[kwlug-disc] Permissive vs copyleft licenses

[Paul Nijjar]

On Sun, Dec 20, 2020 at 05:01:00PM -0500, Jason Eckert wrote:
> > On the other hand, I am also unhappy with the solutions we have
> > developed to give people incomes while developing software. So there
> > is no pleasing me.
> 
> What are your thoughts around the use-and-fund model that GitHub
> is promoting (GitHub Sponsors)? It starts at the 4min mark here:
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m9nUP-e8Co
> 

> The more I think about this sort of model, the more I think it will
> become the norm in the future for open source projects.

Obviously, this idea has been floating around for a long time. The
interface on Github is lower-friction than some of the alternatives.
It does feel a bit like a walled garden, although strictly speaking
this is not true.

The issue with all of these schemes is that it is cheaper NOT to
support a project financially and instead freeload, so long as
somebody else (probably the unpaid developers) foots the bill. Keeping
FLOSS accessible is really important to me, but that organizations
that are using the labour of free software developers are under no
obligation to support those developers. 

Maybe the way this could be fixed is via shame. When a rich company
uses some FLOSS project without paying for it, we could make viral
Twitter threads that shame the company in question into paying
$128/month or something. This would depend on us being able to see who
is sponsoring projects and who is not.

- Paul