5 ms·

Good thing that "would be nice" doesn't entail that they have to.

YetAnotherNick 15d ago
What does donation does for open source? Surely it wont come close to pay talented developers who create it. For cloud cost, there are few companies already giving generous free tier for open source. The only thing that donation could pay for is marketing e.g. events and meetups.
- mksaunders2 15d ago
  That's not true at all. Donations are the biggest source of income for The Document Foundation, the non-profit behind LibreOffice, and have been used to pay developers who've joined the team in recent years: * Michael Weghorn (accessibility) * Jonathan Clark (language and scripting support) * Neil Roberts (scripting improvements) * Dan Williams (macOS support and general UI improvements)
  - YetAnotherNick 15d ago
    How much do they pay them?
    - Maken 15d ago
      They don't disclose individual salaries but you can check their annual reports [1]. About 1M € among all the developers. [1] https://www.documentfoundation.org/financials-and-reports/ https://www.documentfoundation.org/financials-and-reports/
- Jach 15d ago
  It obviously depends on the project and the scale and duration of a donation, but plenty of open source projects have benefited from donations. Donations can and do pay for developers, as well, part time or full time. With LibreOffice, you can answer your questions directly by browsing https://www.libreoffice.org/donate/ https://www.libreoffice.org/donate/ and as a non-profit you can easily find more detailed reports: https://www.documentfoundation.org/financials-and-reports/ https://www.documentfoundation.org/financials-and-reports/
- small_scombrus 15d ago
  > The only thing that donation could pay for is marketing e.g. events and meetups. You do realise there's an insanely large gap in-between "everyone is a volunteer" and "everyone is full-time staff", right?
bayindirh 15d ago
Sorry, I can't understand what you mean by that. Do you mean that it's good that companies can profit over people's mostly voluntary efforts for free, or Free Software is meant to be used for free and never supported in any way, or what? I'm at a loss here.
- KronisLV 15d ago
  You are allowed (and encouraged) to do good things without being obligated to. I think it would be immensely cool if OpenAI donated some of that crapload of AI money to the people behind LibreOffice to help with development - and then having like a blog post about it or something would already improve the project's visibility a bit more (hey, every bit helps). What's peanuts to them could help with the sustainability of the project a whole bunch!
  - bayindirh 15d ago
    > You are allowed (and encouraged) to do good things without being obligated to. We're absolutely on the same page with you, and I try to do my best with what I can in that regard. On the other hand, I see a perspective which thinks that companies are entitled to use everything for free and don't need to support the Free Software ecosystem because it's an externality that they don't have to care for, which bothers me a lot. What I was trying to understand that whether this comment was supporting that perspective, or is there something I'm missing entirely.
    - vasco 15d ago
      You misread that comment so much that I'm not sure going too deep here matters much.
      - bayindirh 15d ago
        I might have. I'm a human with a different native language. Sorry if that offended you. Was just trying my best.
redsocksfan45 15d ago
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What does donation does for open source? Surely it wont come close to pay talented developers who create it. For cloud cost, there are few companies already giving generous free tier for open source. The only thing that donation could pay for is marketing e.g. events and meetups.

mksaunders2 15d ago
That's not true at all. Donations are the biggest source of income for The Document Foundation, the non-profit behind LibreOffice, and have been used to pay developers who've joined the team in recent years: * Michael Weghorn (accessibility) * Jonathan Clark (language and scripting support) * Neil Roberts (scripting improvements) * Dan Williams (macOS support and general UI improvements)
- YetAnotherNick 15d ago
  How much do they pay them?
  - Maken 15d ago
    They don't disclose individual salaries but you can check their annual reports [1]. About 1M € among all the developers. [1] https://www.documentfoundation.org/financials-and-reports/ https://www.documentfoundation.org/financials-and-reports/
Jach 15d ago
It obviously depends on the project and the scale and duration of a donation, but plenty of open source projects have benefited from donations. Donations can and do pay for developers, as well, part time or full time. With LibreOffice, you can answer your questions directly by browsing https://www.libreoffice.org/donate/ https://www.libreoffice.org/donate/ and as a non-profit you can easily find more detailed reports: https://www.documentfoundation.org/financials-and-reports/ https://www.documentfoundation.org/financials-and-reports/
small_scombrus 15d ago
> The only thing that donation could pay for is marketing e.g. events and meetups. You do realise there's an insanely large gap in-between "everyone is a volunteer" and "everyone is full-time staff", right?

bayindirh 15d ago

Sorry, I can't understand what you mean by that. Do you mean that it's good that companies can profit over people's mostly voluntary efforts for free, or Free Software is meant to be used for free and never supported in any way, or what? I'm at a loss here.

KronisLV 15d ago
You are allowed (and encouraged) to do good things without being obligated to. I think it would be immensely cool if OpenAI donated some of that crapload of AI money to the people behind LibreOffice to help with development - and then having like a blog post about it or something would already improve the project's visibility a bit more (hey, every bit helps). What's peanuts to them could help with the sustainability of the project a whole bunch!
- bayindirh 15d ago
  > You are allowed (and encouraged) to do good things without being obligated to. We're absolutely on the same page with you, and I try to do my best with what I can in that regard. On the other hand, I see a perspective which thinks that companies are entitled to use everything for free and don't need to support the Free Software ecosystem because it's an externality that they don't have to care for, which bothers me a lot. What I was trying to understand that whether this comment was supporting that perspective, or is there something I'm missing entirely.
  - vasco 15d ago
    You misread that comment so much that I'm not sure going too deep here matters much.
    - bayindirh 15d ago
      I might have. I'm a human with a different native language. Sorry if that offended you. Was just trying my best.

redsocksfan45 15d ago

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