'Paying People To Work on Open Source is Good Actually'

Jacob Kaplan-Moss, one of the lead developers of Django, writes in a long post that he says has come from a place of frustration: Instead, every time a maintainer finds a way to get paid, people show up to criticize and complain. Non-OSI licenses 'don't count' as open source. Someone employed by Microsoft is 'beholden to corporate interests' and not to be trusted. Patreon is 'asking for handouts.' Raising money through GitHub sponsors is 'supporting Microsoft's rent-seeking.' VC funding means we're being set up for a 'rug pull' or 'enshitification.' Open Core is 'bait and switch.'

None of this is hypothetical; each of these examples are actual things I've seen said about maintainers who take money for their work. One maintainer even told me he got criticized for selling t-shirts! Look. There are absolutely problems with every tactic we have to support maintainers. It's true that VC investment comes with strings attached that often lead to problems down the line. It sucks that Patreon or GitHub (and Stripe) take a cut of sponsor money. The additional restrictions imposed by PolyForm or the BSL really do go against the Freedom 0 ideal. I myself am often frustrated by discovering that some key feature I want out of an open core tool is only available to paid licensees.

But you can criticize these systems while still supporting and celebrating the maintainers! Yell at A16Z all you like, I don't care. (Neither do they.) But yelling at a maintainer because they took money from a VC is directing that anger in the wrong direction. The structural and societal problems that make all these different funding models problematic aren't the fault of the people trying to make a living doing open source. It's like yelling at someone for shopping at Dollar General when it's the only store they have access to. Dollar General's predatory business model absolutely sucks, as do the governmental policies that lead to food deserts, but none of that is on the shoulders of the person who needs milk and doesn't have alternatives.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.