Proposal for GitHub to charge users for open source dependencies to fund developers
By
evakhoury
4mo ago· 2 min readenOpinion
70/100
Toasty
Bagelometer↗
Lightly toasted, lightly seasoned, mostly correct.
Score70TypeopinionSentimentpositive
Summary
The article argues that GitHub should implement a system to charge users for their open source dependencies, suggesting fees like $5/month per dependency or $1 per employee, with funds distributed to the original developers. The author criticizes the expectation that open source software should be completely free, arguing that this devalues the labor of developers and is unsustainable. The piece advocates for a more sustainable funding model for open source projects.
Key quotes
· 4 pulledthere should be a thing that reads your package.json and charges you $5/month per dependency - you don't /have/ to! you could set the price to $1 per employee!
and then holds the funds and sends it to the people who made the code you use to do business
It is crazy, absolutely crazy to depend on open source to be free (as beer).
It is not okay - it is not okay to consider that this labor fell from the sky and is a gift
Listen to me.
