The last days, during MVP Summit (yay #MVPBuzz!) there where often topics covered related to OpenSource in many ways. And there was one line you could find in all of them: The problem with OpenSource developers and missing gratitude for their work.
These days, without open source, Github and all these lovely so to say "free" tools, many many startups wouldn't be where they are today. Yes even many bigger enterprises would probably struggle. Think alone how many devices, apps, real people where effected by the recent Log4J problem. Log4j is the de-facto default logging library in Java and was even ported, yet again as open source, by the community. With the recent bug it was actually easier to ask "Who is not affected" as it was just so many, theres millions using the library and if all of them would just give back $5! to the developers, there would be no issue at all fixing these bugs, maintaining libraries properly and so on. However, to my knowledge, theres very little companies that actually gave back something to the maintainers. IdentityServer 4, if you remember this was another similar story. The guys got some funding but by far not enough to pay their bills despite their work, again, being used by countless companies all around the world.
This and similar stories can be told for countless open source projects.
So lets have a look at things
Taken from Gartner, Worldwide IT spending is projected to total $4.2 trillion in 2021....yes trillion. Companies, private people, institutions, everyone pays a crazy amount of money for Software and Services. Its not that people don't pay for software, its the opposite. Crazy amounts of money are paid for pieces of software, sometimes built in a few hours and not even worth the money. Software development is pricey, reaaaally pricey if not to say expensive. If you look at the average saas product from start to finish and the amount of money it took you often end up with multiple 100k , sometimes millions.
When you look at startups, its even crazier. Some startups, wether they suceed or not, receive crazy funding from VC etc. Hasura just anounced they received $100M in funding. Thats not because someone is just throwing out money, no!. Thats because what they built actually has a value, worth and price tag! Building software is time consuming, takes a lot of effort, special skills and dedication.
When it comes to saas, apps, libraries...things you pay for. This is kinda the norm everyone knows about. Software has a price tag, i have to pay to use it, the guys spent money to implement it.
And don't even think about that every saas company is highly profitable. Many have less than 10% turnover, some even less than 5%. For many startups it takes years to actually be profitable!
After all, software has a price tag.
But open source is free? We can just use open source and don't have to pay or wait, its just sitting there for everyone to take!
Open Source is not free software!
Yes, you can use Open Source libraries and apps for free, if you look at this as simple as that. Yes, OS is free. However thats not even half the picture.
Think of it from another point of view: Open Source developers, project owners, maintainers...they all give away literal money for free!
On average these days, 1 hour freelance work is probably around 80-150€ some way above that some lower. Software agencies usually charge around 400-500 minimum per day. Yet OS people don't charge anything...they literarily donate, what in many many cases is their own free time, to the world. To me, many of them are heroes on their own. Without open source, many of theese agencies would have to charge easily double that if not more!
Very little companies value open source and allow their developers to work on projects during working hours, countless lines of codes in open source projects are written in the evenings, weekends and even on vacation. Just because someone is dedicated to built something. ( its actually 22:15 here while writing this! )
Many projects have one thing in common, they want to help. Help make other developer's live better, help sort of problem other's might have, help educate others and help other developers to grow and start a career in tech. By saying open source is free and by acting like many people do you completely devalue the effort, dedication and energy anyone working on open source brings to the table!
However, it does not have to be like this!
Just try to give back!!
Just think about, what was the last open source project you used. Which os libraries do you rely on for your saas product? Which sdk's really help you have an easier time at work? Which blog author, content creator or maintainer helped you solve an issue? And then think about how much time you would need if their work wouldn't exist. Think about, could you have built your saas app the way you did without open source? Just be nice, and kind and give at least something back.
Giving back to open source doesn't always have to be money, if you can't afford paying money there's other stuff you can do! Sometimes even sending a tweet "Hey we're using that awesome open source library xx" already helps. Helps raise awareness and maybe someone else can support them monetary.
If you can afford it, Github has a really great way to give back to developers, projects and maintainers.
Github Sponsors
GitHub Sponsors allows the developer community to financially support the people and organizations who design, build, and maintain the open source projects they depend on, directly on GitHub. That is, you can directly support all the projects, developers and communities you are building your own work on. And you should make use of this!
When you go to Github and visit the projects you're using in your product just have a look at the Sponsors button. You might see something like this in the navigation:
By using the sponsor functionality you can directly donate to the project owner and give back and just show you're actually valueing what they're doing. If the project you want to support doesn't have sponsoring enabled, just reach out to them kindly, tell them you want to support and ask them how you can donate. You can point them to this blog article if you want to: https://github.blog/2020-03-24-getting-started-with-github-sponsors/
If the project has the sponsor button but none of the tiers match what you want to give them, just kindly reach out and ask them to enable "custom funding". By doing that you can just pay whatever you like.
Final words
I know this is a topic countless people where writing about already but it also can't be said often enough. Start to value open source work, start to actually show you're grateful for what these awesome guys do and start support the projects you love. Now... i'll wait here..just go and sponsor someone!
Joke's aside... the open source community is important for every software company on this planet, its in our all responsibility that people keep publishing things, working on open source and even grow the community as otherwise things would become pretty tricky quite soon.
Greets...and go sponsor someone!