SF ads call out tech firms for not paying for open source
www.theregister.com
Puts Chief Tightwad Officers on notice
  • schizo@forum.uncomfortable.businessEnglish
    651·
    1 month ago

    I like this method of shaming corpos making piles of money on free labor much more than what a certain other open source CEO is currently trying.

    I’m just waiting for the ‘but we can’t afford it!’ lines to start coming out of these companies as their next excuse as to why they couldn’t possibly contribute back to the software that makes their entire business work.

    And, well, okay, but if your business doesn’t work unless you have the unpaid labor of thousands of volunteers, perhaps we don’t need you?

  • irotsoma@lemmy.worldEnglish
    321·
    1 month ago

    I don’t want their money. Money means they’ll feel even more like they own it. I want them to contribute code to the projects and stop violating copyleft licenses and share the code they are creating.

    • mox@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
      19·
      1 month ago

      I don’t want their money. Money means they’ll feel even more like they own it.

      I wonder if this could be avoided by having companies pay into funding pools instead of paying specific developers. Something like the Sovereign Tech Fund, perhaps with different structures or selection processes, might mitigate any sense of corporate entitlement.

  • peopleproblems@lemmy.worldEnglish
    12·
    1 month ago

    Weird. My employer is stupid strict about open source. I suspect it’s because we contribute a bit.

    Open source is usually preferred from a security and time to evaluate and implement standpoint, but it all needs to go through review to ensure we meet every licence agreement. This process can be annoying for some things and closed commercial products are used instead, who will happily sign business agreements in exchange for cash.

    Because this was such a barrier to open source adoption, they actually implemented a process of cataloging approved open source software allowing projects to get the correct licenses arranged quickly.

    Tech firms have no reason to abuse open source licensing, unless getting sued is cheaper than the software, which I suspect is largely not true, it’s just also expensive for the developer. Maybe we need some sort of union-like organization for open source developers with special commercial licensing that they can contribute union-like fees to for suing these shits.