this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2025
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Opensource

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I see comments on posts such these very often where people complain about opensource products like Linux phones, Linux itself, or pretty much anything else, not being as good as their proprietary, funded, and profits driven alternatives. How are such projects supposed to compete without money and full-time developers? Especially when people are unwilling to donate to them "because they just aren't there yet", how do they expect the projects to quickly get to a point where they are boob friendly and usable?

People will disparage groups that try to make something with barely any funding and time. There are so many negative comments about the PinePhone, Phosh, PostMarketOS, and so on. It's disappointing to have such a community.

As soon as an opensource project asks for funds, integrates a question for funds in their software, uses a restrictive license or something like a business source license, someone will complain about it on social media and blow up the maintainers' repository and socials. Why are we so averse to opensource contributors earning a living writing opensource?

If people don't want to fund opensource (or "source available") until "it's ready" and resist any attempt to make money from it, how it the model supposed to succeed in being an alternative for the majority?

Sorry for the rant, but why can't we as a community be more active in supporting our opensource contributors instead just waiting for the apples to fall into our and their laps?

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[–] Adderbox76@lemmy.ca 16 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

I agree completely and I've been banging that drum for 15 years.

But, it's important to note that financial is only one way to contribute. Your metaphorical sweat can also be your contribution.

The common thing people say is that "Well I don't know how to code."

But do you know how to proofread? Do you have some skills as a graphic designer or web-designer?

As far as I'm concerned, every user of a piece of FOSS software must at a minimum be signed up for the bug report forums because that in itself is the most basic form of contribution and it's incredibly helpful to the developers who don't have the time or the staffing to find all the bugs themselves.

[–] Shady_Shiroe@lemmy.world 4 points 13 hours ago

I'm no big open source dev, but when I started my own project, it gave me motivation to see people using and sending issue reports.