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I am not a supplier

Thomas Depierre · 31 Dec 2022

Others here said this too

Maintainers of widely used open source software are not adequately funded, and that is a real and unsolved problem.

Their wordsHell even worse, a lot of the libraries that underpin the fabric of what we all call the digital economy have trouble getting enough money to pay for food.

Also said by Drew DeVault, Filippo Valsorda

Read the piece on softwaremaxims.com ↗

4 korrents from this piece ↓

Thomas Depierre did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

  1. Our reading

    An open source maintainer is not a supplier: there is no relationship with the companies using the code, so they cannot impose requirements on the person who wrote it.

    Their wordsWe are not suppliers. All the people writing and maintaining these projects, we are not suppliers. We do not have a business relationship with all these organisations.

  2. Our reading

    Maintainers of widely used open source software are not adequately funded, and that is a real and unsolved problem.

    Their wordsHell even worse, a lot of the libraries that underpin the fabric of what we all call the digital economy have trouble getting enough money to pay for food.

  3. Our reading

    The warranty disclaimer in a free licence is the real deal being struck: the entire risk of using the code falls on whoever uses it.

    Their wordsIf you use this, I owe you nothing. At all. We have no relationship. I put this up online on the condition that if you use it, all the risks are on you.

  4. Our reading

    If a company wants a maintainer to work to its standards, it has to start paying them under a different licence first.

    Their wordsBut to do that, I am going to have to become a supplier. Which means you are going to have to start to pay me. A fair price, that we can negotiate. Under a different license.

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The other pieces are the ones whose claims are worded most like this one's. That measures language, not agreement: they may argue the opposite.