The things nobody wants to pay for

Posted Jan 26, 2024 5:25 UTC (Fri) by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325)
In reply to: The things nobody wants to pay for by geofft
Parent article: The things nobody wants to pay for

As someone who works at (and does *NOT* speak for) a FAANG, my opinion is that non-huge companies should focus on specific areas where they have the expertise, the motivation, and the practical ability to contribute developer time or other resources. It may be the case that your company does not stand to benefit from funding Linux any more than it is now. This is not a moral failing on the part of your company. It's just business.

At the same time, I must say that I find it rather disturbing that you were unable to get useful answers to your questions about certain specific areas of contribution. It is all well and good to complain that nobody wants to pay for certain things, but you can't put this sort of information at the bottom of a locked filing cabinet in a disused lavatory etc. etc., and then complain that nobody managed to find it and contribute.

The things nobody wants to pay for

Posted Jan 26, 2024 8:06 UTC (Fri) by lunaryorn (subscriber, #111088) [Link] (1 responses)

Moving someone else's money (eg a donation or recurring fund from a company) around on behalf of someone else (like an open source project which isn't even a legal entity on its own in most cases) comes with so many legal, taxation, billing, accounting, reporting, etc. issues that it's probably not surprising that many open source projects have no infrastructure and thus no documentation around this.

The things nobody wants to pay for

Posted Jan 27, 2024 1:05 UTC (Sat) by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325) [Link]

That is an understandable problem to have. But it does not change the fact that, if you don't have documentation telling people how to help you, then some people will not bother trying.