Forgive me but this part of the open source and foss confuses me. If you code and release an open source and free piece of software like say, a robust video player such as VLC, how is that dev being paid?
Because in my eyes (I’m not too privy to FOSS ins and outs)
I’m basically getting your software for free of no charge, it IS free as in free beer cos you’re not asking ME to pay it for so who is paying YOU?
Does it come via donations or wealthy corporations like Red Hat and Microsoft pay or fund open sourced projects that is given to the hard working developers of that OSS/FOSS project?
Like others have mentioned, there are various options (donations/sponsorships/grants) that larger projects will generally have some of, but for smaller projects (99% of what’s out there, by project count if not usage), the answer is simply “it isn’t.” It’s done as a hobby, as a resume booster, or with the hope of eventually becoming big enough to hit one of those revenue streams.
depends on the project. Some projects are spun out from major corporations. Others are one dude making a thing and it gets used everywhere and taken over by venture capital firms.
Some projects will have sponsorship, there are also government grants they can get, but I would say most comes from regular users doing reoccurring dontations.
FOSS is free, OSS doesn’t have to be. Very often open source software, of which the commercial fork is being maintained by a company, that company will profit from businesses using the software. Idk about VLC but Moodle, for instance, is open source and updates for it are based on a subscription model.
The license agreement for OSS will often state that you are free to use it in your own home, but if you start commercially using the software, they expect you to pay. Some open source projects can get resold by service providers this way to handle deployment of updates, provide support, et cetera.
My company hired at least one open source guy. The original code is internal to our company and he’s allowed work time to maintain it
That’s impressive. Is it still licensed under a libre copyleft license? Surely that’s too good to be true.
Yes, the company does not own the license, theoretically has the same rights as anyone. And the source is replicated to externally
From my perspective, it was really annoying to discover. I’m going through everything with scanners, trying to get tools and languages up to date and mitigate known vulnerabilities, but he did not want to bring his code up to date. I get that the company doesn’t own it, but I’m giving you company time to get your stuff up to date.
If your only aspiration for creation and improving the world is making money, you are a waste of a human.
Our small company paid a prominent (of that specific driver) open source driver writer for prioritisation of some work more than once. All the code was GPL.
I know it’s only one data point but it’s one way.
