It's complicated. Reviewing a PR takes time and effort, and the maintainer may not want to do that for a feature that mainly benefits a company that isn't paying the maintenance fee.

OTOH, as a maintainer, if a company finds a bug that would impact a lot of users, I would want them to report it, regardless of their payment status.

But saying something like "Issues from paying customers/donors have higher priority" is kind of vague, and doesn't provide any concrete value to the payer. So I'm not really sure what a good balance would be.

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elsjaako a day ago | parent | next [-]

I think this is one of those issues that only exists in theory, not in practice.

If a company reports a bug in a clear and helpful way, it's probably going to get looked at anyway.

Also, if a company cares enough about Wix to bother finding and documenting a bug, they should be willing to pay $60 for the software.

So this is only a problem in the case where a company finds a bug, decides to report it, refuses to pay a minimal fee, and the maintainers are strict enough with themselves to ignore it because of the source. That feels unlikely to me.

	▲	derefr 16 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Careful with your wording, as I think you're slipping the goalposts a bit: the thing this "Open Source Maintenance Fee" is pushing back against here wasn't specifically bug reports. It was issues — a more general category, which, besides bugs, also contains feature requests. (And that, I think, is where this problem does exist "in practice.") As you say, I don't think anyone's going to demand money to look into an (easily-replicated) bug. A bug is, by definition, a blemish in your code quality with real-world implications; something that, even if affects no one, still feels slightly embarrassing/pride-stinging to have hanging around in your codebase. (And if the bug does affect even just one person, then it can also feel like your software is like a child or pet of yours who has accidentally done something bad to that person out of ignorance. You feel the need to re-educate your software to do better.) In either case, you'll likely accept anything that's truly a bug into your issue tracker (rather than closing it as a WONTFIX) regardless of who submitted it, or how it got there. You might keep deprioritizing it once it's in there, but you won't close it. But a feature request — no matter how obvious it is, or how many people want it — is different. The maintainers of a piece of code decide the direction the code evolves in; and if they never want to support some feature, that's their perogative. Maybe you just hate the feature! Maybe it'd force the code into a less-elegant architecture! Maybe the code exists entirely to scratch your own itch, and you're not going to implement anything that isn't part of your own workflow! Doesn't really matter in the end. It's these cases, I think, where putting money on the table would obviously sway that kind of decision. "Of all the directions you could freely choose to evolve the code... how about a little incentive to choose this one?"
	▲	robmensching 19 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		You sound like a very reasonable person. :) Many arguments here are extremes with the assumption that everything is a hard lines that cannot be crossed. That's not generally how the real world works (there are some hard lines in the world) and the parties involved can communicate and do communicate. Overall, the OSMF is working very well right now. There are still a couple of wrinkles to iron out (like invoicing). It's also early. :)

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robmensching 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

100%. We're still learning here. I also don't expect every project to choose the same policy on how they tackle issues/PRs when requiring an Open Source Maintenance Fee.

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monocularvision 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I guess the point is if someone discovers a bug and opens a PR to fix it, then that person is, in a way, also a maintainer. They are “paying” for the maintanence of the project in time and effort.

	▲	robmensching 2 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		No. A maintainer is someone who maintains the project. Fixing a bug is a great contribution and makes you a contributor to the project. But you need stick around the project for a while, fixing issues that keep the project running and doing tasks that aren't necessarily required for your use of the project to become a maintainer.
	▲	jononor a day ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I would only say that they have become maintainers if they consistently do so, over time. Including helping out in areas which is not directly useful to them. And thinking about the whole picture, not just individual features and bugs. And also putting in the time when it is needed, even though other obligations are pulling at them. Of course it is somewhat of a continiuum. And it always starts with being a contributor. So that is on the right path.