Stop horsing around. Pony up
Opinion There’s much talk of the Open Source Sustainability Problem. From individual developers to Google’s White House lobbying, the issue seems simple but intractable. Is the willingness of volunteer coders a solid enough basis for the long-term health of essential infrastructure? This is, of course, balderdash. It’s not an open source problem, it’s a software problem. All software needs resources to adapt as the working environment changes, resources the changed environment may not provide. Look how many out-of-support versions of Windows still limp on like superannuated footy players in the Sunday leagues. According to StatCounter, as of December 2021, one in seven PCs still runs Windows 7. One in 200 is on XP. Try getting Microsoft to update either. Why this is, is more complicated than just Microsoft’s revenue model, although that’s a part of it. The details aren’t important. Paid-for software is not magically sustainable, any more than OSS is uniquely vulnerable. If anything, it’s the other way around. If you really need it, you can pick up a dropped OSS ball and run with it. Try doing that with commercial abandonware. Yet nevertheless, there are plenty of OSS creators who’d like to be paid. The question becomes not whether resources can be made available to keep OSS components up-to-date, secure and relevant as needed. Rather, it is how can the industry come to realise that if it wants long-term security of supply in software components, OSS is the better choice? It’s not that organisations don’t like paying for things even when the benefits are nebulous. They have no problem spaffing millions in executive compensation, marketing departments, mergers and acquisitions and major strategic refocuses that go nowhere. It’s only hard to get money spent on stuff actual workers actually need.
