Starting session (framed as a debate) on funding #OpenSource software projects and/or foundations at @ow2's #OW2con.
Interesting process were those who speak, then point to someone else from the audience to take their spot on the panel.
I am struck by how outside the "norm" education-derived #opensource projects are, related to funding.
Everyone so far has a commercial orientation, aligned with typical corporate business and revenue models. As such they are emphasizing investors, customers, start-ups, etc.
Also of note is a, perhaps European, emphasis on goverment funding.
I don't think the education sector and the #OSS institutions produce fit--or can take advantage--of these approaches.
The open source software produced in #highered is a "by-project" [by-product] of their primary work (research, teaching and learning, academic/administrative computing); the #OpenSource software produced by companies--and many "projects" waiting for investors--is a "product."
The sustainability, support, contributor model (and motivations) is thus all different... very different.
@massonpj @ow2 Most #OpenSource software is produced by software engineers and enthusiasts in their spare time as an act of curiosity, generosity, or social conscience: a contribution to making the world a (slightly) better place.
It is neither 'product' nor 'by-product' but conscious #gift -- and this is a good thing.
Viewing open source as something produced primarily by industry and academia is not merely wrong: it's missing the point entirely.
@simon_brooke @massonpj @ow2 myth? Most open source projects (by LoC ?) are worked on by payed employees of companies eg Linux kernel, MariaDB, ...
@falken @simon_brooke @massonpj @ow2
If open-source is a commercial and economic tool, you'd want to measure something that makes the companies look good. If it's a philosophical tool, or a rebellion *against* commercialising everything, you'd measure one that makes the hobbyists (and possibly academics) look good.
Which one is "right"? Does truth and kindness without money matter more, or do profit and economic growth matter more? Can't measure an answer to that. Have to just choose.
@codefolio @falken @massonpj @ow2 I can answer that. Truth and kindness without money matter more, and if we had more of it generally the world would be objectively a better place.
"we can say clearly:
Accumulated wealth is a measure of opportunities for generosity that have been missed."
https://www.journeyman.cc/blog/posts-output/2023-02-08-on-money/
@falken @massonpj @ow2 doubt it. If you argued the most *used* #OpenSource projects are largely worked on by paid employees, you might be right; but if you look at the literally squillions of lines of code in small projects on public git repositories, it makes the #Linux kernel look less than a drop in the ocean.
@falken @simon_brooke @massonpj @ow2
Measured by lines of code, that's an interesting question. There are an absolute *flood* of little open source projects on GitHub, etc. that are large in lines of code, and number of contributors, that barely get used at all.
Corporate open source nearly always has a commercially-useful reason to exist, so it tends to dominate on number of commits, reqs/sec, and dollars.
"Most" requires first deciding what it matters to measure.