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Comment by x0x0 | Hacker News Reader

In other news, people continue to be surprised that demand for free labor outstrips supply :D

We've discussed this here before, but I bet the majority of companies are parasites. Heavy consumers of open source, with virtually 0 contributions of money or time. I think we should resolve, particularly those of us in a position to make it happen, to donate to open source projects.

I do (and I stay anonymous for multiple reasons) run a small open source ML project. I ignore virtually all support requests, but if you are a heavy open source contributor, you will get a response. You should mention that in emails; I'll go out of my way to help you (and often even promptly!)

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+Lots to wanting to help heavy contributors first.

While there are a lot of "hey free software" people who don't contribute back, I love those non-contributor companies when they pay actual money for something. My experience is those are usually very reasonable with time-table on fixes and understanding, and the business relationship adds value. Maybe this is more about the maturity level of the company you are likely to be working with, I don't know.

If someone is however just a user, though, often they feel obligated to get infinite value rather than just the value they are paying :)

> I ignore virtually all support requests, but if you are a heavy open source contributor, you will get a response. You should mention that in emails; I'll go out of my way to help you (and often even promptly!)

Seems like a very sensible policy but will people really volunteer that in emails with no notice? Or do you state that somewhere in the project documentation? I'm a reasonably active open-source contributor but it wouldn't occur to me to mention it when sending an email to a project in an unrelated space.

I actually do mention I'll make an extra effort for you if you contribute to OS. I added it after recognizing the name of someone who emailed me, realizing I'd been using software he wrote for years, and feeling like I owed him an effort.

That said, I think it never hurts when asking an OS contributor for a favor to point out you do the same, even to a completely unrelated project.

I don't think it's about being a parasite.

I definitely think there should be a more established system of contributing money to open source.

There's also a matter of perception that Open Source means FREE, while yes, you don't HAVE to pay for it. a lot of times you SHOULD.

I am working on a big open source project now in the DevOps space and right out of the box I am going to have a "Pro" version. Maybe more projects should adopt this approach.

I would call those companies epiphytes [0], not 'parasites', which is untrue and pejorative. Adoption of FOSS is good for society whether or not adopters contribute back to the project (even though they should).

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphyte

Well, they provide software engineers with a living so these same software engineers can build open source software in their free time, so that software engineers can use the open software at work. Just like doctors who, without fees and in their own time, devise new ways to perform life-saving surgery and trying it out on willing patients.

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