The community is angry!

Whatever you do, don't rile the community. I posted an innocuous suggestion earlier today that had this as its basic conclusion:

For those in the commercial open-source world (and that's most everyone now), we need to focus on finding ways to draw more people into the cash/code bargain without sacrificing the benefits that derive from fee-free adoption of open source.

Shocking, isn't it? The vast majority of the world would look at that statement and shrug. "The community?" Well, it's apparently a shocking thought to want to find ways to sell more of what one produces. Tarus went on a rampage, discrediting everything in his path...except my argument, which he conveniently overlooked. Dana called it "dumb[]." Benjamin Reed inexplicably calls my post "sensationalist," as if I have something to gain from denigrating open source (??? Benjamin, I work for a 100 percent open-source company - any money from CNET is peanuts compared to my day job).

Guys: Are we reading the same post? I really think you didn't read a single word in my post beyond "free rider." Go back and re-read it. Seriously. I don't think it says what you think it says. I'm honestly bewildered by the responses. They don't seem to comport to the reality of what I wrote.

Ah, community. They love you...until they don't. Say the right things, and you're a hero. Step out of line and you're, well, flame-bait. But in this case I didn't even say anything remotely approaching sensationalist. I just said "It would be great to get more people contributing." I almost fell asleep typing it, it's so bland.

Savio suggests that "the community" may be hurting open-source businesses. Most days I'd find this simply wrong, but reading the responses to a harmless suggestion that people should contribute more to open-source projects...it makes you wonder.

Benjamin, I was speaking from my own experience (both with my company and those I advise), as well as a decade's worth of experience following various open-source communities like Linux, Apache, etc. I see you write things like...

In other words, the "free-riders" are not just some abstract pool of people from which you extract cash. In a true open-source project, they are the foundation that makes the project something great. Everyone who is a contributing part of an open-source project was once a "free-rider" who just wanted to try it out. Every person involved in any way at all adds momentum, even if it's just by asking a question and being answered on the list. That answer goes into the global pool of knowledge (which maybe a future user will find, while googling, and won't have to ask himself).

...and I appreciate the thought. But you're speaking of a small minority of successful open-source projects. I would love to see all open source operate like this, but it doesn't. That's not my opinion. It's an established fact. You're describing an open-source ideal, one that I hold in as high esteem as you do. But it's very hard to come by.

Regardless, my argument was not that the world of free riders should be pilloried and decimated. Re-read my post. It was simply that we need to find ways to get more code or cash from communities. I'd be ecstatic to never get a penny but get lots of code. Most people, however, don't contribute documentation, bug reports, bug fixes, code, cash, awareness, or anything else. They just use the software, if they even do that much (I suspect most downloads die on the vine).

Even in that I suggested there's some positive value. So why were we disagreeing, again? Or were we?

[PierreTDC]

So Matt since the acquisition of c|net by CBS you've decided to pull off (If I may say) a Janet Jackson all by yourself? ;-)

Seriously I'm not sure I see a big problem with your post either. You're just expressing a common business point of view.

I think part of the ambiguity lies in the fact that the code is going to the community but the cash is going to the company... So it's fair only if one is reasonably sure that this cash somewhat profits the community too... (which is probably harder to demonstrate with a DL model)

[jrepenning]

I suspect your step into blasphemy was in the previous paragraph:

> Ultimately, someone must pay for software in order to have it written. It doesn't grow on trees
> and it doesn't grow on communities, either.

One of the interesting things about open-source communitarianism is the extent to which it expects the structure (either financial or social) to be too low-key to actually name itself. You violated the gentlemen's agreement.

[Savio.Rodrigues]

Matt, I'm glad today isn't "most days" then ;-)

I too wish we could achieve the open-source ideal that you and Benjamin speak of. I'm not sure how oss vendors would make substantial money in such a situation, but it would be nice none the less. In a way, the situation that Benjamin describes is often found at Apache in multi-vendor projects.

[PiddlyD]

I don't get it - Perhaps the comments were so hard to understand because you're not very clear on what you are proposing, Matt. I didn't read the original article, but it sounds like you are suggesting that; the majority of users do not contribute in any manner, but simply "leech", for lack of a better word. It seems you want to institute some model that forces mandatory involvement, either by paying or by contributing some sort of skill. Sounds like Darth Vadar's plan (Or Bill Gates) for cleaning up the "Anarchists of the Open Source Rebellion", to me.

At the end, I don't see what it will get you. A handful of Open Source projects achieve "the ideal" because they are well implemented, well thought out, meet a real need, and have some sort of significant benefit to the community. The rest "die on the vine" because they don't meet one or more of these criteria.

Here is the shocker, it is the SAME way in closed-source application development, too. Good applications grow and flourish. Ones that are ill conceived or executed, or have no real purpose, "die on the vine". Adding money doesn't fix that. At the best, it allows crappy applications that have no real reason to be to exist LONGER than they should.

Software, like everything else, seems to follow some varient of the 80/20 rule. 20% of the software has some value and is well executed and worth having... the other 80% never really makes it out of the conceptual stage, even if you can buy it in a nice retail box at Best Buy.

But maybe I'm missing your point - it seems like THAT might have "died on the vine", as well.