open source is charity. I believe in it, I contribute to it, but I recognize it is unlikely to lead to a sustainable livelihood

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foxglacier 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

Yes. Somebody else using your software is usually the ambition of open source developers but this guy is hurt by it. He's programming for money, not doing charity. It sounds like being open source was just for show to make his business look like a charity.

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pabs3 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

There are lots of FOSS consultancies out there doing fairly well, some linked from the FOSSjobs wiki:

https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources

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account42 5 days ago | parent [-]

Sure but the open source part is mostly incidental to their work. They solve business needs for corporations.

	▲	pabs3 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		The open source part is usually the whole point, they work solely on open source projects themselves, not deploying those projects for corporations. They work on things like the Linux kernel, mesa, systemd, distros etc.

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lemming 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I don't know about you, but if I'm going to donate to/work for charity, I'd like to ensure it's for someone who actually needs it rather than the Amazons of the world. I don't feel a pressing need to donate any money or time to them.

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bigstrat2003 6 days ago | parent [-]

That makes no sense at all. Software is not a scarce resource, unlike your money. If you donate money to a charity who gives it to Amazon, you would have good reason to be upset. But if you write a piece of software and Amazon uses it, other (needier) users benefit just as much!

Or to put it in another context, if you went and volunteered for a highway cleanup, would you get mad if Bezos drove on the highway you cleaned? Because that is what your position here is analogous to, and that seems like a poor line of reasoning to me.

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lemming 6 days ago | parent [-]

> if you went and volunteered for a highway cleanup, would you get mad if Bezos drove on the highway you cleaned?

No, but I would get mad if Bezos made a ton of money charging people to drive on a clean highway after I had cleaned it for free.

	▲	account42 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		The situation is more akin to Bezos charging people to deliver goods via your highway while others can still use it for free though.