Techcrunch: Open source sustainability

eva2000 · Jun 25, 2018

Centmin Mod LEMP stack is an open source project so this article is Techcrunch article is so relevant Open source sustainability.

Eghbal’s report two years ago summarized the vast issues facing open source maintainers, challenges that have remained essentially unchanged in the interim. It’s a quintessential example of the “tragedy of the commons.” As Eghbal wrote at the time, “Fundamentally, digital infrastructure has a free rider problem. Resources are offered for free, and everybody (whether individual developer or large software company) uses them, so nobody is incentivized to contribute back, figuring that somebody else will step in.” That has led to a brittle ecosystem, just as open source software reached the zenith of its influence.
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Eghbal pointed to OpenSSL as an example, a library that powers a majority of encrypted communications on the web. Following the release of the Heartbleed security bug, people were surprised to learn that the OpenSSL project was the work of a very small team of individuals, with only one of them working on it full-time (and at a very limited salary compared to industry norms).

Such a situation isn’t unusual. Open source projects often have many contributors, but only a handful of individuals are truly driving a particular project forward. Lose that singular force either to burnout or distraction, and a project can be adrift quickly.
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When free isn’t free
No one wants open source to disappear, or for maintainers to burnout. Yet, there is a strong cultural force against commercial interests in the community. Money is corrupting, and dampens the voluntary spirit of open source efforts. More pragmatically, there are vast logistical challenges with managing money on globally distributed volunteer teams that can make paying for work logistically challenging.

Unsurprisingly, the vanguard of open source sustainability sees things very differently. Kyle Mitchell, a lawyer by trade and founder of License Zero, says that there is an assumption that “Open source will continue to fall from the sky like manna from heaven and that the people behind it can be abstracted away.” He concludes: “It is just really wrong.”

That view was echoed by Henry Zhu, who is the maintainer of the popular JavaScript compiler Babel. “We trust startups with millions of VC money and encourage a culture of ‘failing fast,’ yet somehow the idea of giving to volunteers who may have showed years of dedication is undesirable?” he said.
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