A few weeks back I encountered a FOSS guy here explaining that when he sees open source devs ask for money, he blocks them and then stops using their code because they're morally wrong and he only wants to work with tools made by people who are doing the work for the right reasons. (I'm paraphrasing to avoid indexing the post.)

I've resisted writing about it because I'm slammed, but the question I can't shake is: Who benefits from the ideology of "pure" volunteerism?

All cards on the table: When I co-ran a very large-scale volunteer project a couple of years back, the *only* thing we took money for was server costs and financially stabilizing our core team so they could continue the work. So I do have feelings, obviously, about what's good—please do filter me accordingly.

Lastly! If I hadn't been encountering expressions of this opinion for 20+ years, I wouldn't be mentioning this—I try not to do "Hey come smell this, I think it's gone off" unless I'm literally cleaning the fridge lol

@kissane Does this guy think that there are no paid staff at the local food pantry? At the art museum? The Trevor Project? That none of those are worthy of donations? You can have a non-profit that provides free services, and maybe it's largely staffed by volunteers, but still need to pay for operating costs and the labor and expertise of core staff.

@kissane Answering "privileged people" is a bit too simple. Plenty of wealthy white tech bros would never get moralistic about the purity of open source because they're on the hustle to monetize everything. (Sometimes by building their reputation from open source contributions & then pivoting to something else.)

No, the people who want open source to be all volunteer are people who idealize their hobby as counter-culture resistance, an antidote to their dull, corporate, trade-secret day jobs.

@WearsHats @kissane this is what I was thinking. It's wonderful when people have the time and resources to do volunteer work, but I think it's nice to send a bit of $ to people who create tools you like. They can use it to cover expenses or whatever. I have done an awful lot of volunteer work, but also know how inefficient volunteers are because life gets in the way.

@kissane Of course, the other group that benefits are the for-profit companies that incorporate all the free labour from open source contributors. But unless your example guy was being really disingenuous, it doesn't sound like that was his motivation.

So, I think it's more like the obsession with amateurism in the early 1900s Olympics & sports movements: people who have easy but boring ways to make money are enthralled by the idea of taking on noble adventurous challenges for the love of it.

@Jennifer @kissane My mother ran my hometown's food pantry for years. She was a volunteer. I helped when I could. We did the shopping. We kept excess food the pantry wasn't ready for in our garage. We sorted viable donations from damaged or expired goods. But the pantry building still needed to be paid for, and the place couldn't run without the full-time staff who were there every day to welcome people, hand out what was needed, keep track, connect with other services...

@kissane probably the type of person who thought that the Olympic Games was better when it excluded professionals

@kissane Maybe dude just to grow up a bit? :-) I'd factor this inverse to the age... I had a lot of silly ideas when I was barely adult (not necessarily on this topic tho but that does not matter) and I guess being somehow extreme is sort of part of growing up...

@kissane People to whom systemic advantage already accrues!

@inquiline And perhaps also the large institutions who rely so heavily on open source tools!

"Who benefits from the ideology of "pure" volunteerism?"

IN CAPITALISM? PREDATORS; so that means capitalists and their adjacent rich (petit bourgoisie to go old school).

too many companies that started as FLOSS are doing everything in their power to not just back away from their initial licenses but to not give a cent back to the people who were gullible enough to gift them with their labor.

FLOSS without cooperative ownership is just digital sharecropping.

@kissane

@kissane The labourer is worthy of his hire. True then, true now.

@kissane This is a class warfare tactic. People who can afford to work for free get paid in social capital instead. The rest of us are locked out of those opportunities.

When I was in the IWW this was a serious problem.

@kissane for example, why don't I have any cool open source projects to show off in my resume? Because I work full time and take care of children. I just can't afford the kind of time investment up front to do serious volunteer work in open source. How many opportunities do I lose because of this?

I'd be interested to see a study on the long term income potential of people who do and don't maintain popular open source projects...

@alter_kaker @blogdiva @kissane Most of my employers haven’t even allowed me to contribute (without a lot of hard to navigate process that usually ends in failure) even if I had the time outside work! Even for open source software we were using! I’ve created some github stuff just to have some minimal “evidence”.