Open source

`5:36:46`

And if you have some code that fits in with where I'm going with this, I would love to get those gifts back. And we can keep trading like that. I give you more gifts. You give me some of your gifts. Together, we pool all the gifts such that someone showing up brand new, just get a mountain of gifts. This is the magic thing of open source is it increases the total sum value of what's in the common when we all pursue our own self-interest. So I'm building things for Rails that I need. And you know what? You want me to do that. You do not want me to build things that I don't need on behalf of other people, 'cause I'll do a crap job. I build much better software when I can evaluate the quality of that software by my own use. I need this feature. I'm gonna build a good version of that feature and I'm gonna build just enough just for me. So I'm not gonna bloat it. I'm not trying to attract the customer here. I'm not trying to see some angle. I'm just building what I need. And if you go into open source with that mentality

`5:37:46`

that you're building for you and everything else is a bonus, I think you have all the ingredients to go to distance. I think the people who burn out in open source is when they go in thinking, "I'm making all these gifts. I don't really need them myself, but I'm like hoping someone else does and maybe they'll also give me some money." That's a losing proposition. It never basically works. If you want money for your software, you should just sell it. We have a perfectly fine model of commercial software that people can make that kind and then they can sell it. But I find a lot of confusion, let's just call it that politely, in open source contributors who want to have their cake and eat it too. They like the mode of working with open source. They maybe even like the status that comes from open source, but they also would like to earn a living for making that open source. And therefore, they occasionally end up with the kind of grievances that someone who feels underappreciated at work will develop when others aren't doing enough to recognize their great gifts.

`5:38:47`

— And then they might walk away. I wish I had more insight into their mind state of the individual people that are running these projects, like if they're feeling sad or they need more money or they're like, it's just such a dark box. — It can be. — I mean of course there's some communication, but I just sadly see too often they just kind of walk away. — Right, and I think that's actually also part of the beauty of open source. — Is walking away. — You are not obligated to do this code forever. You're obligated to do this for as long as you wanna do it. That's basically your own obligation. — But there is a, I know, okay... So you might criticize some pushback. You did write a blog post on forever, until the end of the internet with ta-da list. There is a beautiful aspect and you found a good balance there. But I don't know, you're bringing so much joy to people with this thing you created. It's not an obligation, but there's a real beauty

`5:39:47`

to taking care of this thing you've created. There is and not forgetting. I think, what I think what the open source creator is not seeing enough and I mean there's like, how many lives you're making better. There's certain pieces of software that I just quietly use a lot. And like they bring my life joy and I wish I could communicate that well. There's ways to donate, but it's inefficient. It's usually hard to donate. — It is. There's some ways for some people that made it easier. GitHub donations is one way of doing it. I donate to a few people even though I don't love the paradigm. I also accept that we can have multiple paradigms. I accept that I can do open source for one set of motivations and other people can do open source for other motivations. We don't all have to do it the same way. But I do want to counter the misconception that open source is somehow high in a crisis unless we all start paying for open source. That model already exists. It's commercial software. It works very well and plenty of great companies

`5:40:49`

have been built off the back of it. And the expectations are very clear. I pay you this amount and I get this software. Open source, once you start mixing money into it, gets real muddy real fast. And a lot of it's just from those misaligned expectations. That if you feel like you're starving artists as an open source developer and you are owed X amount of money because your software is popular, you're delusional and you need to knock that off. Just get back on track where you realize that you're putting gifts into the world. And if you get something back in terms of monetary compensation, okay, that's a bonus. But if you need that money back in terms of monetary compensation, you just charge for software or go work for a software company that will employ you to do open source. There's tons of that. That is probably actually the primary mode that open source software is being developed in the world today. Commercial companies making open source that they need themselves and then contributing it back. — So I'm glad you sort of like drew some hard lines here.