A comment on libxml, not on your work: Funny how so many companies use this library in production and not one steps in to maintain this project and patch the issues. What a sad state of affairs we are in.

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jawiggins 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Yeah I agree, maintaining OS projects has been a weird thing for a long time.

I know a few companies have programs where engineers can designate specific projects as important and give them funds. But it doesn't happen enough to support all the projects that currently need work, maybe AI coding tools will lower the cost of maintenance enough to improve this.

I do think there are two possible approaches that policy makers could consider.

1) There could probably be tax credits or deductions for SWEs who 'volunteer' their time to work on these projects.

2) Many governments have tried to create cyber reserve corps, I bet they could designate people as maintainers of key projects that they rely on to maintain both the projects as well as people skilled with the tools that they deem important.

	▲	da_chicken 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		There should be public works grants to maintain them, or else a foundation specifically to maintain them funded with donations, grants, etc. The alternative is another XZ backdoor.

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socalgal2 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

funny how this myth won't die. Checking the commit history plenty of companies are contributing

redhat, apple, samsung, huawei, google, etc...

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ddlsmurf 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

we need a tax on companies using or selling anything OSS, the funds of which go into OSS, the wealth it generated is insane, and it's nearly all just donations of experts

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skybrian 3 hours ago | parent [-]

That's a bit unclear on the concept. It's not open source if you have to pay for it. How about charging money for your code instead?

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saintfire 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Well that's not strictly true.

OSS is allowed to make money and there are projects that require paid licenses for commerical use.

The source is available and collaborative.

Qt states this on their site: Simply put, this is how it works: In return for the value you receive from using Qt to create your application, you are expected to give back by contributing to Qt or buying Qt.

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capitol_ 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

There is nothing in the open source licensees that prevents charging money, in fact, non-commercial clauses are seen as incompatible with the Debian Free Software Guidelines.

And there is a lot of companies out there that make their money based on open source software, red hat is maybe the biggest and most well known.

	▲	skybrian 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I meant in the sense that someone else can redistribute the source for free, not that the company has to do it. > The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale. https://opensource.org/osd

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da_chicken 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Feels like tragedy of the commons.

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wrboyce 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Feels more like you don’t understand the concept of the tragedy of the commons.

EDIT: Sorry, I’ve had a shitty day and that wasn’t a helpful comment at all. I should’ve said that as I understand it TOTC primarily relates to finite resources, so I don’t think it applies here. Sorry again for being a dick.

	▲	em-bee 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		the finite resource here is the unpaid developer time. everyone takes advantage of it until the developer burns out.

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black_13 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

[dead]