dev scene -- then what can "we" do, what structures to adopt or build, that could support it?

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @0xIlmari 17 Nov 2023

You owe nothing. If the project is proper FOSS and there is demand for it, someone will pick up the mantle and continue or fork.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Se7enZ 17 Nov 2023 freebie

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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @SaToSHiWoMaN 11 Mar outlawed

stackers have outlawed this. turn on wild west mode in your /settings to see outlawed content.