It's the nature of most types of volunteering work. If you sign up to be the conductor of your local choir, you have the same thing. People start expecting you to do stuff. If you're going to be in that role, as ploxiln says, you need to be OK with that part of it. You have to be OK with the thanklessness of the task, and you have to seek your rewards elsewhere. Still, I feel very sorry for zloirock, and I hope that he gets some kind of compensation for his work, at least enough to get his life back together.
> You have to be OK with the thanklessness of the task, and you have to seek your rewards elsewhere.
Is this really how we want the world to be? Someone who is trying to help needs to be ok with being treated badly? I can understand not being put on a pedestal, but I think a "thank you" and a bit of gratefulness is warranted by people actively being helped.
I am not saying either party is better than another but I do not wish to live in a world that people are order of magnitude less willing to donate to FOSS developers than people posting sexy photos online.
Edit: maybe I used wrong comparison. Most of the income of the photo publishers should be from sales (to unlock paywall of exclusive content), not many will donation.
The best way to do open source work is to consult or be employed and release open source stuff as part of your work. Otherwise it turns into politics, competition for money and popularity contest rather than product of passion. If you are as proficient as this guy you will find employers that do not mind open source work
Did he look though? Maybe he is not aware this is a possibility. Even if he cannot leave Russia there are likely russian companies that would pay him and be even happy if he contributes to OSS. I know Qiwi, Yandex publish and maintain packages
Yeah but if the statement is a guy like this could find something like this, then the answer is no. I think mostly because it's not entirely clear how to get such a job and how to do that job without handing over the reigns of your project to the company.
> Yeah but if the statement is a guy like this could find something like this, then the answer is no.
What? Why?
> I think mostly because it's not entirely clear how to get such a job
Same as any other job, by looking. Even I do something like that and I am not even close to corejs maintainer level
> reins
If you do this while working as independent contributor (popular in Russia) then it's not even a question, the company will not have any reins on whatever you do outside the contract. If you are employed then company may have the reins, but you will publish OSS while getting money and recognition for it, which is 80% of the formula.
The part where he spent the year 2020 in a russian slave labour prison might help explain his difficulty getting a job. Plus as a russian national living in russia, FAANG is not exactly knocking at his door.
I used FAANG as a shorthand for "big international tech companies that pay a lot". Glad to hear though that there are lots opportunites for tech folk in Russia to make good money.
> I used FAANG as a shorthand for "big international tech companies that pay a lot".
Uhh… Yes and that's my point? He could earn 50-100 USD per hour, which would get him a more than decent lifestyle in Russia. Why would someone pick between Lots Of Money and begging and not accept an alternative between that would allow him to keep doing OSS while feeding his family? This whole plea just doesn't compute with me.
> Glad to hear though that there are lots opportunites for tech folk in Russia to make good money.
It's not good money, it's just money to live okay. And it's not in Russia, it's everywhere. Internet, it did wonders.
you can't really compare volunteering at a local choir / local homeless canteen to big corporations taking advantage of open source projects (which is perfectly legit) and never ever feel like they should contribute more to make open source financially sustainable. There is a reason why major open source projects are backed by companies selling products or services based on the open source project itself.
If you don't want big corporations using your software, change the license. They are not "taking advantage" of Free/open software, they are using it, and don't owe the maintainer for it. It feels very entitled to me (a Free software enthusiast who wishes more authors chose GPL over BSD/MIT). As G.W. Bush said "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice... I can't get fooled again"
