Whats with the whole obessesion on "giving their time for free"? What does money have to do with this? It always comes across as a copout, implying you cant disagree with FOSS devs because they work for free. Just because they aren't earning money off off of it (aside from donations) doesnt mean they aren't earning some sort of reward for their work, whether its personal or social.

Besides that, its pretty common to include that type of work on a resume, which is sort of turning that work into future earnings if it helps you get a high paying job.

I appreciate what FOSS devs do, I just hear this victim narrative come up a lot in posts about them. I'm not even sure its FOSS devs posting that type of stuff on here, it might be other people defending them.

[–] Routhinator@startrek.website 12 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (1 children)

Anyone contributing to open source either does it:

on their companies dime, which means they work for a rare company building open source solutions
at the end of their day, on their weekend, or during their vacation

Most FOSS devs are in position two. By a large margin. They could be relaxing, or earning more money doing freelancing to make ends meet, but instead they are trying to build something they want to see happen. That requires focusing on the important tasks and that often means not having time to spend on poorly reported bugs that are actually users just not RTFM and opening issues. It wastes the devs time, and projects with too much of this have development stagnate and are frequently shuttered.

And devs that just do this to get a better job stop contributions once their new job takes over their life, and then the project suffers.

Users need to appreciate FOSS devs more because some of the most important projects we need in 2025 are developed only because they want to see them happen.

[–] ApertureUA@lemmy.today 7 points 7 hours ago

You forgot unempl*yed teens

[–] pulsewidth@lemmy.world 3 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

Who said they were victims? I said I don't see any harm in devs being mildly abrasive as long as it helps keep their passion for the project alive.

How many projects do you pursue in your free time for no compensation that benefit strangers all over the world, whom can file complaints about your project, asking you to remedy or change it?

FOSS dev work is not a victim-generating machine, it's just entirely misunderstood and underappreciated. They make a project for them, then they m0ake it free to all.. and the code, and the support. But, you ask them what they dislike the most - it's the support. The endless poorly-filled tickets, the duplicate tickets the submitter didn't search for, the user errors that are explained clearly in the documentation. That part is thankless work. That burns people out. But if they use a joke tag on a support ticket when they close it, it's suddenly "omg, devs are so rude".

[..] include that type of work on a resume, which is sort of turning that work into future earnings if it helps you get a high paying job.

Ah yes, FOSS work should be its own reward because they can say they did it. Sort of like how interns should work for free at big companies 'for experience', and young artists/techs/small businesses should help influencers for free because they're 'working for exposure'. Now that attitude is a cop-out.

[–] Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 hours ago

I think the way you frame it is absurd. They aren't making things for themselves. If they were they wouldnt share it, or if they did they at least wouldnt maintain it or claim ownership over it. If devs open the door to allow outside help in, they really can't act like they are victims when they have to socialize with other people.

The fact that you focus on compensation really shows what's important to you anyways, and betrays the whole spirit of FOSS in my opinion.

[–] uncouple9831@lemmy.zip 3 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

I agree in general but I don't read the message you're responding to as being a particularly victim-oriented narrative. It's the internet, if someone wants to do some light trolling of people who kind of suck and it helps keep them working on a project great. It's not like it's the most positive thing in the world, but neither is writing an incomprehensible bug report because you followed some tutorial online and think you know how to use a computer.

[–] Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

I'm not opposed to handling bad reports in a cheeky manner, just the part that comes up constantly about them working for free. Its always used as an excuse, when I'd rather people just admit its more fun to take the piss out of someone sometimes and maybe everyone should lighten up a bit.

Again, I'm not sure its even devs themselves making the "work for free" argument themselves, as the FOSS community has many advocates who aren't devs.

[–] uncouple9831@lemmy.zip 2 points 3 hours ago

Yeah that's fair

I think if you view the work you're doing as working for free you've already lost the plot a bit. I mean people can do stuff for different reasons but it'd be like a die hard capitalist working to make buses free. It's just weird.