So if I use vim or emacs for free, or VS Code for that matter, I have to hunt down the maintainers and pay them? Do I need to empty my wallet for every project I use for free? Because that's not sustainable for normal people, let alone businesses.

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jdiff 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

If you use them for free to spawn a 50M business, yeah, give back a little. Nobody's saying every user should open their wallet, let alone "empty" it as you hyperbolate.

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saghm 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I don't have particularly strong preference for copyleft (I use the Apache license for my personal projects), but these don't seem like particularly compelling arguments.

> So if I use vim or emacs for free, or VS Code for that matter

Vim and emacs both use licenses that require you to share any source code modifications if you distribute binaries that you change, so that's kind of a strange comparison. You literally couldn't do the things that Warp did with Alacritty. As for VS Code, it seems pretty disingenuous to compare a single solo developer to a multi-trillion dollar company.

> I have to hunt down the maintainers and pay them?

I don't understand why you think it would be hard to "hunt down" someone when an email is literally in every commit in the git history of open source software.

> Do I need to empty my wallet for every project I use for free? Because that's not sustainable for normal people

Most "normal people" do not have access to $50 million of VC money

> let alone businesses

Paying the developer of the one piece of software that they forked for the entire basis of their business $100,000 of the VC money would not meaningfully have hurt their ability to succeed. They could have just as easily reached the same level of success they have now with $49.9 million.

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giancarlostoro 3 hours ago | parent [-]

> I don't understand why you think it would be hard to "hunt down" someone when an email is literally in every commit in the git history of open source software.

I use Arch Linux, tell me which of the thousands of packages am I obligated to donate to? Im not exactly a money fountain to be giving money away to strangers I am grateful for, but it I put something on the internet as open source, for free, I dont cry if nobody reaches out to give me money. Honestly, I rather just be informed that my project is being used to make someone a profitable business, thats good enough for me personally. If I thought different, I wouldnt open source said projects.

	▲	xnyan 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> I use Arch Linux, tell me which of the thousands of packages am I obligated to donate to? The ones that a barely-informed stranger could easily identify as having made you 7+ figures.

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Muhammad523 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Not sustainable for normal people, let alone people

I hope you are aware of the fact a business makes way more money than a "normal" person?

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giancarlostoro 3 hours ago | parent [-]

People are upset they raised 50 million, how many employees? How long does that keep their lights on? Maybe if they were raking in hundreds of millions I would be inclined to be outraged but if I make a startup tomorrow I cant just donate my VC bucks to every open source project I like until I have some real income coming in or my investors will want my head.

	▲	jdiff 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		You once again drag things in a wildly hyperbolic direction. Nobody's talking about throwing money around wildly at unrelated projects. When there is a single project that sits at your very heart, without which your entire startup is a nonstarter, yes, donate.

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rapind 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Why wouldn't you throw them a few bucks? Especially if your multi-million dollar business is basically a vim clone entirely based on their source...

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giancarlostoro 3 hours ago | parent [-]

I would once profitable, but early stages where every dollar matters? I can see why they wouldnt just throw money left and right.

	▲	xnyan 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		If you're actually asking the question, I'll give you my answer: I was lucky enough to go to a nice spa resort earlier this year, I just handed a few bills to an attendant who had laid out a towel for me when an older man sitting next to me chuckled and shook his head saying "You don't actually have to give them them anything, they have to do it anyway." Super nice resort, nobody here hurting for a few dollars in tips. I guess it's valid to take everything you legally can, but personally, I'm saying it's fucked up move not to pay even a token amount. That's their only consequence, (some) people thinking it's a fucked up move.
	▲	jdiff 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		This isn't left and right, this is one direction: upstream, to the project that forms your very heart.

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Muhammad523 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Donating to the free software you use, even a little, is good.

	▲	giancarlostoro 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Not saying its not, I guess the core of my argument is that people are outraged that these guys raised 50 million… how much of that is going to employees and infrastructure? Is the owner sitting on 50 million in his personal bank account? Because the outrage feels very premature, not to mention they just open sourced the project when they really did not need to under any obligation. Far as I can tell they also did a lot of custom work on top of Alacritty, so its not 100% Alacritty.