Post B41nN2jS3dFveNl6PY by wolf480pl@mstdn.io
 (DIR) More posts by wolf480pl@mstdn.io
 (DIR) Post #B41j0od7PPFxj3wTVA by doctormo@floss.social
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       RE: https://mstdn.io/@wolf480pl/116187389307210012"Paying maintainers" here fundamentally misunderstands the problems of #PayingForFreeSoftware this is not a problem of "enough cookies for the bakesale to pay for the school text books" this is a "FOSS refuses to tax users and distribute resources to run things properly so depends on kindness to cover up its neglect"Charity is a cover to avoid responsibility.#Debian, #Fedora, #PopOS, at al are all culpable in their neglect. Of themselves, of their users and of their upstreams.RT: https://mstdn.io/users/wolf480pl/statuses/116187389307210012
       
 (DIR) Post #B41j0os0W3AMTEuMi0 by wolf480pl@mstdn.io
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       @doctormo not sure "tax" is the right word to describe something done without monopoly on violence, setting that asideWhat is it that you're proposing?Consider RedHat. It already charges its users a subscription, but I suppose it does not distribute resources to run things properly.What would RedHat need to do to distribute resources properly? For example, what would it need to do to help the xz maintainer?
       
 (DIR) Post #B41kcql22whrHbLMtE by wolf480pl@mstdn.io
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       @doctormo I don't care about the first steps, I care about the end game.
       
 (DIR) Post #B41kjzA9C9QPNUUfOy by wolf480pl@mstdn.io
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       @doctormo actually, in order to be fair, I should state my position:I think that a RedHat that follows your advice would not be able to prevent the xz maintainer from burning out.
       
 (DIR) Post #B41lvJhJHr6cCmyLEe by wolf480pl@mstdn.io
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       @doctormo ok, so suppose the xz maintainer wants to go on holiday.Would he hire a random contractor? No way, it has to be someone he can trust, some competent and familiar with the codebase... oh, I know, this "Jia Tan" guy who's been immensely helpful recently!
       
 (DIR) Post #B41nN2jS3dFveNl6PY by wolf480pl@mstdn.io
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       @doctormo I don't think we can expect a solo maintainer to also deal with hiring and payroll. Some of them probably can do that, but I think a lot are bad at that kind of stuff, and would rather have someone else deal with it.Also, AFAIK part of the problem was that not many people were interested in working on xz. Where's the pool to hire from?1/
       
 (DIR) Post #B41no8qHRqweQ3sHIW by wolf480pl@mstdn.io
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       @doctormo Also, how do we train the people needed to maintain these critical projects?If in the second half of university a student has lots of opportunities to learn about machine learning or web applications, but few opportunities to learn about compression or low-level programmingIf the career paths after university are "ML engineer" and webdevHow do you get people curious about compression or cryptography or networks to a position where they can help maintain xz or openssl or pppd?
       
 (DIR) Post #B41sNY8DoYg2nyPDEG by wolf480pl@mstdn.io
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       @doctormo How about this: money is not a resource, it's a signalling layer.We need to allocate people, and we need to allocate people well in advance of when they'll be needed.And I don't think allocating money to individual maintainers without a support structure that medium-to-large companies have will result in people being allocated early enough.
       
 (DIR) Post #B41shuojBCXIxFzygy by wolf480pl@mstdn.io
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       @doctormo a large company can pay a university to have an elective course, or a whole program, that the company needs for its workforce.Will a maintainer who needs 1 person every few years be able to do that?
       
 (DIR) Post #B41voyx6VHbJfXygbI by wolf480pl@mstdn.io
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       @doctormo by "signaling layer" I mean similar to the part of phone network that figures out which circuits to connect.Money is a communication token used by the protocol that allocates the flow of resources.But if the store shelves are empty, money is worthless.
       
 (DIR) Post #B41wn10fyy0PQSH5ua by wolf480pl@mstdn.io
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       @doctormo I just don't believe that people being willing to pay for a good or service will make that good or service appear.I think a significant failure mode is a lot of burnt out, lonely maintainers with a lot of money.
       
 (DIR) Post #B41xt2XRJQsfrF2Iwi by wolf480pl@mstdn.io
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       @doctormo Anyway, thanks for the discussion.
       
 (DIR) Post #B41y4WR0V0nFlTVDlo by wizzwizz4@fosstodon.org
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       @wolf480pl @doctormo I was really interested in working with xz at around that time, and I have the necessary skillset to review patches (albeit slowly) and keep things ticking along; but I wasn't in a position to make a volunteer commitment like medium-term maintainership.I've sort of gone off the LZMA2 container format since then, but I'd still help out if requested and compensated.I doubt very much that I'm the only one, or even the most qualified such person. We're plentiful.
       
 (DIR) Post #B4AHPx9XoCp56ZwkG8 by RadND@gnulinux.social
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       @wolf480pl @doctormo To this specific case, games repack community might have some people interested on xz.Besides this, although the chance is not high, situations that frequently distribute large files may also have people interested in compression, such as fosstorrents.com.