Licensing github.com

It is expected that all developers become a Patron to use Fody  ↦

Here’s an interesting twist on open source funding: require all users to back the project on Open Collective, but only enforce that rule via social pressure. In other words, use an honesty policy:

It is an honesty system with no code or legal enforcement. When raising an issue or a pull request, the user may be checked to ensure they are a patron, and that issue/PR may be closed without further examination. If a individual or organization has no interest in the long term sustainability of Fody, then they are legally free to ignore the honesty system.

The software is MIT-licensed, so all of those liberal rules apply, but don’t expect to get your PR merged or your issue taken seriously unless you’re a patron.

You must be a Patron to be a user of Fody. Contributing Pull Requests does not cancel this out. It may seem unfair to expect people both contribute PRs and also financially back this project. However it is important to remember the effort in reviewing and merging a PR is often similar to that of creating the PR. Also the project maintainers are committing to support that added code (feature or bug fix) for the life of the project.

The project currently has 4 organizations and 10 individuals supporting it. What do you think those numbers will look like in 6 months or a year?


Discussion

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Feross Aboukhadijeh

Feross Aboukhadijeh

San Francisco, CA

I’m Feross Aboukhadijeh, an entrepreneur, programmer, open source maintainer, startup founder, and mad scientist.

I build web apps like Wormhole, a simple, fast, private file sharing website, BitMidi, a free MIDI database, and Play, a music video app, and Study Notes, a site to help students study better and get into college.

I also build WebTorrent, a torrent library for the web, WebTorrent Desktop, the best desktop torrent app, and Standard JS, a JavaScript linter.

2018-12-11T17:39:58Z ago

Very neat idea!

2018-12-12T23:33:05Z ago

The project currently has 4 organizations and 10 individuals supporting it. What do you think those numbers will look like in 6 months or a year?

Hard to say. I hope 100 more organizations adopt this. Whoever is leading this effort should be on your next show.

Jerod Santo

Jerod Santo

Omaha, Nebraska

Jerod co-hosts The Changelog, crashes JS Party, and takes out the trash (his old code) once in awhile.

2018-12-13T17:14:46Z ago

Hmm, not a bad idea…

2018-12-14T08:10:23Z ago

It me who’s behind the fireplace pushing for this. Let’s set something up via ghuntley.com/contact

See also https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm_RuObpeGo for more context as to Simons/Fodys decision.

2019-01-14T08:43:51Z ago

Refusing PRs that you actually want in the project seems like cutting your nose to spite your face.
Accepting PRs that add baggage because someone is a patron makes things worse for everybody.
I think there’s a pragmatic mid-way where you invest more time to build out features where your vision matches what patrons are working on, but still accept good contributions.

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