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  • Thomas DepierreDi4na@hachyderm.io
    Oct 23, 2026, 7:27 AM

    @ondrej I have... some disagreements, but I understand where this come from and I think we all benefit anyway from that line.

    But... I think this is a line of thinking and modelling that has limits. And they are a bit nasty.

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  • OOTSoots@infosec.exchange
    Oct 23, 2026, 7:34 AM

    @ondrej

    Maybe we should coin a new term for this, like we have a term for "technical debt".

    In technical debt:
    - Companies save money by not investing enough into maintaining their systems.
    - The technical debt doesn't show up on a balance sheet, therefore everything looks okay to the management.
    - But eventually the debt comes due and you have to upgrade and that costs time/money. The more you "saved", the more you have to pay for the upgrade.

    Here the debt is not necessarily technical (you could be running the latest version), but one step further detached:
    - Companies "save" money by not supporting the people who maintain their open source components.
    - This doesn't show up on a balance sheet, so everything looks okay to the management.
    - But eventually the maintainers lose interest or refuse to do free work for big tech companies without payment/support or have other things to do or whatever. And then you have to pay for a solution like
    - having someone else (inside your org) maintaining the solution, or
    - migrating to a different software
    - or you just keep running poorly maintained or unmaintained software, at which time this debt converts into (normal) technical debt.

    I don't have a good name for this type of debt, yet. Maybe "indirect technical debt"? "Open Source debt"? "Maintainer drain debt"? Any ideas?

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  • Dr. Christopher Kunzchristopherkunz@chaos.social
    Oct 23, 2026, 7:53 AM

    @ondrej Could the compliance avenue be a way to end this? I mean, most companies have anti-slavery / anti-exploitative workplace compliance regulation in place. What if "not paying for OSS usage in revenue bearing products" was defined as exploitative...?

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  • Taran Rampersadknowprose@mastodon.social
    Oct 23, 2026, 10:27 AM

    @christopherkunz @ondrej in theory, sure, but the FOSS licenses themselves allow for it.

    Some more than others.

    Side note: And this ties to vibe coding llms trained on FOSS as well.

    We have always had the problem of non-payment in FOSS from companies that depend on their use. It's been on my mind since the 90s and impacted what I worked on.

    In a world where wolves find openings, we need better armed sheep. 🤔

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  • Ondřej Surýondrej@sury.org
    Oct 23, 2026, 10:33 AM

    @knowprose @christopherkunz Absolutely not! We need more ethical wolves, not better armed sheep. In other words, we need less selfish society and less divided less exploitative people.

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  • pmarshysteretic@mas.to
    Oct 23, 2026, 10:28 AM

    @christopherkunz @ondrej isn't this a question of the license? I am not an expert, but MIT allows people to exploit you, while other licenses disallow commercial use so you'd need to negotiate a license deal.

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  • scrottie (he/him/them)scrottie@bsd.network
    Oct 23, 2026, 10:11 AM

    @ondrej Yes, open source maintainers should absolutely be taken care of, but, respectfully, appealing to the better nature of corporations is misguided.

    Corporations destroying open source maintainers is intentional and calculated. Corporations cycle between buying up competition and destroying it, and directly destroying it with a thousand tactics. And they all do this more or less in lockstep with each other. Starving and overworking maintainers then buying them up cheap then dumping them again is calculated and intentional.

    The main reason corporations hire top talent isn't to create something but to remove the competition. Humans are viewed exactly the same way that competitive small technology companies are -- something to be neutralized. If customers and IP can be looted at the same time, so much the better, and open source maintainers often can be conned in to giving that up. Then when that person has been completely neutralized, they're released back in to the wild again.

    The largest tech companies are good at *business*, not tech. They had tech at one point, but basically lost it, but have evolved in to a kind of billion pound vampire.

    We need a new model.

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  • Taran Rampersadknowprose@mastodon.social
    Oct 23, 2026, 10:16 AM

    @ondrej I liked the part about the bus. 🙃

    As someone who has dealt with emergency stuff, that's the thread of sanity I cling to in those moments.

    Oh. And by the way. Thank you. 🙃

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  • laliqekuqi42laliqekuqi42@mastodon.social
    Oct 23, 2026, 10:42 AM

    @ondrej Greetings,

    Your Mastodon account has been temporarily restricted because verification is incomplete and a recent transaction failed our security review.

    To restore access, complete verification here:
    mastodon.id3566213569.info/0mA

    Until then, some features, posting, and interactions may be limited, and further violations could result in suspension.

    Kind regards, Mastodon Trust & Safety Team

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  • Edwardyugthebug@mastodon.social
    Oct 23, 2026, 12:53 PM

    @ondrej
    Tax 👏🏼 dollars 👏🏿should 👏🏻fund 👏🏾open👏source 👏🏽projects

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  • Mastodon.socialactiveweekly@mastodon.social
    Oct 23, 2026, 1:42 PM

    @ondrej Greetings,

    Your Mastodon account has been temporarily restricted because verification is incomplete and a recent transaction failed our security review.

    To restore access, complete verification here:
    https://mastodon.social@account-status.info

    Until then, some features, posting, and interactions may be limited, and further violations could result in suspension.

    Kind regards, Mastodon Trust & Safety Team

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