I'm pretty sure we have a problem when one of the most notable voices in the community responds to a "well, you could hire folks to implement things for you" like this:
-
I'm pretty sure we have a problem when one of the most notable voices in the community responds to a "well, you could hire folks to implement things for you" like this:
And folks wonder why I'm on burn out leave at the moment. Like, we really need to have a serious conversation about just how much free and unpaid labour we're all relying on here. If I can't pay my rent, then I can't contribute to open source, it's that fucking simple.
#opensource #mastodon #activitypub
-
@thisismissem that’s not cool. I totally get why you would feel burnt out after facing that kind of response when you’ve contributed so much. It’s a very reasonable suggestion.
-
@thisismissem@hachyderm.io You have done amazing work, and I have all the respect in the world for you. And yes, this community, and the Fediverse in particular, lean heavily on free labor. Not just from writing and shipping code, but managing communities, producing content and media, and even running individual instances.
It's not healthy or sustainable. People deserve to be compensated for what they do.
-
I should also note that I'm not the only frequent contributor to various fediverse projects who is struggling to make ends meet. I know of at least a half dozen other independent developers who do a tonne of work in standards and figuring stuff out for the fediverse who don't have stable income from well-paid jobs to rely upon.
So my comment wasn't me asking for money from someone, but rather, just saying that there's folks that have expertise in making changes, and they could be hired to make the changes you want to see in a reasonable manner.
We cannot rely on free labour to advance the fediverse. We live in a capitalist society, so folks need money to pay their rent, buy food and frankly exist.
-
@thisismissem I have found that the people least willing to engage in the work needed to understand why people fade out of Open Source due to financial hardship are people who have not needed to rely on Open Source for their daily bread.
Sorry folks, not everyone is employed by Big Corp Inc or get a huge grant or whatever. Relying on the largess of the community instead for income? Hoo boy, that's a one-in-a-million chance (and even then probably "apps" rather than "libraries").
-
@jaredwhite yeah, I've been telling people how lucky I am to be able to be doing what I'm doing, but frankly, it's just not been sustainable lately. I've made only approximately €24,000 this year, €11,331 from community donations YTD. The rest has been small amounts of freelance work and one grant payment.
That's not sustainable in the slightest, especially as costs everywhere skyrocket
20-30% of that goes to taxes, 20% to health insurance. Then a significant portion goes to rent.
-
thisismissem@hachyderm.io it was a very weird exchange! I don't understand what that was about.
