this post was submitted on 06 Dec 2023
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graybeard

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AWS exec: Our understanding of open source is changing (www.theregister.com)
submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Doesn't happen very often, but I agree with AWS. Open source has very much become a vendor-sponsored affair and there are fewer and fewer actual community-driven projects.

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[–] [email protected] 40 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Inside AWS we have the concept of strategic open source projects. We require the business owner inside a service team to report on a quarterly basis about the health of those projects. We’re doing that so we know that they’re paying attention to it. We don’t want to learn that this thing that’s really important is maintained by a guy living in a basement on public assistance. That is not acting in the best interests of our customers.”

They could like pay the guy to maintain it, when they are making massive profits from it. But I know that would be too much to ask for from Amazon

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I do see a scenario where the project becomes tainted because of it. Not really sure how to approach this as maintainers definitely need to get reimbursed in some way.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I wonder if some kind of not for profit organization could act as a benefactor to important open source projects. So people can just donate to this organization, maybe even give monthly or whatever, and the organization doles out the funds to open source projects based on the amount of maintainers and importance to the community at large.

Like a charity for open source. They'd have to operate with complete transparency and justify their actions to avoid accusations of corporate favoritism, but I think it would be doable.

Does something like this already exist?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

Not that I know of, but it sounds like something that should. Like GiveWell, but instead of evaluating the impact of different charities, it does open source projects.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

The issue really depends more on the open source project. Some might have the organizational ability to receive money, direct it to worthy uses, and self govern. Others are just one person projects that will die and splinter off when the person working on it no longer does so.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

It's all fine and dandy until another leftpad project implodes, disabling millions of websites.