On the surface, the open source software community has never been better. Companies and governments are adopting open source software at rates that would’ve been unfathomable 20 years ago, and a whole new generation of programmers are cutting their teeth on developing software in plain sight and making it freely available for anyone to use. Go a little deeper, however, and the cracks start to show.
The ascendancy of open source has placed a mounting burden on the maintainers of popular software, who now handle more bug reports, feature requests, code reviews, and code commits than ever before. At the same time, open source developers must also deal with an influx of corporate users who are unfamiliar with community norms when it comes to producing and consuming open source software. This leads to developer burnout and a growing feeling of resentment toward the companies that rely on free labor to produce software that is folded into products and sold back to consumers for huge profits.
The Free Rider Problem rears its head again?
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday February 17 2019, @05:19PM
What could I have done then, to find another crappy job?
What I was able to do for a good chunk of it was to earn ad clicks on a popular article I wrote about legal music downloads. But I haven't been able to come anywhere near to repeating that success.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]