Corporations and OSS Do Not Mix (coglib.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Ian Cordasco, a prolific open source developer, wrote a lengthy post about his experiences working on code that gets used by companies as part of their business. His basic thesis is that the open source development process is not particularly compatible with for-profit corporations, and having them involved frequently makes progress more difficult. "As soon as a bug affects them, they want it fixed immediately. If you don't fix it in 24 hours (because maybe you have a real life or a family or you're sick or any number of other very valid reasons) then the threats start." He adds, "When companies do 'contribute,' it's often not in the best interest of the community, it isn't enough, or it's thoroughly misguided." Cordasco is quick to note that there are exceptions, but he has an idea why the majority behave that way: "I don't have the complete answer, but one important point is that there is toxicity in the community, its leaders, and or its contributors, and the companies have learned their behavior from this toxicity." He provides a list of suggestions both for companies using open source software, and also some further reading on the subject from Ashe Dryden, David MacIver, and Cory Benfield.

Comments

Offer paid support?

[ArmoredDragon]

If somebody wants a fix for software that they haven't paid anything for, and they want it now, why not offer paid support on that one issue at a rate of $416 per hour? A 24 hour fix would place a cool $10,000 in your pocket. And if they don't want to, then tell them to hire somebody else to do it.

Re:Offer paid support?

[sribe]

If somebody wants a fix for software that they haven't paid anything for, and they want it now, why not offer paid support on that one issue at a rate of $416 per hour? A 24 hour fix would place a cool $10,000 in your pocket. And if they don't want to, then tell them to hire somebody else to do it.

Yeah, some people just have no sense at all when it comes to simple common-sense proposal of a win-win deal. As you said, that's exactly the way to approach a demand for an immediate bug fix, propose a working relationship and a price. If the company which has paid you nothing balks at paying, and threatens you in any way, simply offer them an immediate full refund in exchange for terminating the relationship ;-)

Re:Offer paid support?

[Clived]

Doesn't IBM and all the other big names who provide OSS products do this ?

Re:Offer paid support?

[ArmoredDragon]

I know RedHat does. If you don't have a contract with them, and you are a business, then they likely aren't going to bother with you. Now if you find a security vulnerability on the other hand, that's different, but if something doesn't work and you need it to work to fit a business need, they're going to want you to buy a contract.

Re:Offer paid support?

[Anonymous Coward]

I love this business model!
1. Create OSS software that does something expensive commercial software does, include many subtle bugs. Release it free to the world.
2. Wait for phone to start ringing from desperate suckers I mean cheap corporations.
3. Offer to fix the bugs quickly for a fee.
4. Go to bar, watch the big game with buddies.
5. The next day, release the patch that you created at the same time you wrote the original, flawed code.
6. Send invoice.
7. Profit!!!!

Re: Offer paid support?

[Anonymous Coward]

Any company is free to hire anyone they want to fix bugs.

Re:Offer paid support?

[jonnythan]

Because the corporation is "contributing" to the project in some way, and they feel entitled to have such bugs fixed in a short period of time.

No one cares if some random company using a piece of OSS demands a bug fix. That's not what this is about. This is about getting for-profit corporations getting involved somehow in a project, and then threatening to pull support if issues affecting them aren't resolved immediately.

Re:Offer paid support?

[Anonymous Coward]

If somebody wants a fix for software that they haven't paid anything for, and they want it now, why not offer paid support on that one issue at a rate of $416 per hour? A 24 hour fix would place a cool $10,000 in your pocket. And if they don't want to, then tell them to hire somebody else to do it.

Probably because developers have tried that scheme many times in the past and not gotten the actual work, instead it went to someone who was tied into something.

Re:Offer paid support?

[mark-t]

Presumably, they have chosen OSS over alternative projects in the first place for a reason, so them switching to another product just because a bug isn't fixed as soon as they might like would be their own loss on that level.

Re:Offer paid support?

[Anonymous Coward]

I love this business model!

1. Create OSS software that does something expensive commercial software does, include many subtle bugs. Release it free to the world.

2. Wait for phone to start ringing from desperate suckers I mean cheap corporations.

3. Offer to fix the bugs quickly for a fee.

4. Go to bar, watch the big game with buddies.

5. The next day, release the patch that you created at the same time you wrote the original, flawed code.

6. Send invoice.

7. Profit!!!!

Works for Redhat!

Re:Offer paid support?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, the idea behind open source is that you are smart enough to develop what you need. Getting into a project that you couldn't resolve a bug for would leave you a slave to that project.

Most of the time OSS developers stick with OSS because that's what was there when they didn't have any money to buy commercial software. That's because the commercial side did not pay them.

That used to be a training step to get into the commercial world, but the words professional and amateur have changed greatly in the recent past. Now with so much being available open source, it's hard to justify paying all the time. It is however important that you know what's going on. I think the key is working with simple projects that are well documented. Bug fixes only become a big deal with complicated software and it leads people to believe that some developers are building complicated software just for that reason.

This kind of explains it - https://twitter.com/vladon/status/659248116768645120

Re: Offer paid support?

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 10?

Re:Offer paid support?

[ClickOnThis]

Playing in the OSS world means others can see your code.

And that means others can see the hey-nonny-nonny you're conducting.

Best-case scenario: you're exposed as a profiteering scumbag, and your reputation is toast.

Re:Offer paid support?

[gnupun]

I know RedHat does. If you don't have a contract with them, and you are a business, then they likely aren't going to bother with you.

But what can RedHat provide that you don't already get from the kernel developers? Suppose there's a bug in the kernel, gcc or Apache, don't these product teams already release bug fixes? Why do we need RedHat to resolve the issue?

Re:Offer paid support?

[Anonymous Coward]

A quick fix. You pay to actually have somebody fix your problem.

On the other hand, relying on the community can be frustrating. For example, the Kernel developers will take months, even years (if ever) before they fix something if the broken feature is not really affecting anything of value to the majority of the community.

Re:Offer paid support?

[hjf]

Because it's really not the volunteers who develop linux. It's paid people. And, by far, the highest contributor is - guess - Red Hat.

Re: Offer paid support?

[Redmancometh]

I can make bugs that a team wouldnt catch from looking at code alone...c++ templating is incredibly powerful

Re:Offer paid support?

[drinkypoo]

No one cares if some random company using a piece of OSS demands a bug fix. That's not what this is about. This is about getting for-profit corporations getting involved somehow in a project, and then threatening to pull support if issues affecting them aren't resolved immediately.

So what? That's their right. If they want to go through that cycle and drop the library or whatever, fine. If the software had a reason to exist before them, it will continue to exist after them.

Re:Offer paid support?

[Anonymous Coward]

The The Underhanded C Contest is a nice practical example why having the source available doesn't mean that you easily can find and fix intentional bugs, even if you know that they are there.
At some point it is easier to just write your own in-house application.

Re:Offer paid support?

[johnnys]

Because business NEEDS to have the illusion that they "have a neck to choke" when something goes wrong, so they need to have a "contract" with a "company". I've heard this from the C-suite for years. (That is what Red Hat is selling, and why they're successful!)

It's nuts, really: Anyone who reads common software company contracts/EULAs knows that they have NO recourse if something goes wrong, but if they think they can somehow hang blame on a vendor if they have a problem, then that makes them feel safe.

In truth, the OSS model means that if something goes wrong and the vendor tells you to f**k off or goes bankrupt, you can find someone else to help you. If a closed-source vendor can't/won't help or goes under, you're screwed much harder.

Re: Offer paid support?

[nine-times]

I think the GP post was pointing out that if its FOSS, they can also compare the code before and after the fix, and see what the fox was. If you're frequently charging them for fixes that are suspiciously obscure-but-simple-to-fix, they're in a position to review the changes and call you out.

Re:Offer paid support?

[interval1066]

Because commercial software is always flawless.

Re:Offer paid support?

[sjames]

Volunteers and projects you haven't paid will prioritize bugs as they see fit. Yours may be at the bottom of the list. If you want your bug to have priority somewhere, you have the option to pay someone to at least act like they care about it most.

Re:Offer paid support?

[TheCarp]

This.

It has nothing to do with OSS.... its that a "software license" is not a fucking support contract. There is no expected level of service other than "it might get fixed if you are lucky". You paid nothing, you get to expect....nothing. Be greatful you do get any support at all.... because even "hey, glad to hear its working for you" is more than you contributed if all you did was download it.

OTOH, "Its OSS" is no excuse to not provide support if they did buy a support contract. Releasing software is also not all there is to living up to that.

However, in short.... "Free" doesn't mean "Free support and I work weekends too"

Re: Offer paid support?

[maugle]

Sadly, nearly all bugs fall into the category of "obscure, but simple to fix". Also, in my own experience, the bugs which have taken the longest to track down the root cause have also been the bugs whose fixes only required a couple keystrokes.

Re:Offer paid support?

[Anonymous Coward]

The other thing support contracts usually get you:
1) Contact with someone who knows the product well who can help analyze the issue and provide a fix or work around
2) Access to the company's collective pool of knowledge and talent (in the case where you complain the level one support rep is an untrained monkey)
3) Some escalation mechanism to get bugs reported and get work done on a code fix/patch for you

Re:Offer paid support?

[jbolden]

I sign corporate EULAs all the time and they most certainly do have recourse. For example there are indemnification clauses. Often there are guaranteed support SLAs. There are guarantees of being able to buy engineering support and architectural support. Don't confuse what you get for $500 with what you get for $500k-$20m.

Re:Offer paid support?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's nuts, really: Anyone who reads common software company contracts/EULAs knows that they have NO recourse if something goes wrong, but if they think they can somehow hang blame on a vendor if they have a problem, then that makes them feel safe.

There are clowns who think an EULA is the same as a support contract so I won't completely negate your point, however it isn't. When you have a proper support contract with RedHat (or even MS; there are plenty of companies which act like this), then you get quite specific commitments. Normally that means that, if you have a serious software problem which is undermining your business, somebody who has past experience developing the software you have problems with will be working full time to resolve your issue.

N.B. This probably works better if you are a big customer, however it seems that that is mostly a matter of communication (big customers have problems more often so they understand how to answer questions and the supplier tends to know them better anyway) rather than will.

Re: Offer paid support?

[HiThere]

Is that still true?

I remember a *long* time ago (Fortran IV, compiler written by the university that leased the computer) I had this truly horrendous bug where the value of 1 was set to 10. I eventually (*eventually*) traced it down to a '1' instead of an 'I' in a do loop.

I only ever found the error because of other problems caused by the loop not executing as a loop, but only as an assignment. I never did figure out what parse made than an assignment to '1' instead of to 'DO101' (i.e. 'DO 10 1', spaces aren't significant in Fortran IV).

Re:Offer paid support?

[HiThere]

RedHat does most to buy the Linux Ecosystem. It also supports some of the system developers, but I don't think it's the majority of the support.

Now it you were talking about Gnome, then I'd agree without question. And as someone else mentioned, systemd. Strangely, I haven't been happy with the direction that Gnome has been headed in the last several years, and I see no benefit in systemd. (I don't really see any big reason to avoid it, but I see no benefit. I wouldn't have even considered it if it hadn't been shoved into Debian.)

So while Red Hat is putting a lot of money into Linux, and using that money to steer development, I haven't been exceptionally happy with the *direction* that they've been steering the development.

Re:Offer paid support?

[Anonymous Coward]

WOW, holy shit that was a huge stretch to shoehorn in a systemd rant.

Re:Offer paid support?

[Billly Gates]

If somebody wants a fix for software that they haven't paid anything for, and they want it now, why not offer paid support on that one issue at a rate of $416 per hour? A 24 hour fix would place a cool $10,000 in your pocket. And if they don't want to, then tell them to hire somebody else to do it.

Alright you're fired!

Re:Offer paid support?

[Billly Gates]

If somebody wants a fix for software that they haven't paid anything for, and they want it now, why not offer paid support on that one issue at a rate of $416 per hour? A 24 hour fix would place a cool $10,000 in your pocket. And if they don't want to, then tell them to hire somebody else to do it.

Yeah, some people just have no sense at all when it comes to simple common-sense proposal of a win-win deal. As you said, that's exactly the way to approach a demand for an immediate bug fix, propose a working relationship and a price. If the company which has paid you nothing balks at paying, and threatens you in any way, simply offer them an immediate full refund in exchange for terminating the relationship ;-)

Why should they? You promised and lied it would work. THey are already paying you $60,000 a year and you agreed to it in return for 100% uptime. There is no budget for $416 an hour. That budget for support goes to you!

I think you geeks wouldn't last long at my company :-) If you can't resolve a critical issue you are fired. No questions asked. We have to bill our customers for any downtime by large large sums of money and you are 100% at fault if you did a change unapproved and if you have some clout to implement it and it fails you are shit up the creek as why are we paying you money if you can't perform your job?

Sorry geeks but PHB MBA types are assholes who do not get or understand tech or geek issues with liberties. They just want to make money and pay you as a COG black box to make problems go away so business can continue as normal.

That is reality that many do not grasp. Maybe I work for a not so good employer? Maybe who cares as they are no different than anyone else with deadlines. That is what we all must do to keep our cars and homes for a paycheck.

Re:Offer paid support?

[Anonymous Coward]

And that is the great failing of FOSS, the group with the most money/resources controls the project and while it is theoretically possible to fork and maintain it in a different direction it is most often impractical to do so. Even Linux, the biggest one with the most vibrant developer and user community, fails at it.

Re:Offer paid support?

[prezkennedy.org]

In both cases, the parent and grandparent to whom you were replying were talking from the standpoint of an open source developer, not a company employee.

Sounds like you work for a great company though. Other than the constant pressure to perform and the low pay...

Re:Offer paid support?

[greenfruitsalad]

i used to be an adventurer like you. then i took systemd to my systems.

Just like you I hated the idea of systemd. Now, I put it everywhere I can. Sure I don't like the extra functions it's supposed to take over, but as an init system, it is more elegant than anything else on gnu/linux. The only difference between systemd's and Solaris SMF's philosophy is that solaris programmers knew when to stop adding features.

Re:Offer paid support?

[greenfruitsalad]

No matter what you sign, it is your job that's on the line, not theirs. My experience is primarily with Nexenta (SAN solutions provider), Juniper (network equipment), Dell and tier 1/2 connectivity providers. With all of them we pay for the highest possible support level. When part of our business stops because of a fault/bug with their product/service, they behave as if the word NOW meant at your leisure. Every single one of them does this. I submit a report and they guarantee a response within X hours. So what happens? They respond with the least possible effort 1 minute before hour X.

So I pick up the phone and start the usual ritual of "get me somebody who knows more about your product than i do". Followed by "No, that's not you. No, not even you. Still not you. Maybe you." And it all ends with "No, i am not interested in testing 5 different options and reporting back, I don't work for you. You f*cking test stuff and give me a result that works."

the only solution to problems is having robustness as an architectural requirement.

Re:Offer paid support?

[gstoddart]

Why should they? You promised and lied it would work. THey are already paying you $60,000 a year and you agreed to it in return for 100% uptime. There is no budget for $416 an hour. That budget for support goes to you!

Where the hell are you seeing this in the article?

I'm seeing "corporations use free software, give back a little, expect 24x7 support for nothing".

What the hell are you talking about?

Re:Offer paid support?

[nctritech]

The fatal flaw with this argument is the assumption that knowledgeable people are looking at your code in the first place and that they have the time to sit there and audit your code in depth. I'm sure it happens but I doubt it happens very often. The somewhat recent and highly publicized OpenSSL bugs reminds us that "all bugs are shallow" only when enough experienced people are looking hard and long enough, but rarely in the real world (especially in such a "deep and wide" field like programming) can we expect such optimal conditions to occur.

Re:Offer paid support?

[rhyous]

Might get away with it for a short time, but soon, you get f***ed. Calm down. By f***ed I mean "forked" but you knew that right? What did you think I meant? Oh, that. Well, you'll probably get that too if you try this model.

Re:Offer paid support?

[HiThere]

It is, indeed, probably the greatest failing. But can you even propose a workable system that does better on this point? (And it's certainly not the only failing. But that doesn't mean that any other approach would work better.)

Re:Offer paid support?

[ebvwfbw]

Institutionalized at Microsoft.

Re:Offer paid support?

[silentcoder]

Heck even on something as simple as licensing it can happen. Way back in the 1990s when SGI open-sourced OpenGL there was one tiny bit of code they didn't own and couldn't replace. They managed to get an agreement with the owners that would allow them to *include* it with the LGPL'd release, but not under the same license.
They contacted the FSF and discussed the problem - promising to continue to negotiate to ultimately gain the LGPL licensing or ownership of that crucial piece. The FSF basically told them to go ahead and release and "keep it an in-house secret" - which luckily the unknown third-party also agreed to.

For more than 10 years there was a piece of non-free code in the middle of the openGL code-base with a third-party owner who still had the potential rights to assert any copyright wishes they wanted to over it, like an aligator in a swamp and only a few people in the world knew about it, and they kept quiet (directX was doing well and a free alternative was desperately needed - so it was tactically the best way forward).

Eventually the third party relented and LGPL'd their code and only then was it made public (along with a request to everybody to please install the latest update right away as technically the license on any previous openGL imlementations were invalid).

Re:Offer paid support?

[silentcoder]

Not to mention if the fix would violate one of their cardinal rules. For example if it breaks userspace for somebody else.
The fix you desperately want on your server could be delayed for years because the best available implementation right now can break pulse-audio one some obscure sound card and affect a tiny percentage of desktop users in a negative way.

There is no reason you can't have it as a local patch but no way in hell will that go into the mainline kernel until somebody finds a way of resolving that conflict.

Re:Offer paid support?

[silentcoder]

So you're the one...

I worked extensively on Solaris admin for a few years... and had to learn SMF. The worst POS init system I ever had to deal with (and I was also adminning a half dozen different version of HPUX and even 2 DEC Alpha's running Tru64 at the time).

Going and copying that hellhole in linux is not a plus in my book.

I honestly think upstart or openRC were better alternatives to SysV but something inspired by SMF ? No thank you.

Re:Offer paid support?

[tepples]

I think you geeks wouldn't last long at my company :-) If you can't resolve a critical issue you are fired. No questions asked.

How much does the company spend on onboarding new hires to replace someone who failed to resolve a critical issue and took all his experience with him?

scrapping the bottom

[Anonymous Coward]

So Slashdot is basically scraping reddit/r/programming at this point for anything interesting? Or maybe just reddit. Maybe I will just cut out the middle man

from the article:

[turkeydance]

"No one is asking companies to endure a significant financial burden in order to contribute back." c'mon, man. it ain't gonna happen on its own.

Re:from the article:

[Anonymous Coward]

"No one is asking companies to endure a significant financial burden in order to contribute back." c'mon, man. it ain't gonna happen on its own.

That would only make sense if the reason they were enduring a significant financial burden was either because they were A) having to hire developers only to "contribute back" or B) losing sales of software by open sourcing their product.

A can't be true because B proves they already have developers working on software (they could just release the code)

B can't be true because it would mean that A they are hiring developers to make a product which means that if they hired more to make another product then they would just be making a product.

At this point it's not about repeating the same "product" over and over, it's about the fact that the number of "products" is limiting to oneself.

Remember, most Open Source developers are developing out of boredom... probably because they haven't been able to make enough cash to do something else (due to the pre-existing relationships most corporate developers have)... the OS guys are locked out of the market...

Threats?

[iTrawl]

What threats? (I didn't RTFA yet). Start with the warranty disclaimer that you attached to your licence in capital letters. Then, if they "contribute", tell them nicely to fork off (the technical term, not the innuendo) and, if their fork is actually any good, they should ask you to merge their changes, which you will if they're not bullshit.

If they keep kicking and screaming like baby lawyers, submit for their review a support contract. Make sure your rate is in the "highly paid consultant" range - you might even get away with it, as at that point you'd be speaking _their_ language.

Re:Threats?

[iTrawl]

I suspect most open source projects never hear anything at all from most of the users: I've directly or indirectly used work from many hundreds of such projects for sure, and only contacted several of them.

And that is OK! You give back only if you have something to give back. You don't "give back" just for the sake of it (like the "add another period to a sentence" pull request exemplified in TFA). To me, just the opportunity to give back when I can do so is more valuable than "submit bug report to Closed Source Inc and wait until my beard hits the ground".

Time and expertise is something we all have and no government can ever put in a central bank short of imitating North Korea or Foxconn. It's a "Pay It Forward" economy.

Re:Threats?

[TheRaven64]

As an opensource developer, do you really see someone as choosing to use another project as a problem?

Nope. Open source and proprietary alike care about contributors, not users. In off-the-shelf proprietary software, the (non-pirate) users are all contributors, because they all pay money. In open source, there are a lot of ways to contribute (code, testing, bug reports, documentation, artwork, and so on, as well as money), but users only matter inasmuch as they're real or potential contributors. Some users are negative contributors - they make a lot of demands, but give nothing back. The project is usually better off without them.

If the company is providing a significant contribution, then they may well expect something in return. Often, it's just the continued survival of the project, but if they want more then you should make sure that both parties agree on what the contribution is buying. If they're going to throw money at you, then they might reasonable assume that they've paid for some of your time to be spent on issues that matter to them. If you don't want to accept these terms, then having them use another project is probably better for both of you.

Re:Threats?

[BarbaraHudson]

The threat is to move to using another OSS project. Of course, that other project probably have maintainers working under the same constraints, so the problem won't go away magically. When someone threatens to do that, the proper response is "I'm good with that. Which one are you switching to?" They probably haven't done the research to evaluate other products, or, if they have, they haven't found something compelling enough to make the switch. Call their bluff. The only thing you have to lose is someone who thinks that making threats is the right way to ask someone a favor.

They know it will cost them money to switch. That's part of the cost of being a dick.

Re:Threats?

[Anonymous Coward]

But some demands can help the developers get an idea of where their project needs improvement. Of course, I mean demands like 'this image editor doesn't blend colors correctly' or 'we need canvas rotation' or 'having to go to Export to save as a different file format is dumb and frustrating,' not 'this image editor doesn't look exactly like photoshop and can't open this proprietary patent-encumbered file format.'

Re:Threats?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's just idealizing the scenario to work in your favor. Do you have any evidence that your assertions about what they would do, what the results would be and how they would react are actually valid? And dont just come up with some anonymous unverifiable anecdote.

Whenever these FOSS discussions come up there is always some armchair commentator who has no practical experience telling everybody that it's really simple and you just do XYZ. But the reality is not like that at all and that is the reason these sorts of problems arise.

Re:Threats?

[Anonymous Coward]

What threats? (I didn't RTFA yet).

(Score: 2, Interesting).. lol slashdot...

Re:Threats?

[BarbaraHudson]

What's your problem? It's not like he's getting anything in return from the complainer - or did you not read the story? Basically, he's doing this on his own time, on his own dime. If someone started threatening me under those circumstances, I would say "Please do, I don't need the aggravation." As would most people. The business making the threats needs to learn not to look a gift horse in the mouth. Or if they're not satisfied, hire their own programmers.

Re:Threats?

[Anonymous Coward]

The business making the threats needs to learn not to look a gift horse in the mouth.

And what is the business? This is my point the article attributes that quote to nobody, was it even real or just made up? Obviously anybody can see that such a thing would be a completely empty threat that makes no sense at all.

Re:Threats?

[BarbaraHudson]

The business making the threats needs to learn not to look a gift horse in the mouth.

And what is the business? This is my point the article attributes that quote to nobody, was it even real or just made up? Obviously anybody can see that such a thing would be a completely empty threat that makes no sense at all.

People make hollow threats all the time, in case you haven't notice.

Re:Threats?

[Anonymous Coward]

People make hollow threats all the time, in case you haven't notice.

Hollow threats sure but not ones that have no impact or effect even if followed through. I would be very surprised to see that a company actually was "threatening" a developer to stop using their free project but of course the quote is not attributed to anybody at all.

Re:Threats?

[BarbaraHudson]

Here's a hollow threat that had no impact: My last boss wanted the source to an application I had developed at home on my own time, and much of it was developed even before I started there. I let him use the binary, but somehow he believed he had the right to work that wasn't paid for and mostly done before I ever knew him. He threatened to call the police and have me arrested for theft because I wouldn't give him the source, but there was no way I could have developed it at the company because they didn't have the right tools, so I told him to go ahead, call the police. He kept threatening, I kept saying "Do it or I will." Totally hollow threat made by a company. Then he changed to another threat, and I sicced the authorities on him :-)

Simple rule - you get what you pay for - and ONLY that.

Re:Threats?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah yes of course, the anonymous unverifiable anecdote, much like the unattributed quote in TFA.

Re:Threats?

[BarbaraHudson]

Certainly not anonymous, unlike you, and certainly verifiable - I quit and sicced the feds on him and they yanked his corporate charter.. He paid to have it revived, they granted him a grace period, he didn't meet it and they dissolved it permanently.

Just because most people will just role over doesn't mean I have to - I am certainly not like "most people." I was going blind at the time, so I really wasn't in the mood to be screwed around with.

Threats?

[Anonymous Coward]

The listed threat is "Well if you're not going to take this seriously, we'll have to start using another project."

As an opensource developer, do you really see someone as choosing to use another project as a problem? They aren't contributing anything apparently. If they are being a pain in the ass, is them "threatening" to stop messiness with you really something to be afraid of? At least they reported an issue, and let you know why were using your software: that's more than you usually get (I suspect most open source projects never hear anything at all from most of the users: I've directly or indirectly used work from many hundreds of such projects for sure, and only contacted several of them).

Toxicity, of course.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, when you start throwing around suppositions that reveal a bias against the OSS leadership for being "toxic", I don't see much credibility in your opinion. Why not blame cosmic rays while you're at it? It's one thing to suggest "we can do better", but quite another to just pretend that it's the fault of people you clearly don't like. You and everyone else is relying on their work to a staggering degree, and now you talk like an usurper who wants to blame the software creators instead of the monied interests who don't have an incentive to contribute back, because some alleged asshole is doing it for free already.

Re:Toxicity, of course.

[Dracos]

This problem isn't toxicity in the OSS community, it's toxic expectations of the corporate world. They wrongly (for almost all projects) expect OSS software to have the same support mechanisms and turnaround times in place as the proprietary systems they're used to, and think they can strongarm one or a few individuals into solving problems they could likely easily fix themselves and release a patch to the authors. Their main misunderstanding is that unlike expensive proprietary software, OSS is not supposed to be a one way street.

Chances are most of this would go away if the OSS software in question had an explicit disclaimer of warranty and fitness for purpose.

Re:Toxicity, of course.

[Anonymous Coward]

Chances are most of this would go away if the OSS software in question had an explicit disclaimer of warranty and fitness for purpose.

From the GPL 3.0: THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM “AS IS” WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.

"Toxic" is SJW talk for someone who doesn't kneel before them. If companies shied away from open source because not all devs want to be walked over by dykes no company would have a marketing dept because the people there are even more "toxic".

Re:Toxicity, of course.

[Anonymous Coward]

No there is no problem. It's just shit stirrers trying to stir shit or drum up click-bait.

Re:Toxicity, of course.

[Anonymous Coward]

Having done a lot of business software engineering, I can tell you that most proprietary systems have atrocious support, to the point where if one breaks people generally just try to work around it. Unless you're a really big player like Microsoft or Oracle, your complaints just get ignored. Your contact won't even file a bug report and the problem will never ever get fixed and that's just the way it is.

Re:Toxicity, of course.

[quantaman]

Yeah, when you start throwing around suppositions that reveal a bias against the OSS leadership for being "toxic", I don't see much credibility in your opinion. Why not blame cosmic rays while you're at it? It's one thing to suggest "we can do better", but quite another to just pretend that it's the fault of people you clearly don't like. You and everyone else is relying on their work to a staggering degree, and now you talk like an usurper who wants to blame the software creators instead of the monied interests who don't have an incentive to contribute back, because some alleged asshole is doing it for free already.

I think toxicity does exist but it's not really a fault of the developers as much as the medium.

If you work in an office and are able to talk to your co-workers directly it's pretty easy to have good relationships. There's lot of opportunity to talk about pleasant non-work stuff, the proximity incentivizes you to keep things civil, and when you do disagree you have body language and tone to help get your point across.

If you turn to an email only relationship all of these things are gone. There's not a lot of opportunity to bond over non-work items, the fact you never see the other person physically means it doesn't matter much if you piss them off, and if you need to communicate something you need to be very blunt.

Online communications will invariably have a much stronger bias towards assholery.

Re:Toxicity, of course.

[Zontar The Mindless]

I think toxicity does exist but it's not really a fault of the developers as much as the medium.

If you work in an office and are able to talk to your co-workers directly it's pretty easy to have good relationships. There's lot of opportunity to talk about pleasant non-work stuff, the proximity incentivizes you to keep things civil, and when you do disagree you have body language and tone to help get your point across.

If you turn to an email only relationship all of these things are gone. There's not a lot of opportunity to bond over non-work items, the fact you never see the other person physically means it doesn't matter much if you piss them off, and if you need to communicate something you need to be very blunt.

Online communications will invariably have a much stronger bias towards assholery.

I have 10+ years working in a highly (internationally) distributed environment that says it doesn't have to be that way.

Re:Toxicity, of course.

[serviscope_minor]

They wrongly (for almost all projects) expect OSS software to have the same support mechanisms and turnaround times in place as the proprietary systems they're used to,

Unless you pay OUTRAGEOUS amounts of money for support contracts on proprietary software, then you get turnaround times somewhere between days and never. That includes things with trivial fixes like "you sent me the wrong fucking license key AGAIN".

They're not used to magical fast proprietary turnaround times unless they are Very Large Companies paying for Very Expensive Software across the board. They're just being entitled dicks.

Chances are most of this would go away if the OSS software in question had an explicit disclaimer of warranty and fitness for purpose.

Just about every OSS license has one of those.

Re:Toxicity, of course.

[phayes]

Just how big is your project compared to Linux? There is little point in comparing poppy seeds and coconuts and size has a tendency to enhance trends.

Re:Toxicity, of course.

[Cederic]

Hmm. I find that support contracts with defined response times and escalation procedures tend to result in suppliers meeting those expectations.

Sure, there's always the odd bug that takes weeks to fix, but on the flipside there's the unpaid 24h phone calls that they throw in for free to help assure successful resolution of a major issue - even when it's not their software at fault.

You need to get better at managing your suppliers.

Re:Toxicity, of course.

[Anonymous Coward]

No True Scotsman, fyi.

Re:Toxicity, of course.

[Billly Gates]

Yada yada

Best beer buddies or ot if they can't do their job because you can't do yours and fix it gloves are off. Assholery seems universal in the IT field as we are in the end a cost of goods sold machine who are there to make sure they make money. Nothing more. Sorry but respect is not their for IT unless you work for a .com and actually generate the revenue.

Maybe my soul has been broken. BUt I had hell last week with people throwing me under the bus by not following procedures and overloading my team. Beer buddies didn't count as the MBAs jobs were on the line and they documented things to make sure just myself was on the line etc.

Anyway in business things need to be agreed and documented in support and money.

Re:Toxicity, of course.

[Anonymous Coward]

This problem isn't toxicity in the OSS community, it's toxic expectations of the corporate world.

It's also the fault of overzealous FOSS evangelists. Hearing that you won't be beholden to a particular vendor and won't have licensing costs or need software audits sounds great but what they often neglect to tell you is that you are no longer a customer so you no longer hold sway over any vendor. If you want something fixed or added it is going to cost you...in most cases a LOT! Whether that is contracting out the development or employing maintainers in-house.

They wrongly (for almost all projects) expect OSS software to have the same support mechanisms and turnaround times in place as the proprietary systems they're used to

Right.

and think they can strongarm one or a few individuals into solving problems they could likely easily fix themselves and release a patch to the authors.

As a customer they could strongarm the vendor, with FOSS they cannot do that. And don't pretend they could just easily fix bugs themselves...not every company has a software development department, much less one well-versed enough to adapt to fixing any problem in any product. Also don't pretend contracting developers and providing them the requisite documentation and feature specifications is at all easy or cheap.

Their main misunderstanding is that unlike expensive proprietary software, OSS is not supposed to be a one way street.

Their (and your) misunderstanding is that proprietary software is comparatively "expensive". Employing or contracting people to develop software and features for you is usually much more expensive that licensing fees.

OSS is not compatible with businessmen.

[IBitOBear]

The core problem isn't that OSS is incomparable with "business", it is only incomparable with the business of "selling software".

OTOH, I spent several hours going round-and-round with my brother inlaw. He runs/owns a company that installs business solutions (computers and software) into other businesses. He was all "I could never make money on open source platforms" using linux as the O.S. because it's free. But he readily admitted that installing Windows had a zero profit margin because of licensing.

There is also the ready admission that having a Windows service contract (again sold a essentially zero markup because of the licenses) doesn't garantee that Microsoft will issue you a patch if you complain about a problem. You are basically just paying up front for the chance to be told to work around a problem or the "opportunity" for an unsupported patch that you'll have to buy again if you upgrade.

Business men have no idea how to deal with OSS because they tend to mimic others and very few have ever done it. The idea of having a line item for zero-dollars that already had zero markup when the line item was non-zero dollars, is mystifying.

So here's this smart guy running a services business, but unable to see how he could charge to service OSS. But companies service OSS all the time.

The true failure, deeper in, is the idea that every incremental correction and modification is precious and must be hoarded and monetized.

And further in still is the complete failure to understand things like the up-front cost of a GPL project base is "disclosure", and that disclosure of those incremental changes is very cheap. Compare embedding linux kernels in things to the up-front and per-unit costs of Wince or VxWorks. Then really _think_ about how non-money-value your fix to that one serial driver really is compared to the item you wan to sell.

Companies tend to forget which businesses they are _not_ in. Selling software is not sustainable, but selling experience (games) and experience (professional expertese) are. So is selling "devices".

So its a problem made up of compounded risk adversity multiplied by inherently unimaginative "business thinking".

Re:OSS is not compatible with businessmen.

[Anonymous Coward]

The core problem isn't that OSS is incomparable with "business", it is only incomparable with the business of "selling software".

...

Umm, Red Hat has a market cap of $14.81 BILLION dollars.

But don't let reality get in the way of your rants.

They're hilarious.

Re:OSS is not compatible with businessmen.

[bws111]

Market cap means nothing, and is only cited by idiots. Red Hat does NOT sell software, they sell service.

Re:OSS is not compatible with businessmen.

[unixisc]

RedHat's market cap does not contradict the GP's point, since RedHat makes its money more w/ support contracts than software sales.

The real issue about the submission is that companies have to find a way to fund OSS development, if they don't already. There are 3 ways: actual software sales, hardware sales to cover software support (which is what Sun used to do and what Apple does today) and the third is support contracts. The first one works to a limited extent, since anyone is free to redistribute. The second is something that Intel and other hardware companies do, but their only interest in such projects is in supporting their hardware drivers. The last one is support contracts, and here, whoever is supporting the OSS had better have a tight control over the project.

OSS by its very nature is an undertaking that would end up being controlled by its main authors, or whoever is doing the most work on it - and usually, it ain't the 'community'. Just like Chromium is controlled by Google or FreeBSD by IXSystems. There ain't too many outside them who do much there. So if any entity requires certain parts of a project to be expedited, they have to be the ones controlling things. Usually, in the process, when it comes to dedicating their own software developers and releasing their own software patents in order to enable them to be used here, that brings into conflict the OSS project's goals vs their own. Particularly if any of the moves involves ceding competitive advantages that they have over their competition.

Re:OSS is not compatible with businessmen.

[Anonymous Coward]

You are forgetting about branding, just look how long something lasts as a brand name once it's products turn bad.

There has to be some respect for that, and that respect certainly is not coming in the form of money for open source developers. Meanwhile, there's no real source of barter either.

There's an obvious taking advantage of when it comes to open source developers, it has a lot more to do with language than it does with code.

I really don't have a strong answer for why that discussion doesn't happen.

Re:OSS is not compatible with businessmen.

[Anonymous Coward]

The core problem isn't that OSS is incomparable with "business", it is only incomparable with the business of "selling software".

...

Umm, Red Hat has a market cap of $14.81 BILLION dollars.

But don't let reality get in the way of your rants.

They're hilarious.

Do you think they got there just selling software?

Do you realize the timing they had with linux? The number of people who bought RedHat as a CD set at versions 5 or 6 and branded linux itself as RedHat?

Re:OSS is not compatible with businessmen.

[Kjella]

And further in still is the complete failure to understand things like the up-front cost of a GPL project base is "disclosure", and that disclosure of those incremental changes is very cheap. Compare embedding linux kernels in things to the up-front and per-unit costs of Wince or VxWorks. Then really _think_ about how non-money-value your fix to that one serial driver really is compared to the item you wan to sell.

But that's pretending software already does 99,9% of the things you want to do. The reality is that for me, personally it's either Windows @ $109 and MS Office @ $149 or Linux and LibreOffice + $258 in custom development and that's not even a week's worth of minimum wage, much less a software professional at contracting rates. The burden is put on the one who commissions the code, but the benefits go to everyone. Sure there's crowdsourcing but then you're not in control of what happens and the incentive is still to wait and see if you can get somebody else to pay, while buying a finished solution you can test it and see that it works to your needs. It's not the disclosure that's being sold cheap, it's the accumulated value of refined, battle tested code that is given away for free to those who have contributed nothing to its existence.

Don't get me wrong, I get that's in the spirit of open/free software but it that doesn't change the fact that the per-copy charge helps distribute the development costs across more users who usually got some value from of the developments made, even though they wouldn't have carried the cost themselves. With open source, every time you run into a rough edge you usually have to apply the polish yourself, which is why many say "Linux is only free if your time is worthless", they all take some of your time but how much time matters. The good news is that you have the source and can always in theory fix it, but you can still burn a lot of money doing it.

Re:OSS is not compatible with businessmen.

[gnupun]

The core problem isn't that OSS is incomparable with "business", it is only incomparable with the business of "selling software".

This guy is releasing free software but he acts like he's a hybrid free/paid type developer. Some of his statements:

Not once has a company said to me:

        "This bug is costing us $X per day. Can we pay you $Y to focus on it and get a fix out as soon as possible?"

I've also never demanded this. It would be nice, but it never happens.

This type of thinking is that of paid software developers, not free software developers. Of course, they're not going to pay you $Y to fix it... it's free! Why should someone be required to pay for something that's free? This guy has an implicit expectation that he should be paid for any extra service, even though bug-fixing is a normal and natural part of software development, nothing something special and extra. Just release commercial software and be done with it instead of playing these passive aggressive games, or state up-front that you charge $1000 to fix any urgent issue.

Re:OSS is not compatible with businessmen.

[serviscope_minor]

Well done for condescendly making the parent's point while claiming he's wrong.

RedHat sell expertise (i.e. support). If you just want the software, you can get it for free from CentOS.

Re:OSS is not compatible with businessmen.

[phayes]

Only an idiot would overlook that support which is to say services is precisely the thing TFA was pretending to complain about.

Re:OSS is not compatible with businessmen.

[swb]

I work in what amounts to version of your brother's business, and as far as I know, we do make money on Windows licensing, mostly because our partnership level with Microsoft pretty much guarantees we get a better wholesale price than most other resellers.

The product category I hear the most gripes about is hardware. Some has terrific margins, some has lousy margins.

I also hear mixed stories about service labor. Labor is usually the most expensive part of any business, so I'm told we make more money on managed services -- where lower-end guys make sure backups actually ran and miscellaneous tasks -- than higher end services. The labor rate is higher for higher end services, but project management and client inefficiency and higher labor costs for high end services make it less profitable. It gets balanced out somewhat because the overall higher end project almost always includes higher end software and hardware with more markup.

I don't know how open source fits in here. It would sound like it should be more service revenue, but in places deploying Microsoft stuff they don't have developers to work on it and IMHO for anything up to midsize businesses deploying non-customized applications and infrastructure,

I don't see how there's more service revenue to be made. It seems like there should be, if the software is free and the extra service associated with it would just come out of what wasn't paid for the software, but the labor costs are so high that it doesn't take too many hours. But I think a lot of customers balk at the no-name nature of open source software as well as the notion they're getting something "free" (which must be lower value) and paying more for labor -- it sounds like a scam.

Re:OSS is not compatible with businessmen.

[Anonymous Coward]

But he readily admitted that installing Windows had a zero profit margin because of licensing.

For years I worked side-by-side with professionals who do exactly that and presumably most, if not all, of the other Windows-centric systems consulting services your brother-in-law does, and I have to say: He's doing it wrong. If he's in the MS partnership program appropriate to his business, then there's licensing margin there for his company. If he's not partnered with MS, then it's his own fault for not taking advantage of that opportunity.

Selling software is not sustainable...

And yet I've known plenty of people making a living at that very activity, and not only selling specialized or vertical market stuff. Is it on the say out? Maybe. Of course, I've been hearing that for at least a decade...

- T

Re:OSS is not compatible with businessmen.

[Gryle]

He's making the point that he doesn't owe these companies his time merely by liscencing some software to them. These are not companies merely submitting bug reports. These are companies screaming at this guy to drop whatever he is doing and fix their issue right now, as if they are somehow entitled to his immediate and undivided attention at no cost.

Re:OSS is not compatible with businessmen.

[IBitOBear]

Didn't read very closely. I said "selling software" was insupportable but selling experience (e.g. professional expertese) [which is "service"] does work.

I was complaining that a business man who was already in the job of selling service for a zero-markup product (windows) couldn't seem to understand how selling service for a zero-dollar-cost OSS operating system was identical. Said business man was mentally caught on the horns of the word "Free" rather than being open to the fact that its the exact same transaction for his bottom line (but without the licensing compliance hassle and cost).

If you couldn't figure out that the "few" who do understand the model and sell the service _included_ RedHat...

Well your "only an idiot" comment just lays there on your plate like a dead crow waiting to be eaten.

Re:OSS is not compatible with businessmen.

[Anonymous Coward]

There is also the ready admission that having a Windows service contract (again sold a essentially zero markup because of the licenses) doesn't garantee that Microsoft will issue you a patch if you complain about a problem. You are basically just paying up front for the chance to be told to work around a problem or the "opportunity" for an unsupported patch that you'll have to buy again if you upgrade.

It's the exact same thing with RedHat and Canonical support contracts and don't pretend you can just go to some other group for a comparable level of expertise.

Business men have no idea how to deal with OSS because they tend to mimic others and very few have ever done it.

No it is because the cost benefit simply is not there. They use OSS in many areas where it makes sense like backend fileservers, web servers, embedded devices, etc...but of course they aren't going to replace their Windows PCs with Linux for example because all their software runs on Windows (as does pretty much all the software that runs on Linux) so eliminating the license cost for the potential screw around of not being able to run essential software is not worth it. Same goes for companies the widely use iPads rather than some free software alternative (and no, Android devices certainly are not).

The sell has been "hey no more license costs, OSS is cheap!" so when they get stung with having to contract developers to fix problems or employ developers this runs counter the original sell.

So here's this smart guy running a services business, but unable to see how he could charge to service OSS. But companies service OSS all the time.

Depends on where it is. If it's the backend then sure but if it's the company's desktops then obviously you don't want to say "oh yeah that whole setup is incompatible with most of your software so you need to change all of that too and retrain your people as well".

How do you think this is going to go down at an engineering or architectural or design or consulting or building or estimating or multimedia production, etc. firm? "Hey sorry you cant run your CAD, CAM, CAE, sim, image, audio, video, viz, etc. applications because they arent compatible". Sure he didn't make any money on the Windows license just like he didnt with the free OS but the former had a lot more value to the company.

Re:OSS is not compatible with businessmen.

[phayes]

Lol, all that rerationalization from a single line, eh? Naah, you're just a twit attempting to avoid being called out for being transparently wrong.

Re:OSS is not compatible with businessmen.

[IBitOBear]

If you don't know how to read plain text there's nothing anybody can do to help you. Time will handle you. I'd "lol" you but ignorance is dangerous so your failings are not even funny.

Re:OSS is not compatible with businessmen.

[phayes]

My apologies, I replied to the twit throwing around "idiot" & mistook your reply as his. I agree with your positions, not his.

Clueless whining

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I RTFA. At least until the "Woe is me!" whingeing made me stop.

For example:

This is because the company wanted to invest as little time in the problem as possible so the person couldn't fix the tests, write new ones, or write a real fix. I don't blame the engineer, I blame their manager and their company. If the project is that important to them, they should have let the engineer spend a few hours, fix the bug the right way and follow the guidelines outlined in the contributor's documentation.

This clueless twit reflexively blames crappy fixes and failure to follow his guidelines on "their manager and their company", and not the rock-brain of a developer. He needs to actually try managing developers himself some day, then he'd realize the developers do a wonderful job of failing to follow guidelines and submitting crappy fixes all on their own.

TFA is full of crap like that.

Seems a bit overblown

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like some bullshit. As someone who works in IT for a major corporation and has to deal with bugs that affect us in COTS software (such as MS Windows and MS Office), threatening people after 24 hours would be ridiculous. If the issue is currently unknown, expect a minimum of 2 weeks with a norm of more like 2 months for a fix - if the vendor will even agree to fix it. Why would a corporation threaten some OSS developer? It just doesn't scan and seems like BS.

Re:Seems a bit overblown

[mysidia]

Why would a corporation threaten some OSS developer?

Because they're scared, and don't have the right expertise in their company to deal with the situation, also they don't have any consultant who can help them, And the bug is an unmitigatable remotely-exploitable 0Day in the web application framework used on their main e-commerce website with public exploit code but no patch, so that's an act of desperation and demonstration of internal management incompetence (not having competent staff or agreements in place to deal with the impact of a bug).

Re:Seems a bit overblown

[Anonymous Coward]

Does sound like these people being over-entitled. If I've been working under a really stupid deadline where the only fix I can do is a bit of a hack, then I'll make my own branch of whatever project and do it.

Re:Seems a bit overblown

[tomhath]

Why would a corporation threaten some OSS developer? It just doesn't scan and seems like BS.

It depends on what was meant by "corporation". It sounds like some hotshot millennial who started his own Next Big Thing and thinks he owns the world. The best response to that type is "Don't hit yourself with the door on the way out".

Re:Seems a bit overblown

[stephanruby]

It is indeed bs. This developer has a super low threshold for what he considers to be a threat.

If you don't fix it in 24 hours (because maybe you have a real life or a family or you're sick or any number of other very valid reasons) then the threats start.
  "Well if you're not going to take this seriously, we'll have to start using another project."

So what? It's not like his project can satisfy everyone. Also, it's not like he's going to lose any revenue as a result of this action.

If he wants to talk about real threats, then he should try publishing a mobile app on an app store. There, the users are absolutely ruthless. And it doesn't matter if the app is paid, or free, or open source, or proprietary, or painted pink, or whatever... If your app has a feature (that some users consider to be missing), users will not only uninstall your app right away, but they'll also rate your application only one star until their particular feature request gets implemented.

And such reviews don't get posted 24 hours after the fact, they get posted within a few seconds or a few minutes of having tried your app (and in some cases, they even get posted within a few seconds of having read the app's description because the description and the screenshots themselves may be able to show the user what features the app has).

And when this happens to you, you don't start making sweeping generalizations about open source vs. proprietary software. The fact is, the more popular your app is, the bigger the sample size of users it's going to have, and the bigger the sample size of users it's going to have, the more you'll have to read through negative reviews posted by self-centered users. That's just a fact of life for developers. And if you don't have the stomach to read those user reviews, may be you should consider doing like in South Park, and have someone censor negative email messages, negative tweets, and negative user reviews before any of them reach you.

Threats?

[mark-t]

"Well if you're not going to take this seriously, we'll have to start using another project."

Presumably, they chose the OSS software over another project in the first place for a reason, so starting to use another project would be their own loss. In actuality, that's not really a threat, that's just petty spite. I would have a hard time taking any company seriously that acted so unprofessional.

This is the threat...?

[StevenMaurer]

"Well if you're not going to take this seriously, we'll have to start using another project."

I've never exactly gotten this. Why does anyone who is giving something away particularly care if someone who is getting it for free uses it or not?

This guy clearly doesn't understand that Open Source means "Free to Use" not "Free Beer", and that most corporations (the executives, not the software engineers or managers) are plenty happy to pay for support from the subject matter experts in it, so long as it saves them overall money. In fact, many corporation's resistance to OSS is due to the lack of such support - because their customers aren't so understanding..

This is the very business model that Red Hat uses. All this guy needs to do is put up a "priority payment" system for bug fixes, and post it publicly. Done and done.

Re:This is the threat...?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Well if you're not going to take this seriously, we'll have to start using another project."

I've never exactly gotten this. Why does anyone who is giving something away particularly care if someone who is getting it for free uses it or not?

This guy clearly doesn't understand that Open Source means "Free to Use" not "Free Beer", and that most corporations (the executives, not the software engineers or managers) are plenty happy to pay for support from the subject matter experts in it, so long as it saves them overall money. In fact, many corporation's resistance to OSS is due to the lack of such support - because their customers aren't so understanding..

This is the very business model that Red Hat uses. All this guy needs to do is put up a "priority payment" system for bug fixes, and post it publicly. Done and done.

Thanks for asking this question.

I think generally the reason that the guy who is giving something away particularly cares if someone who is getting it free uses it or not is because the guy giving something away (the developer) wants to know where to dedicate resources among multiple projects.

So many people are using open source software and not letting anyone know so it becomes a concern of the developer to know where to work based on project usage.

Re:This is the threat...?

[phantomfive]

I've never exactly gotten this. Why does anyone who is giving something away particularly care if someone who is getting it for free uses it or not?

Most people I've talked to who write open source code want their code to be used by people. That is fine.

Other people, like Andrew Tridgell, just like making a great project. I really admire those people.

Re:This is the threat...?

[QuasiEvil]

Honestly, if somebody ever got annoyed at me for not fixing a bug on a schedule that conflicted with my priorities without even offering to compensate me, I'd tell them to shove it. That's not a threat, that's an opportunity to educate them on the value of my time and how little of a !#$% I give about their whining.

Sure, there's some nights I'm just sitting around watching TV and being useless, but those nights are much rarer than they used to be. If they'd like to re-prioritize an evening or two of my time, they can drag out the checkbook. Otherwise, I'll address their concern when I get around to it. My feelings aren't hurt if they want to switch to some other project as a result, because I understand the cost of converting and then hoping the guy over there is more agreeable than I am...

Re:This is the threat...?

[DNS-and-BIND]

Because people expect you to take your product seriously, even if it is free? The businesses have been sold on the idea that open source is just as good as the other kind of software, and this is the withering reply they get?

This sort of "fuck you" attitude is one of the things that really turns off businesses and everyone else from relying on open source software. The fact that you don't understand why anyone would particularly care is the entire problem.

Re:This is the threat...?

[im_thatoneguy]

I've never exactly gotten this. Why does anyone who is giving something away particularly care if someone who is getting it for free uses it or not?

People like their work to be useful. I know I like to see my projects used and appreciated. If you spend 2 weeks working on something and its ultimate life is just to sit on github without any attention then those 2 weeks seem like a bit of a waste. But if you see it actively used by lots of people then you get that warm fuzzy feeling that you made the world a little bit better for someone else. That being said, threats don't foster that warm fuzzy feeling and anyone who says that my free labor isn't enough will get a f-off in response.

Re:This is the threat...?

[Anonymous Coward]

I also think that some of the time it's a self-esteem issue for open source developers. You often have people striving to do doing volunteer work in exchange for the appreciation of those they are serving. For OSS developers, the more people that use your software (and, presumably, appreciate your efforts). the more your (lacking?) self-esteem is stroked. But it may be this same lacking aspect that non-developer business people are exploiting to demand (and get) 24-hr turnaround for fixes and what not.

Most developers probably lean towards the introverted. So, when a business-like person is in your face or your ear, they probably are easily overwhelmed and cave. Once they cave once, then their goose it cooked. I like what others have suggested here in posting a payment policy and mechanism out in the open up front, and simply point to it when the "fix it now" calls start coming in, noting that anyone that chose to use the project's software agreed to this policy by default (EULA-like approach).

Re:This is the threat...?

[serviscope_minor]

Are you saying that this developer should:
(a) work for free on the code
(b) work for free educating the company reps in how not to be a raging, entitled douchenozzle
(c) suck it up and put up with asshats for free so that the company can continue to be "sold" on OSS and get free stuff while being asshatty and contributing nothing
(d) something I've missed

Re:This is the threat...?

[Anonymous Coward]

Without a service contract, Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, Adobe, and whatever-else wouldn't respond well to such threats, either. Even with a service contract, there's certainly no guarantee of a 24 hour turnaround on a tested fix, unless that's explicitly within the contract (fat chance). Of course, that's not a "fuck you" attitude, but no commercial software vendor, with or without a service contract, is going to be bullied into unreasonably demanded terms from a customer. Of course, a large customer like GE or Ford might expect more prompt attention than some startup du jour, but that's a tangential issue.

The proper response to a petulant toddler who throws a tantrum and then threatens to hold his breath until he gets his own way, is to let him work out all that anxiety, then go about wiping his sniffles and handling his boo-boo appropriately.

- T

Not always true

[FrozenGeek]

I've had a couple of jobs where we happily used OSS. Now, we used it in the IT department, where we all understood what we were and were not getting. Using OSS outside IT might possibly put it where those who don't understand would see it. Depends on who's using it.

Sorry if I'm a bit grumpy. Had a rough week dealing with end users and I'm feeling a bit BOfH.

Not compatible?

[tomhath]

Corporations are almost certainly the biggest consumers and supporters of open source. I would be very surprised if he ever got any money from hobbyists.

Fixed immediately?

[Anonymous Coward]

"As soon as a bug affects them, they want it fixed immediately. If you don't fix it in 24 hours (because maybe you have a real life or a family or you're sick or any number of other very valid reasons) then the threats start."

Seriously? Having dealt with all sorts of bugs in commercial, closed-source software for more than a decade, I've never heard anyone make threats if a bug isn't fixed in 24 hours.

How about you offer them their money back? IE, they didn't pay for it, and they got more than their money's worth by using your open-source code for free.

Re:Fixed immediately?

[mark-t]

Seriously? Having dealt with all sorts of bugs in commercial, closed-source software for more than a decade, I've never heard anyone make threats if a bug isn't fixed in 24 hours.

Really? Not even an implied one that you might not still have a job otherwise? I've had that happen a few times, unfortunately.

Re:Fixed immediately?

[GodelEscherBlecch]

Just wait until a bug in your software is responsible for forcing an operator of a 5 state regional power grid to have to revert to manually operating a 5 minute energy dispatch / reliability study cycle. I assure you that the threats will start very quickly, and that 24 hours would be a very generous allowance in that scenario. They will not give the least of shits that the bug is in 3rd party code or whether that code is open/closed source.

The thing is though, when your dependency code base is OSS, you are actually capable of finding and fixing the problem yourself, often just by subclassing something or creating an alternate implementation of an interface. Many times being able to see the anatomy of the issue allows you to work around it from the outside. I can't imagine turnaround like this ever being possible in a closed-source system, at least not without requiring enormously expensive contracts with not just the delivering company but each vendor supplying any part of the solution.

I suspect...

[SwashbucklingCowboy]

... this is a case of the squeaky well gets noticed.

I work in a large software company where we use thousands of open source projects in a couple of hundred projects and I'm intimately involved in the management of open source within the company. I've never had a team come to me and say "we need this bug fixed in the next day or two". And they damn sure don't go out threatening projects (that would be one of those "career limiting moves"). While I don't doubt that this guy has had people do that to him I gotta believe those are the people that he notices and remembers, not the silent majority.

Re:I suspect...

[Anonymous Coward]

squeaky wheel

If your well is squeaking then you may soon be saying “What’s that, Lassie? Timmy fell down a well?”

Re:I suspect...

[Anonymous Coward]

If the majority is truly silent, how could he notice it?

Re:I suspect...

[Antique Geekmeister]

> I've never had a team come to me and say "we need this bug fixed in the next day or two".

Then you clearly don't work in IT. Problems with system capacity, critical hardware, authenticated access, and network connectivity all need to be fixed _now_. And not having the resources in place to deal with the shortages leads to people losing their jobs, and can cause the whole company to fail.

Re:I suspect...

[Cederic]

Big difference between "We need to resolve this issue now" and "We need that third party developer with whom we have no commercial relationship to fix a bug now".

I too don't recognise the latter scenario. When I've found bugs in open source products I've generally found their bug tracker and either submitted a new report or found that someone else has already found it.

I then get on with working around the issue on the grounds it'll be weeks/months before it's fixed, if ever.

Re:I suspect...

[Antique Geekmeister]

> Big difference between "We need to resolve this issue now" and "We need that third party developer with whom we have no commercial relationship to fix a bug now".

The client may not know, and often does not care. It's unusual, but not that unusual, for the client to complain bitterly about any delay, even for an unpaid third party source code repository.

> Big difference between "We need to resolve this issue now" and "We need that third party developer with whom we have no commercial relationship to fix a bug now".

Good for you and for the rest of us. I'm afraid I also find some that are old bugs for which I've submitted patches or workarounds previously. Most of the free software and open source authors are good about reviewing and accepting small, legible patches in a timely fashion, and the growth of git for open code and alternative software repositories has been very useful. I've been delighted with its effects on the ability to patch code, and submit pull requests, without having to share write access to the primary source repository.

Re:I suspect...

[Cederic]

The client may not know, and often does not care

The client isn't a client of the open source developer though. I have responsibilities to my client, and relying on some arbitrary developer that might already have retired their keyboard isn't professional or sensible.

Re:I suspect...

[Antique Geekmeister]

> The client isn't a client of the open source developer though.

Quite true. But note what I was responding to, from a previous poster:

>> I've never had a team come to me and say "we need this bug fixed in the next day or two".

It's a common request for me and my colleagues. It's especially intense when finely scheduled Gant charts of billable time, with specific hours with specific tasks, are written with "2 hours to fix ticket CORP-999" allocated early in the project, work is blocked by it, but the work can't be started until 3 hours before the manager who reported the bug knows nothing about it, and the programmer can't be spared to describe the bug. That was a quite common occurrence with one manager until they were helped to find a new role with another company.

Re:I suspect...

[SwashbucklingCowboy]

lol Dude, I've been working doing products for nearly 30 years now.

Re:I suspect...

[Antique Geekmeister]

"Doing products" does not typically mean "work in IT". If your current workplace is using the words that way, then please be more clear about language: they're not the standard definitions.

Re:I suspect...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't like that position find a new job! What a shitty excuse for harassing open source projects that you leech off for free. Disgusting.

Re:I suspect...

[SwashbucklingCowboy]

Bzzt. Wrong answer. They're (apparently) not YOUR definition.

Re:I suspect...

[Antique Geekmeister]

Excuse me? What field are you in where "working doing products" mean working in IT? I've never seen that usage for IT work in decades in the field. The more I think about it, the less it's clear what it _does_ mean. I can find no evidence that it's a standard term of art in manufacturing, software, or sales.

most goodest advice

[Anonymous Coward]

By the very nature of business (which is to make money), businesspeople want as much as possible for as little money as possible. Non-business OSS people should just ignore their unreasonable requests or tell them to take a hike if they start bothering you.

Unless you are hired by business to do OSS, any OSS dev who fills pressure to satisfy the demands of businesses (or users in general), needs to remember that you are working on the project in your spare time for fun. Your commitment should be to the quality of the project itself. Distill what you want from their complaints and ignore the rest.

Verisign owns the Internet

[Anonymous Coward]

Verisign owns the root DNS and thus the internet. OSS is what they use to do that job. "Nuff" said. Oh wait, my bad, -- Verisign uses some Microsoft Word for letters 'n' stuff.

Bull Shit.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Open source community has NEVER wanted greedy criminal organizations (i.e corps) to use open source software. This is why we refuse to sell out and take money from these fucking jackals. They can go fuck themselves and continue sucking on Micro$haft's fat cock and get their 'security' fixes once a decade or so.

This 'prolific open source developer' is clearly a retard who doesn't even know what he's talking about. Why is /. giving this jackass a soapbox?

Re:Bull Shit.

[Anonymous Coward]

The imbicile has spoken! All hail the imbicile!

I think this has to do with Open Source being fast

[Anonymous Coward]

And companies just want to be slow and keep things complicated for their own purposes.

Open Source developers work on things for the real work on the project, to solve a problem. That leads to severely different cycles of development (think api's and interop).

Corporate developers are driven due to a master plan, the trouble is that things get released to the public from corporations with a schedule that no-one outside of the corporation is aware of.

This leads to open source developers either forking away from a corporate project or stuck doing nothing. That friction can't last long because the developers working on their own time are going to inevitably become more and more efficient.

If it leads to ugliness, it's hard to understand why the market trusts the people who don't release the code of what they are working on.

So tell them to Bugger off.

[Lumpy]

"As soon as a bug affects them, they want it fixed immediately."

You respond with, "feel free to hire a team of programmers to fix that. you have the source code.:"

Honestly, you have to act like Linus if you run an OSS project.

Re:So tell them to Bugger off.

[phantomfive]

You respond with, "feel free to hire a team of programmers to fix that. you have the source code.:" Honestly, you have to act like Linus if you run an OSS project.

Somehow I think Linus would have some......different words.....

Re:So tell them to Bugger off.

[bioteq]

I would pay good money, and a large tub of popcorn to watch Linus respond to something like that.

I would also start a betting pool for certain, choice, phrase words.

Re:So tell them to Bugger off.

[gnupun]

But as an OSS developer, don't you have a responsibility to fix some problem in your code? You released code so someone would use it, but the bugs make it difficult for the users to achieve their goals, which in turn may affect company profit (if said OSS is being used in a commercial setting).

If you like releasing half-baked crap that is useless to someone after they've invested real time and money, don't release such software in the first place or declare a warning stating that "support is unlikely or will take months to resolve any bugs you have or will take $$$ to fix any problem."

Bottom line, OSS projects need to specify the time it will take to resolve any issue right on their product description page. This will help corps decide whether they want to use your software or not.

Re:So tell them to Bugger off.

[simula67]

But as an OSS developer, don't you have a responsibility to fix some problem in your code?

No

You released code so someone would use it

No, people can release the source code because they feel like it.

If you like releasing half-baked crap that is useless to someone after they've invested real time and money, don't release such software in the first place

Just because a project is released, doesn't mean you have to use it. If you want to use something for no money, you have to do your research to make sure that you are using the right open source project.

Re:So tell them to Bugger off.

[gnupun]

No, people can release the source code because they feel like it.

WTF does that even mean, "because they felt like it?" Software is created to be used and broken software is useless. What's the point of releasing useless stuff?

Corps and even non-commercial users care about what the program does. They don't care about the source code.

Just because a project is released, doesn't mean you have to use it.

Conversely, you need to communicate how much time you're capable of spending fixing bugs, so your users have an idea how dependable your software is for their tasks... anywhere from 0 hours (you're on your own) to 10 hours/week.

Re:So tell them to Bugger off.

[Anonymous Coward]

Somehow I think Linus would have some......different words.....

Why do you think that? Or is it more that you hope he would, because it can be entertaining?

I certainly hope you haven't fallen in the trap of believing what some people seem to want others to believe, that Linus is always acting like an ass.

He isn't. It's actually very, very rare, despite what those some people would like you to believe.

Linus uses the heavy artillery when needed, and only then. It's needed when people who should know better do things they have been told (or should know) is wrong and detrimental to the kernel. In particular, when they do it repeatedly.

In the vast majority of cases, after a single use of the heavy artillery the point is driven home and everyone goes back to what they were doing, one step wiser.

In a small number of cases, someone decides to instead become offended and make a bunch of fuss about it, publicly. Which does nobody any good, as shown by empirical observation.

Re:So tell them to Bugger off.

[serviscope_minor]

But as an OSS developer, don't you have a responsibility to fix some problem in your code?

Nope. Just about every OSS license comes splattered with disclaimers. Personally, I have pride in some of my projects and so would fix bugs in a reasonably timely manner depending on the bug (problems with OSX or Windows are low down on my list since I have neither and no one who has had problems has ever offered to buy me a mac or a windows license).

If you like releasing half-baked crap that is useless to someone after they've invested real time and money, don't release such software in the first place

Ah you're one of those people who gets off on telling others what they should do for fun or how they should run their hobbies. Even though it's clearly a hobby of yours, I'm going to ironically tell you to stop doing it.

Bottom line, OSS projects need to specify the time it will take to resolve any issue right on their product description page.

So people doing stuff for free on their own time should put time and effort into boring, uninteresting stuff so that companies can profit from their work without ever having to contribute a cent? Uh... how about no.

Re:So tell them to Bugger off.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Bottom line, OSS projects need to specify the time it will take to resolve any issue right on their product description page. This will help corps decide whether they want to use your software or not."

The Corp got more value out of it than they PAID for it.

Honestly you sound like a very whiny person. THEY PAID NOTHING, so anyone bitching about the speed of bug fixes is simply a very whiney baby throwing a tantrum.

Re:So tell them to Bugger off.

[Lumpy]

I am a bit different than you the OSS code I have released, if someone reports a bug, I'll get to it when I can, but my DAY JOB is far more important, as well as family. Honestly I released it for free, and all people using it will get 100% of their $0.00US they spent to buy it from me, and my response time to bug reports will also be at that speed. "reasonable" amount of time is based on my definition of reasonable. Someone demanding a fix is not reasonable, someone wanting a fix within 12 months for free? not reasonable.

Now if someone offered me $140,000 to fix that bug? I'll do it right away and even send a bottle of wine with it.

Re:So tell them to Bugger off.

[kimvette]

> You respond with, "feel free to hire a team of programmers to fix that. you have the source code.:"

The better response would be "Well, here's our bug tracker, and here is our roadmap for $RELEASE_FOO. If this is high priority for you, we could add $YOUR_PET_DEFECT or $YOUR_PET_FEATURE_REQUEST to $RELEASE_FOO for $N, but if you're willing to wait until $RELEASE_BAR we could add $YOUR_PET_FEATURE_REQUEST to the design spec for a $MODEST_DONATION. If it is truly critical we could fork it for you for $REASONABLE_CONTRACT_FEES and after you've tested it we can merge it back into the main trunk... or if the request is contrary to the project's goals the response could be "We understand and appreciate your request but it conflicts with the overall community's needs. However we are in need of funding as we also have families to feed so we could fork it and develop the custom solution for you if you fund it." Any responses like that would gain a lot of good will and acceptance of the open source community as it is far less sociopathic... ...where instead the response all too often is along the lines of "it's open source fix it yourself" or "man foo" or what amounts to "fixing bugs is boring" which tells the world "We OSS developers are pretentious jerks." They're really not jerks at heart - it's that a lot of the community is comprised of aspies who lack people skills and it is compounded by jerks who only complain about the projects rather than saying "hey guys this software is great and it's saved is $TENS_OF_THOUSANDS over the last two years by helping us avoid outrageous licensing fees, but we've run into a few bugs we would love for you to take a look at."

Re:So tell them to Bugger off.

[gnupun]

The Corp got more value out of it than they PAID for it...
  THEY PAID NOTHING

Do you understand what free software means? It means the buyer pays $0 to the seller of the software. Don't act surprised, indignant and jealous when you get paid exactly $0 for your software that you priced at $0.

However, it's still software and all software has bugs. These bugs need to be fixed by the developer who put them in there. You can't release software and say "I won't fix the bugs in a timely fashion unless you pay me $10,000 for 2 days work." That's some kind of extortion or racketeering and the software is no longer free.

Re:So tell them to Bugger off.

[Kidbro]

Do you understand what free software means?

He probably does. It suspect that you don't, though.

It means the buyer pays $0 to the seller of the software.

Indeed, you didn't, because it doesn't. Free, in the context of free software, means that they get the source code, can make modifications to it, and can redistribute it, with or without modifications. The very point of that whole idea is that the user should not be depending on the original author for bugfixes. The entire premise of your ignorant whining is destroyed by the very concept free software, which you (deliberately?) refuse to understand. Everybody else cought on twenty years ago.

Re:So tell them to Bugger off.

[Billly Gates]

"As soon as a bug affects them, they want it fixed immediately."

You respond with, "feel free to hire a team of programmers to fix that. you have the source code.:"

Honestly, you have to act like Linus if you run an OSS project.

.... and you're still employed?

Re:So tell them to Bugger off.

[Anonymous Coward]

But as an OSS developer, don't you have a responsibility to fix some problem in your code?

You have obviously never bothered to read a single open source license.

Here is a excerpt of the GPL:

15. Disclaimer of Warranty.

    THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY
APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT
HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY
OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO,
THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM
IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF
ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.

FreeBSD:

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE FREEBSD PROJECT "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE FREEBSD PROJECT OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

MIT:

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

Are you seeing a trend here?

No, no there is no warranty. You use open source at your own risk and it is up to the user to either, evaluate or blindly trust the software being used by them.

Your attitude is like cancer. How dare you get so used to taking from open source software that you begin to make demands about what OSS projects should be doing to support your business all the while you will never put any money back into those projects. Disgusting. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Do Halliburton, IBM, etc not count?

[Anonymous Coward]

I know that in 2003 some software sold by Haliburton had emacs among other things on the CDROM, with a text file of the GNU licence along with it. I think it was the same with the 1999 version but I'm not entirely sure.
 
So the "Corporations and OSS Do Not Mix" idea was far out of date twelve years ago.
 
 

If you don't fix it in 24 hours (because maybe you have a real life or a family or you're sick or any number of other very valid reasons) then the threats start."

Bugfixes often take months in commercial software.

What does the license say?

[QuietLagoon]

... If you don't fix it in 24 hours (because maybe you have a real life or a family or you're sick or any number of other very valid reasons) then the threats start....

Does the license under which the OSS code is used by the company say that bugs will be fixed within 24 hours? Was a contract entered that says bugs will be fixed within 24 hours?

.
If the answer to both of the above is "no", then what's the problem?

I don't see why the guy is whining, and tainting the entire OSS community with his personal issues.

Re:What does the license say?

[drinkypoo]

I don't see why the guy is whining, and tainting the entire OSS community with his personal issues.

He's trying to make himself feel better about his failure to make a living selling OSS by spreading FUD about it. If he can convince himself that what he says is true, he doesn't have to believe that he is a failure, and he can go on failing happily, all the while claiming that it is someone else's fault..

Office of Strategic Services

[jfdavis668]

Whenever I see "OSS", I always think it means the "Office of Strategic Services". I don't think that mixed well with businesses, either.

Correct response

[SuperKendall]

"If you are using it without paying for it, are you really taking it seriously either?"

RMS is right about how open source can work in conjunction with companies - if they want "real" support, they can damn well pay for it.

The cost of hiring good coders cannot be avoided. Either you are paying good programmers to work for you, are you are paying less and are at the mercy of coders who feel like donating enough good code to you, that your business will function.

Re:Correct response

[Anonymous Coward]

"If you are using it without paying for it, are you really taking it seriously either?"

RMS is right about how open source can work in conjunction with companies - if they want "real" support, they can damn well pay for it.

The cost of hiring good coders cannot be avoided. Either you are paying good programmers to work for you, are you are paying less and are at the mercy of coders who feel like donating enough good code to you, that your business will function.

If they wanted to hire good coders, they'd do THAT. They want the software, with some guarantee it will do what they paid for. Free software is... well, it's just the software.

Do you get it? They want to buy software from someone who is in the business of making software that does [what they want].
Using free software that does [what they want], works.. right until it does't, then why would anyone be interested in paying someone to fix it when they could buy something better?

No surprise to me

[topham]

This isn't a surprise to me. I work for a profitable government organization. We bring in substantial tax dollars. But at the end of the day all my work has to be justified, much of it within the confines of a specific project. That means once specific goals are met I must move on to other things. Bugs which affect us must be fixed, but others languish because of other priorities.

weak

[Anonymous Coward]

What a bunch of whining.

I want to say more, but for some reason, nothing more is coming to mind. Well, ok, there's this.

Tell the cocaine snorting assholes to shove it. Refuse to fix the bug. Quote an obscene price (worse than the $461 or whatever/hr quoted above). The only way to combat abusive gaslighting crack snorting dipshit sexually harassing managers is to refuse to comply.

I mean, seriously, what the living fuck. If they want the bug fixed, they'll have one of their own developers on it. They're ABUSING you.

I have seen with my own eyes two female software developers chased out of software jobs by asshole cocaine-snorting gaslighting abusive sexually harassing managers. DON'T LET THEM DO IT if they're not paying out. Fuck them. And fuck you if you give in.

And they blame us for this. They blame us when they chase away women programmers.

Here's a message for the Masters of the Universe: I know what you're doing. I know that before a few months there will be a rape accusation or else a sexual harassment accusation against me. Your backup plan is that I won't be able to access my meds. I don't fucking give a shit.

Here is my promise: if I lose access to my meds or if I lose my income, I will amputate my genitals outside of one of your hospitals. Give me a "religious objection!" then. I will be happy to die by bleeding out in one of your emergency rooms.

Heh, I am not afraid to walk away. Have fun without me if you think my skills are so trivial that they can be learned in an hour.

Re:weak

[bioteq]

What in the holy fuck did I just read?

Re:weak

[Anonymous Coward]

What in the holy fuck did I just read?

Something about He-Man and the proper location where one should amputate their genitals?

Re:weak

[Anonymous Coward]

A bureaucrat that actually drank the Kool-aid.

Hold on a sec

[Tablizer]

When has Microsoft ever fixed a customer-specific problem within 24 hours? I haven't actually talked to a live MS rep since 1994

Re:Hold on a sec

[Anonymous Coward]

1994 was when they switched to recruiting from the undead community for representatives, right?

his situation, not everybody's

[NostalgiaForInfinity]

His basic thesis is that the open source development process is not particularly compatible with for-profit corporations, and having them involved frequently makes progress more difficult

Probably most open source software is developed either by corporations or by consortia of corporations. His situation, where he develops open source software independently that is then used by big corporations, is probably unusual. In particular, I suspect most of those corporations asking for quick turnaround on fixes, would probably be willing to pay for that kind of support if only someone would offer it.

I've always made them pay contributors.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've found a few bugs in OSS and I've always hired reputable community members to immediately work around/fix the issue and contribute back to the community.

Yeah, it costs money. But, everyone I've hired has quickly identified and fixed my issues.

My last experience was with Percona and MySQL. Our database crashed, we recorded the error data and within 3 days they came to the office, identified the flaw ( a checksum of 0 is valid but the code throws an error) and had a pull request into mainline mysql by the end of the week.

Business needs

[BradMajors]

The incompatibility is that businesses need software that works. The OSS community wants to produce buggy, incomplete, undocumented software.

Re:Business needs

[Anonymous Coward]

The incompatibility is that businesses need software that works. The OSS community wants to produce buggy, incomplete, undocumented software.

No, being part of the OSS community means that you are willing to produce software when you are the only person there creating it.

The successful OSS projects are not buggy, incomplete or undocumented. They are the work and effort of one or a few people who broke through that threshold all the while being worked against because someone who's already richer than he or she can afford needs more and more money for closed software to stay in business.

They need software that covers up their inadequacies, software that _works_ got thrown out the window long ago...

Read the licenses.

Whining

[Tony Isaac]

Of course, a business that uses open source software will be most concerned about bugs that affect it. Isn't that natural? So if he wants the other bugs fixed, he can personally contribute his time to the project, and fix the bugs HE wants fixed! This article looks to me like a simple case of a guy who doesn't agree with his company's priorities, and is venting on the Web.

Code of Conduct?

[Random Nobody]

No less than 3 points ranting about code of conduct. I guess no one can keep themselves out of the outrage wars these days.

Tell 'em to pound sand

[kheldan]

It's OSS. They want a bug fixed so damned bad that they're going to start threatening the author? Tell 'em to go pound sand, and have their own gods-be-damned programmer(s) fix it. It's not like they don't have the gods-be-damned source code for the thing.

Business is different

[invictusvoyd]

Linus Torvalds started writing a kernel because he wanted a unix like OS for his own use.

Stallman started writing the shell and the tools because he envisioned a operating system for the community by the community and of the community.

IBM started using the linux kernel because they saw business sense in using a good quality kernel which was "usable" at a fraction of the cost of their usual software.

It is futile to expect these two groups to work or even understand each others goals and aspirations. They are fundamentally different.

Re:Business is different

[mwvdlee]

You took about 30 seconds to explain the goals, why do you think other people would be unable to do the same?

Re:Business is different

[Anonymous Coward]

Torvalds has no problem understanding RMS's goals and aspirations, he just doesn't agree with them.

I can see weeks into the future from up here.

[Anonymous Coward]

Saw this coming, more articles about the "toxicity" of open source.

The women in tech groups can't get torvalds alone long enough to false flag him, so they're going to attack the entire community instead.

OSS doesn't have a problem, but the SJWs have a problem with OSS, because it's proving to be resistant to their efforts to "diversify", when really, they just want to move in and take over. Because power.

Community-Supported - perhaps

[Anonymous Coward]

What corporations want is the ability to get qualified support for software that runs business, and this is a completely reasonable and non-toxic expectation. It does not however exclude Open Source software. It only excludes software without explicit paid support with contractual obligations and SLAs. The author, I think, is too vague and too broad in his assertions.

Except for...

[catchblue22]

Except for Android. Or Tesla. Or Google search. Or most of the internet. Or...

Re:Except for...

[IBitOBear]

Android: Control of market share (the software is given away for free)

Google: Control of advertising revenue (the software is given away for free)

Tesla: Sells cars and batteries, (software updates are free).

Most of the Internet: pay for services.

Kinda making my point.

Offer them support

[im_thatoneguy]

I've seen all of this with my freely available code or tools. And I always say the same thing "Thanks for bring the bug to my attention..." and then if I'm currently busy with other things or I don't care that much about the code anymore I follow up with "I'm currently busy with other projects, my hourly rate is $xxx if you need it fixed ASAP I would be happy to provide an estimate and invoice for the work. Otherwise it probably won't be fixed for a few weeks if ever."

Everyone so far has been very understanding and a number of them have paid for the addition or fix. I'll even list the sponsoring party in the changelog.

--Fixed crash from XYZ. Fix sponsored by AnimationCorp LLC.
I get paid to work on a free tool that I use too, they get something they need, I get some minor self promotion for the tool being used by more people and they get some minor promotion in the changelog/release notes.

I can s answer one question

[Anonymous Coward]

A close friend of mine, Paul Tagliamonte, was involved in the discussion about Debian's switch to systemd. He received at least 3 death threats due to his participation. In what world is this acceptable behaviour for a community?

The Islamic world.

Reasons listed in TFA are TOTALLY wrong

[Kartu]

Based on my experience, I'm working for one of the big multi-nationals for years.

Bugs fixed quicker in commercial software, are you kidding me?
Fucking, seriously???
It's not only that most of the times you have to find workarounds/fixes yourself, it's that since it's commercial and not OSS code, what you'll likely face won't even be decompiled code, it will be bloody OBFUSCATED decompiled code with things like a.b.c.d1() all over the place!!!

At least for the corp I work for (and I'm pretty sure for most corporations out there) the main reasons for go for commercial over OSS is: LEGAL.
Some motherfucker patents "using (some ancient thingy that everyone on the planet uses) to quickly iterate over tree)" and kaboom, with OSS (no protection whatsoever) you need to pay either them directly or lawyers to fend them off.

With commercial software that's seller's problem.
As easy as that.

There are, of course, libs that are too widely used and would seriously harm IT projects if not used, e.g. apache commons libs. Well, for that there is short whitelist of items that "have been reviewed" along with "mitigation strategies".

Every manager is aware of this, so when you have a choice over "ShareIt" or "ShareThis", one is free, one is not, decision is made instantly, "of course we want the non-free one".

Re:Reasons listed in TFA are TOTALLY wrong

[serviscope_minor]

With commercial software that's seller's problem.

Hardly. Lots of commercial software won't indemnify against patent problems. Not all that long ago, a company wanted me to indemnify my work for them (as a consultant/supplied customised software module), so I told them flat out that it was too expensive but I could if they really wanted take out insurance (once they specify the indemnification limit), but that would be added to the cost of the product.

They ruminated on it for a while, came back to me with "are you suuuureee...?" so I explained why patents were such a minefield (submarine patents, trivial patents, the sheer quantity of the things) and why I couldn't indemnify them with no upper limit and why insurance would be so expensive. Then they understood and decided to go without indemnification from me and sort it out with their own insurers.

24-hours...

[Hymer]

Companies, especially financial but also any company being "risk-evaluated" need to be able to "continue normal operation" in max. 24-hours, if they can't they risk-evaluation will drop and then they will be devalued, which technically means that their worth will drop. For an A+ or A rated company such devaluation is catastrophic because loan are based on this rating and will need to be paid immediately.
That means effectively that any piece of mission critical software or hardware need to either be replaced or fixed in under 24-hours.

YES, I do work in IT in a financial company with "triple A" rating.
(and btw. there are not so many of that kind companies left after the financial crisis)...

Re:24-hours...

[Anonymous Coward]

If being functional again within 24 hours requires code fix by third party within that time, you are doing it wrong. If a single bug can take down whole your operation, then your "risk-evaluation" audit should come with result "failed". This sort of thing is not achieved by yelling at third party developers, it is done by having multiple redundant systems able to replace each other. It is done by testing them often. It is done by being able to roll back changes when those cause problems. It is done by designing the systems to be fault tolerant.

If your operation relies on single third party to answer your requests quickly with no backup if your backup is sick or on vacation, you should not pass risk evaluation.

Re:24-hours...

[Hymer]

"It is done by designing the systems to be fault tolerant." Yes I agree... now go tell it to the developers and to the management.

It can work

[bytesex]

My company completely overhauled openvpn, and gave the results back to the community. Granted, this was under a government contract, but still.

Excuse me?

[Anonymous Coward]

If I release the sources, that's that.

I don't have special obligations to people I don't know.

Releasing source code does not confer any responsibilities on me. You can say it does all you like.

Re:Excuse me?

[gnupun]

If I release the sources, that's that.

Sources are useless to the general consumer, they don't understand it, can't modify it. You're thinking, just because I'm a programmer, everyone else in the world is a programmer and capable of making changes to my code. It's not that easy, even if the end-user is a programmer.

End users want software... that works... they don't care about source code. That's why in a restaurant, they give you the meal, not a recipe so you can go in the kitchen and cook it yourself.

I don't have special obligations to people I don't know.

Well, why did you release it to people you don't know or care about? Keep it on your local machine if you have no intention of helping others. Or at least have the decency to state that you won't support your software on the download page so people won't bother downloading it in the first place.

Releasing source code does not confer any responsibilities on me. You can say it does all you like.

Saying it doesn't confer any responsibilities on you is pure BS and lies. You wrote it, so you understand it the most, and therefore you're responsible for any changes. Are you implying you are not responsible for the bugs you put into the software, intentional or not? Now that's hilarious.

Re:Excuse me?

[Ash-Fox]

End users want software... that works... they don't care about source code.

You're really pretentious and full of assumptions. I'm an end user (that also happens to do some programming every now and then) and I care about source code in certain circumstances.

Well, why did you release it to people you don't know or care about?

Why does it matter if someone he doesn't know or cares about has access to some sourcecode he wrote?

Keep it on your local machine if you have no intention of helping others.

Opensource lets you help yourself in the worst case scenario. I'd say that's a lot of help in it self.

Or at least have the decency to state that you won't support your software on the download page so people won't bother downloading it in the first place.

Why assume someone will support software when they didn't write "I am going to support this software" on their webpage? I think that's indecent.

You wrote it, so you understand it the most, and therefore you're responsible for any changes.

I don't see the responsibility here, at all.

Are you implying you are not responsible for the bugs you put into the software, intentional or not?

If you bothered reading the licensing of software you used, they usually have sections like:

11. BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.
 
12. IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND/OR REDISTRIBUTE THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

In summary, yes, the license you were granted to use most software generally offers no warranty and in turn, no responsibility.

Re:Excuse me?

[gnupun]

What a load of complete BS... Did you attend some evening school where they teach you how to be evil and write confusing, convoluted lies that gives the illusion that a thief in fact was innocent and the victim of thief was in fact the thief. Or are you a lawyer, by chance?

Re:Excuse me?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sources are useless to the general consumer, they don't understand it, can't modify it.

TFA concerns business clients, not general consumers. I'll assume you didn't intend to move the goalposts, but your change muddies the waters. Many businesses, e.g. a real estate agency, may have no internal resources to fix software. However, they probably also have no internal resources to fix their company cars. If said cars are past warranty, then they will contract that out at their expense. This is likely to be true even if the manufacturer is at fault, unless the government determines the flaw is a safety issue or significant cost. Now, what sort of warranty comes by default with OSS software? You know the answer is "None".

Just to cover the problems of the "general consumer", this usually applies to them, too. For example, I replaced a broken door latch on a Maytag 300 Series dishwasher (bought around 2004, IIRC). The broken latch suffered from an obviously poor design in that the hinge was effectuated by plastic nubs on the larger injection-moulded piece; one of those was what broke (and the other was close to breaking). The replacement latch (genuine Maytag part, not aftermarket) had a much sturdier set of braced metal pins instead. Was it Maytag's responsibility to fix my dishwasher, especially since the redesigned replacement part could be considered an admission of poor design of the original? The bad design was their fault, but it lasted past warranty, so no, the responsibility had fallen to me because I had no service contract. Maybe I could have called Maytag and threatened to switch to Bosch if they didn't fix it in 24 hours; that would have been amusing. Again, what warranty is offered to the general consumer on Open Office, for example? You know the answer is "None".

Well, why did you release it to people you don't know or care about?

IME, most OSS software is released with a rather less strict intent of "I did this to solve some problem I had; maybe someone else will find it useful, too".

You might point out that many projects such as the Linux kernel aren't released on such a simple basis. Sure, but Linus Torvalds doesn't know me, nor most Linux users, corporate or otherwise, and probably doesn't know you (and if he does, that's irrelevant to my point). It would be unreasonable to expect him to know them all, and of course he doesn't release it to anyone specifically. It's available to anyone, generally. Does he care about me as a Linux user? I would assume not in any specific way, at least not more than he cares about any random human being's welfare. Should I expect him to? I think not. Does he care about the Linux kernel and Linux generally? Clearly, yes. Should I expect a positive outcome from contacting him with a threat to switch to FreeBSD if he doesn't ensure that some bug is fixed within a day? No, but I'm certain the response would be quite an entertaining read...

Or at least have the decency to state that you won't support your software on the download page so people won't bother downloading it in the first place.

That is the default case. You seem to be trying to manufacture an implied warranty where there is none. Indeed, there is an explicit disclaimer of warranty in the GPL and other OSS licenses. Assuming you are asserting an implied ethical responsibility, I would counter that the explicit disclaimer of warranty in most OSS licenses also largely eliminates any such responsibility.

Releasing source code does not confer any responsibilities on me. You can say it does all you like.

Saying it doesn't confer any responsibilities on you is pure BS and lies. You wrote it, so you understand it the most, and therefore you're responsible for any changes. Are you implying you are not responsible for the bugs you put into the software, intentional or not? Now that's hilarious.

Re:Excuse me?

[Ash-Fox]

What a load of complete BS...

Feel free to post a correction then.

Did you attend some evening school where they teach you how to be evil and write confusing, convoluted lies that gives the illusion that a thief in fact was innocent and the victim of thief was in fact the thief.

Actually, I believe what I have written. I should note that I was genuinely interested in your reasoning behind why does it matter if someone he doesn't know or cares about has access to some sourcecode he wrote in response to your 'putting it out there'. If he doesn't care about those particular individuals and doesn't care whether they got it or not, I'm not seeing an actual argument here.

To even help you get a perspective, perhaps this person posted the sourcecode because he wanted to have other programming contributors, contribute more to the application and is not particularly interested in giving handouts of his precious free time when he already works a full time job during the day.

Or are you a lawyer, by chance?

I'm an armchair lawyer at best. But I get the distinct impression you have some sort of 'higher' moral grounds that are strictly from one point of view that doesn't encompass the entire situation. From my perspective, it's interesting how playing a little of devil's advocate on some of your statements is likely being interpreted by you as 'evil'.

As someone that has worked in consultancies, I also have experience with what some companies (I certainly haven't worked for all) do with clients that very problematic usually and are asking for a higher level of support than they're willing to do and not willing to compromise on it. They tend to state they can't help you and in extreme cases, they just terminate your support contract early. Alternatively, if the software was bought as a product, they offer your money back and request you return the product since it didn't meet your requirements.

I very much suspect your point of view stems from the rudeness of responses. Try to apply similar circumstances as above to open source:

• Telling people you're giving back their $0 generally comes off as rude.
• Telling people you can't accept their push because it's lacks all the proper unit tests, breaks on other bits and pieces, comes off as rude.
• Telling people that you do this as a hobby and their concerns aren't really something you even want to help with on your own free time, comes off as rude.
• Telling people they have the source and can fork their own version of the software to fix it themselves comes off as rude.

When something is taken as rude, I suspect this this leads to people thinking they're entitled to something and I get the impression this is where your point of view may stem from.

Re:Excuse me?

[gnupun]

You're really pretentious and full of assumptions.

What's pretentious about wanting software that works. It's folks who pretend they care about access to source code that are pretentious because they neither read nor change the source. Open source been around for decades but we have not seen the hundreds or even dozens of variations of a given software that was promised by OSS evangelists. Heck, I would like to see a Linux tree that is free of systemd. So far, most distros are adopting systemd.

Why does it matter if someone he doesn't know or cares about has access to some sourcecode he wrote?

He said, "I don't have special obligations to people I don't know." That implies he doesn't care for these strangers. Then why is he giving out free software to these people? BTW, fixing bugs that you created in the first place, is in no way a "special obligation.' If you disagree, you should stop releasing software since you're a shoddy developer.

Why assume someone will support software when they didn't write "I am going to support this software" on their webpage?

Because every other individual or organization that releases software, supports their code? The exceptions are lazy programmers or shysters who you want to charge you $$$ for simple fixes (as is in this case).

I don't see the responsibility here, at all.

I suppose the end-user's grandmother is supposed to fix the code then if the original developer won't fix bugs. Programmers are supposed to spend 50%-70% of their time adding minor features or fixing bugs. That's the maintenance phase once version 1.0 is released. If you don't have the time to do that, find someone who will maintain the code or don't release the code at all.

If you bothered reading the licensing of software you used, they usually have sections like:

Those sections usually address previously unknown bugs in the software that cause the end-user harm/damage. It would be brain-dead stupid and negligent to release software to customers when you know severe showstopper bugs exist in your software and yet you refuse to fix it until some extortion money has been extracted from the hapless user.

Re:Excuse me?

[Ash-Fox]

What's pretentious about wanting software that works.

There is nothing with wanting that software, but it's another thing to apply those values to someone else who has other priorities.

It's folks who pretend they care about access to source code that are pretentious because they neither read nor change the source.

I wouldn't fall into this category, but it happens most modifications I do these days to opensource products is for personal interests that I rarely contribute back. Kind of similar to RMS' printer driver issue.

Open source been around for decades but we have not seen the hundreds or even dozens of variations of a given software that was promised by OSS evangelists.

Yeah, I am sure there are a lot of shit OSS evangelists out there.

Heck, I would like to see a Linux tree that is free of systemd. So far, most distros are adopting systemd.

I'm on the fence on the issue, but mostly because I haven't learned sufficiently enough about it to have a decent opinion.

He said, "I don't have special obligations to people I don't know." That implies he doesn't care for these strangers. Then why is he giving out free software to these people?

I could give an example of my own I guess. Such as the reason I published some random little things (like an XML parser I wrote in m68k assembler for a hobby project), if it's useful to someone, great. If not, sorry but it meets my needs currently and I don't have an interest in it outside of my scope. I might offer a little help here and there if my life isn't busy and I have the drive after doing all the other stuff I have to do at the end of the day, but it's not assured.

Because every other individual or organization that releases software, supports their code?

In my consultancy life, working with large multi-national companies, 'support' (despite paid for) was often (not always), next to non-existent if it wasn't a user/developer-error issue and the only thing they could do was 'waive' various fees. In my personal life, I have had problems with certain audio hardware and software, they just up-front told me that they don't support it and offered a refund. I've also fought with a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (Giff gaff), who would refuse to support me in practically any circumstance (despite having a very specific technical issue) and refer me to their community forums for support despite being willing to pay for support etc.

In summary, no, I don't agree with your assumption here.

The exceptions are lazy programmers

I'm not lazy, the average hours I worked last year (and I know this because of my time sheets) was 112 hours per week (and I only really posted or went on sites like Slashdot when I was travelling). The very few days I took for Holidays are included in that calculation too. I actually stopped contributing to some projects at that point (with some angry users, they were unwilling to accept that I wasn't willing to work further on the project unless I was getting a sufficient salary to quit my existing job to do so - fortunately, there were a lot of understanding users too).

The fun fact behind this though, I was working crazy hours particularly because we weren't getting the support (struggled to find even contractors of a reasonable calibre to help me too) and had deadlines to meet.

or shysters who you want to charge you $$$ for simple fixes (as is in this case).

Considering most of the industry expects you to pay in some form for support (most of which in my experience is insufficient when a 'real' problem is encountered). Then, going further into my consultancy experience, where I've had a one line change and they would charge you ridiculous money (we're talking over 1000USD

Re:Excuse me?

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be brain-dead stupid and negligent to release software to customers when you know severe showstopper bugs exist in your software and yet you refuse to fix it until some extortion money has been extracted from the hapless user.

Do you have good evidence that such malfeasance has been demonstrated with respect to one or more OSS projects for which the author of TFA is a core developer, or would you prefer to keep your strawman nice and comfy?

- T

How do complaints have anything to do with OSS?

[Anonymous Coward]

> As soon as a bug affects them, they want it fixed immediately

Doesn't everybody? How is this exclusive to OSS? What a customer wants, and what has been agreed on, are not always compatible.

> I don't have the complete answer, but one important point is that there is toxicity in the community, its leaders, and or its contributors, and the companies have learned their behavior from this toxicity."

WTF!? This seems to be the epitome a non-sequitur. How does toxicity in the OSS community make OSS more demanding?

Pitiful sob story

[Anonymous Coward]

What a case of victimitis. If you release something for free and someone is whining about problems with it, who cares? They "threaten" to switch to a "competitor", who cares? Ask them to pay for your time, or tell them to fuck off. Don't be such a weak little man.

Service vs product

[Anonymous Coward]

For service companies (RED HAT et al?) FOSS works GREAT

For product companies (ex Microsoft wt all) it is AWFUL, however they are now transitioning to service companies so FOSS and platform agnostic is GREAT.

No paid support and the blame game

[Anonymous Coward]

CTOs, CFOs, COOs, and CEOs all want someone to blame (and preferably not them) when the shit hits the fan. No paid support means they can only yell at the sysadmin, who is already doing their best to fix a project manager's or application analysts shitty coded applications.

Re:No paid support and the blame game

[Anonymous Coward]

Blame travels DOWN
Credit travels UP

Been that way since the dawn of man.

Re:Seeing the source

[hackwrench]

Corporations don't have to share the source of code they use internally. There are some licenses that say you have to share any code that results in the page sent to the user, though, I think.

In OSS these quarrels happen to... fork and share

[Anonymous Coward]

business urgencies aside, developers who have significantly different opinions about a project just resolve it with a fork, and then often a useful relationship remains where code is shared between the two... business will have to learn.

Corporation without OSS and OSS Do Not Mix

[Anonymous Coward]

The title is all wrong. Corporation without OSS and OSS Do Not Mix
I mix corporate and OSS business without any problems.
WoW. That must be new around here :)

Some possible reasons

[Registered Coward v2]

One problem is business view OSS much as any other product, i.e. someone supplied it and thus the expect that person to help solve problems that arise. The do not see the OSS community as a community but as yet another vendor. Other vendors don't say "We'll, if it doesn't work right tell us and we'll see if we want to fix it and if someone is interested in fixing it they'll do so when they get around to it." As a result, there are differing expectation on what OSS really id; which if course does not absolve those acing like jerks.

Companies do not realize they can fix a problem themselves by patching their code even if the community doesn't agree with the fix. Of course, when they break something else they will expect someone else to fix the new problem.

The OSS community bears some blame as well, beyond the toxicity argument. There are those who want wider acceptance and use of OSS without changing the norms and culture that define the OSS community. Unfortunately, as communities grow up they change and such changes are sometimes hard for those who helped build the community to accept.

Normal way of doing things

[sad_]

Ian must have never worked for a big company, it's their normal way of working.
I see it here each time there is an issue with some piece of enterprise software, the phone is picked up, the account manager is called and threatened.
If you talk about OSS, the first question you get is - who do we call when it doesn't work. As long as you can say there is a support structure behind it, they panic goes away. Support mostly means that you have somebody to yell at, because the actual support part is in most cases not that great (with any vendor).

Meanwhile, about those bugs in Windows...

[kmoser]

And yet these corporations are still happily ponying up money for bug-ridden Windows. If these companies were as serious about demanding OSS bug fixes as they are about Windows bug fixes, Windows would be bug-free by now.

A little off.

[IBitOBear]

They don't understand that _any_ consultant could help them because the software source is available.

You are exactly correct that is a mind-set problem based in fear.

Business people are often not smart in the ways of "optional thought". They have game-plan mentalities based on team trimumph over all comers. (Next time someone tells you they are majoring in or have a degree in "business" ask them which sport they played in high school. No really, they act stunned and are all "how did you know?" in wonderment.

So they need someone to go to without thought. A vendor under contract is like the special teams in football. It doesn't matter how terrible your field-goal special team is, now is the moment you punt and it's then it's the punters fault we lost. Coach said so.

So business, particularly big business, is about apportioning blame (renamed "responsibility") because it's run like (and usually by) loss-adverse athletic reasoning.

There's a good reason that the entire tech explosion of the last fifty years happened outside of "normal business channels" and is full of geeks. What was done required non-linear thought by the drivers. Those companies all _hired_ MBAs to run the boring balls from legal to HR and back, but the innovation was done far away from the MBA's sight.

That's also why the Carly F.s of the world totally consumed companies like HP and turned them into "also rans" in their own fields. Get enough bankers and business men "on your team" and they'll crush the geeks before they realize they sold off or frightened away all the talent.

Innovation can be a team sport, but only a cooperative team sport like hakey-sack or "the floor is lava". 8-)

How would a business model for Free games work?

[tepples]

Companies tend to forget which businesses they are _not_ in. Selling software is not sustainable, but selling experience (games) and experience (professional expertese) are.

So how would one sell "experience" (games) without "selling software"? For one thing, video game console developer contracts are known to forbid inclusion of copylefted code in a product. For another, are you referring to combining a free engine with non-free assets (scripts, meshes, textures, maps, and audio)? And if so, how should a studio adopting such a business model deter casual infringement of a game's assets?

Implied warranties can't always be disclaimed

[tepples]

Indeed, there is an explicit disclaimer of warranty in the GPL and other OSS licenses.

Which doesn't do you much good if your code is available in a country where a disclaimer of an legally recognized implied warranty is considered unconscionable and therefore null, void, and of no force or effect.

Re:Implied warranties can't always be disclaimed

[Anonymous Coward]

Fair enough; I've only ever dealt with contracts within the US. AIUI, "unconscionable" limits on disclaimer in some US jurisdictions do exist, but are usually peculiar to specific markets (automotive, medical, etc.) or when personal injury occurs. Most OSS isn't described as being fit for use in, for example, heart monitors, so personal injury seems unlikely. It has been a few versions since I checked, but even the MSVC EULA explicitly states that the compiler is not intended for use in such scenarios.

Do you know of countries where non-commercial OSS (as in those projects where the author of TFA is/was a core developer) would be held to such legal standards? I'm probably not the only one who would be interested; a few quick google searches weren't very helpful.

- T

Remember UCITA?

[tepples]

I can't think of any off the top of my head. But about a decade and a half ago, there was a proposal called Uniform Computer Information Transaction Act to make each of the several states in the United States such a jurisdiction: Why We Must Fight UCITA

Re:Remember UCITA?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I had forgotten about that one. UCITA might have grown from initial good intentions, but it ended up having some horrible provisions within it, which somehow escaped scrutiny (or were quietly accepted) during a decade-long development process.

I remember now that I had thought it was doomed once ALI withdrew support, but two states still passed UCITA laws. I was mildly surprised when Virginia passed a form of it; Maryland, not so much. AFAIK, neither state repealed their UCITA legislation, nor did they correct the worst parts (implied warranty and reverse engineering). No other states passed UCITA legislation. IIRC, a few states passed "anti-UCITA" laws. Finally, it's not clear to me that the implied warranty portions of the Virginia UCITA would apply to non-commercial OSS - reading that crap makes my head hurt. My reading of the original Maryland UCITA leads me to believe that explicit disclaimer of implied warranty is allowed; I lost the endurance to look up any amendments.

FWIW, Gilmore, the former Virginia governor who is now running for the Republican presidential nomination, "proudly" signed this abortion of a law. Good to see he doesn't even have enough support now to merit a position on the debate stages.

- T