Good for him, no donations should translate in to obligations, they're donations, voluntary and are considered to be a reward for services rendered in the past, not the future.
Typically when someone is as driven as this and you get the output of all the labour that went in to it the proper words are 'thank you' and if you feel like rewarding the creator then that's great. But that does not entitle anybody to future preferential treatment or even any guaranteed output level.
I wonder whether most donors actually understand this, with non-donors being the primary complainers.
Randy Milholland, the webcomic artist behind Something Positive, quit his job and funded himself for a year with donations to spend more time on his comics. When his output was still less-than-daily, he got a flood of complaints. "We gave you money and you're still not updating as often as you promised!" When he offered to refund the donations of anyone unsatisfied, not a single donor took him up on it. Apparently most (or all) of the complainers hadn't donated, but still felt entitled to greater output.
This is not to say that Rich is making a mistake by no longer accepting donations. Even if most complaints are from non-donors, their (unfounded) sense of entitlement comes from the fact that donations are happening. Still, I hate to think that people happy to donate can no longer do so because of the negative effects caused by non-contributing complainers.
interesting point - I think people who "donate" do it out of gratitude rather than creation of entitlement. By virtue of that, the complainers are less likely to come from the actual donor list.
My empirical evidence comes from the Cyanogenmod Android project - where "when can I haz gingerbread" or "this sucks - why arent you spending enough time fixing <bug>" is always from non donors.
NOTE: it is easy to see this trend on the CM forums, because your forum handle displays whether you are a donor or not. That I think is an easy way to lower the credibility of flamers (something that isnt possible on Clojure Google Groups). But then again, maybe that in itself give rises to the expectation that "if I donate, I can flame". I havent seen it happen on the CM forums though.
Act 2312863 of "how to fund open source software". It's not easy. Indeed, it's pretty much impossible to extract a proportional amount of the value that users derive from your code.
Personally, I'd have no problem blowing people off who ask for more than they were promised if it got to this point. Then again, that might bring negativity to the community, so I can see how the decision to just stop personal donations makes sense.
Oh well. I hope that the majority of the community is not like that. Just to restore some balance in the universe: I have donated and I don't expect any obligation in return.
Me too, I contributed to help him continue what he'd started, since I liked the results. If you try to change what's working, it most likely will not end up better off...
From what I've seen, Rich does things to end controversies quickly rather than talk them to death. There was a religious war developing in the user group some time ago over licensing terms of products that were developed in Clojure. Rich didn't take a side, as I recall--he simply intervened after a few days and asked people not to carry on this discussion but to focus on technical issues. At least one heavyweight (Jon Harrop) seemed to disappear from the user group upon being asked to cut out the licensing jibber-jabber, but peace was restored.
Given Clojure/core potential earnings and the bigger bang for the buck of corporate sponsorships, requests for individual donations are not worth the ill-will that they apparently cause. I like his techniques for time management and choosing his battles carefully.
As a longtime Lisp observer, I can't say that I've ever seen Jon Harrop conduct himself as a "heavyweight" in forums unrelated to OCaml, Mathematica, or F#.
Ah, my mistake, I didn't notice the difference in name spelling. It was indeed John Harrop, not Jon Harrop, who appeared to vanish from Clojure after the licensing discussion. I should have made my point without reference to individuals.
"heavyweight" was my opinion of him based on his education, demonstrated ability, and publications, not anything to do with his way of representing himself. I found his comments very interesting, informed as they were by his extensive work in other languages.
I sure hope not. Most responses seemed to disagree and even technomancy wasn't happy with the characterization of his part. If you take every criticism personally instead of looking at the whole, it's a recipe for being miserable.
Combined with Hickey's post in that thread, this whole thing strikes me as rather petulant - "throwing the toys out of the pram" as the English would say.
No it wasn't rich said something like it on the mailinglist befor that "Has Clojure development stalled?" Stuff witch was a big misunderstanding anyways.
Rich: I am sorry that you did this. Please add the PayPal donate button back onto clojure.org.
I never make large donations to open source projects, etc., but I give small $2 to $10 donations for things that I use. What this allows me to do is to contribute a modest $30 to $40 per year to projects that I use and not feel like a total freeloader.
But, he had changed the paypal link on clojure.org/funding to go to clojure/core instead of himself. This was reflection of the changes to the clojure team, which seemed fair IMHO. I'm sad to see that pointing the donate link at clojure/core had unintended consequence of creating some sense of entitlement on the core group.
I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around this.
He's basically complaining that people think they own him (or his time) because they donated money. I've seen that, and it's terribly unfortunate. I was right with him until I saw
"I encourage businesses using Clojure ...to discuss options for corporate support for Clojure."
Seems to me he'd run into similar problems from corporate sponsorships. Am I missing something here?
When you get a support contract from Red Hat (for example), you aren't donating money to the development of Linux like a sponsorship; you're indirectly supporting Linux development, but really what you're interested in is either (a) specific solutions to specific problems, or (b) getting access to people should a problem arise in the future during the term of the contract.
I assume Rich is selling exactly this. Company XYZ wants $hard_to_implement_feature. Company gives Rich money specifically so he'll implement $hard_to_implement_feature, and then they get $hard_to_implement_feature.
An example of this was my department wanted a certain feature in the Moose library, so we offered to pay one of the developers to write it. Then it turned out we didn't actually have funding for this ("pay someone to work on free software? fuck that") and so it never happened. But for a company with it's act together, this is a great way to make your internal codebase cleaner, and you get to say, "thanks to us, everyone gets this".
Rich has said many times that he will not do this. Clojure/core might, but rich does not want clojure to be influenced by the highest bidder, essentially the same as the donations i'm guessing. Rich is an advisor to clojure/core, but his purpose is to further clojure and community interest only. Of course this is my understanding of the matter, i don't speak for him.
Well, "support" doesn't imply "creative control". I doubt a language designer would contract under terms which let companies simply pay to add to the language roadmap.
He likely would let them pay for:
* advice on how to work around the lack of their proposed language feature (as a subset of "advice on how to solve problems in or with the language").
* some influence over prioritisation of the roadmap. If there are two language features Rich was planning to add anyway, pushing one that a paying customer desperately needs up the priority list wouldn't interfere much with the creative direction of the language.
Of course they will try to influence you if you let them. You have to make it clear that development of new features (or fixes to issues for which there is no reasonable workaround) is not part of the support contract and they will be separately billed for it. This is how it works everywhere I've worked at.
I don't think you understand what I'm saying. There's no terms at all in the donation-based giving, and yet people think they have influence. Contracts get renegotiated all the time. What would prevent Company XYZ from exerting pressure along the lines of "we want you to do [abc] or we're not renewing?"
All I was originally saying was that I just feel he'll end up in the same situation. I'm not suggesting he can't say no. :)
I think the sense of entitlement from a donation is unbounded, since it was voluntary. People are usually more clear that a business transaction is thing x for money y.
If you're pointing out that people are acting irrationally, then, yes, they are. The difference is that we tend to treat "business transactions" different from other kinds - I think monetary donations are not seen as business transaction, so the expectations are different. See this excerpt from Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=8923395...
1) "Company XYZ" doesn't do anything. There are people making the decision.
2) I have run into people that will say that. It is usually a bluff.
3) In the rare cases it is not a bluff, you can either drop the business (figuring you don't want to deal with person X) or, if you think they are out-of-line take it to their superiors.
All that being said, if you aren't willing to call the bluff for whatever reason, then they do exert an influence over you. That's really your fault though. If you have backed yourself into a corner where a single contract will make-or-break you and you aren't on really good terms with the people involved you are screwed no matter what.
The main difference is that things will be much simpler and clearer. He's being paid _exactly_ so the company can say "we want [abc]". If [abc]s get too big or not important enough for Rich, he can also stop renewing the contract.
Well, not really. My biggest beef with clojure is that it masquerades as an open source project by strictly following the letter (it is released under an open source license), but not actually following the spirit in any meaningful way.
How many other OSS projects have an exhaustive list on their website of everyone who is allowed to make contributions?
Well let's see, the choice of license is a starting point. The EPL is, per se, a bad license (intentionally incompatible with the GPL and with the showstopping choice-of-venue clause), but it's ubiquitous in Java land so we'll let them off.
In case you hadn't noticed, Oracle is widely considered to be an enemy of open source, so pointing out similarities with their processes isn't hugely helpful. In fact, contributor agreements are reviled by a large segment of the open source community (see the fights that go on whenever this subject comes up on LWN, one of the less flame-infested pro-OSS sites). This example is a particularly bad CA because it is effectively a full grant. The only way it could be worse would be a total transfer of copyright.
Finally, unlike any other projects I'm aware of, Clojure requires the agreement to be printed out, signed, then snail mailed to a foreign country. There is no reason for this other than to deter potential contributors. I've accepted one CA in the past - after fixing a crash in a little-exercised part of Ogre3D I figured the change was so minor that they could own the copyright on it as far as I was concerned. Would I have submitted the fix if I had to post a letter to New York? Not bloody likely.
Other projects (Android is a notable example) are widely derided for this sort of approach to open source - why does Clojure get a free pass?
Sounds like you object to a variety of particulars that you just happen to disagree with. A fair bit shy of falling short of some kind of essential "spirit".
The OpenJDK CA process was put in place a long time ago by Sun, generally well-liked in open source circles last I knew. And I guess you've got the same problems with all of Apache, for example (which, BTW, requires a signed copy of their CA to be faxed, at a minimum -- and I suppose some would complain about the faxing). Rough spot, there.
IANAL, neither are you, and we weren't in the room when Rich talked to his. Even if those things weren't true, I'm pretty sure Rich (nor anyone else) would accede to derision by instead of nonspecific, unconstructive griping.
>The OpenJDK CA process was put in place a long time ago by Sun, generally well-liked in open source circles last I knew.
Sun was never well liked outside of the Jave gated community. They - and their CA process - were used several times as examples in articles and presentations on 'how not to do open source' (eg. http://lwn.net/Articles/370157/ - 'How to destroy your community').
>And I guess you've got the same problems with all of Apache, for example (which, BTW, requires a signed copy of their CA to be faxed, at a minimum -- and I suppose some would complain about the faxing).
No, they accept e-mailing. See http://www.apache.org/licenses/icla.txt. I am indeed opposed to their CA requirement, but in this case it appears to be simply misguided rather than an attempt at creating a barrier.
>IANAL, neither are you, and we weren't in the room when Rich talked to his. Even if those things weren't true, I'm pretty sure Rich (nor anyone else) would accede to derision by instead of nonspecific, unconstructive griping.
I object very strongly to your dismissal of my position as 'nonspecific, unconstructive griping'. I'll try to restate it as plainly as possible:
No other example has been found of a project with this requirement. Given that there are a large number of both companies and non-profit organisations requiring CAs, none of which require a postal copy, it cannot be rationally argued that this is a legal requirement unless you are also willing to argue that all of those other companies are failing to show due diligence; I don't believe that argument would have any merit. Since Clojure has that requirement, the most plausible reason is that it is an attempt to erect as large a barrier as possible to participation (and the only other reason I can think up is that Rich Hickey is a paranoid of the tinfoil hat variety, but I've seen no other evidence of that). I cannot overstate enough how large a barrier this is; even those corporate OSS projects widely condemned for their failure at understanding the open source ideal (I've already mentioned Android; another example might be OpenOffice, most of whose developers recently decided enough was enough and jumped ship) don't make it this hard. The deliberate attempt to discourage community involvement is what I believe runs counter to the spirit of open source.
Re: "other example" - SQLite is a pretty good example of an OpenSource (Hell, public domain) project requiring a CA: http://www.sqlite.org/copyright.html
And, if you work for a company, they, too require a snail mail copyright release.
I'm starting to wonder if anyone's even bothering to read what I'm writing. You've pointed out yet another example of a project which does not require a postal form, supporting my position. Requiring a disclaimer for works for hire isn't even comparable.
Edit: now that I've had my morning cup of tea, I've properly read that link - SQLite doesn't even require any form of contributor agreement, so all you're pointing out is that they require a company to agree that work done on their time is free to be contributed by the employee. That isn't the same thing at all.
I wasn't aware that the FSF agreement needed to be physically posted, so thank you for pointing that out.
I will point out in return that their requirements have indeed caused a number of forks (some of which ended up being merged back in without copyright assignment TTBOMK) and acrimonious arguments despite giving strong legal assurances to the contributor that the FSF will only use the assignment for a few limited purposes.
The fact that it requires physical transfer of document stands though, so I'm satisfied that you have actually read what I wrote rather than dismissing it out of hand, and will hence shut up on the topic :P.
"my/our continuing work on Clojure is an ongoing gift"
and what a gift it is! Thank you Rich (and the rest of the Clojure community) for this wonderful language.
Personally, it makes my work more enjoyable when I use it and I look around and see folks all over having fun with it. Plus it's creating jobs and competitive advantage.
Not everything is awesome, but from where I sit, Clojure sure is.
tl;dr: Rich is no longer accepting donations from individuals, but businesses (and presumably not-for-profits as well?) are still encouraged to contribute to the development effort.
There are a bunch of corporate sponsors of Clojure, and the list continues to grow: http://clojure.org/funders
FWIW, Snowtide was the first announced corporate sponsor of Clojure in the 2010 drive, and we'll be renewing that sponsorship for 2011 (I just need to dig myself out of the stuff that accumulated over the past 2 weeks first!).
Many articles have been making it to the main page that aren't really worth reading. To avoid those I scan the comments first and then read the article.
Scanning the comments also gives me some additional background on topics I may not be familiar with.
Actually it may work. The only ones deterred by this notice would be those who donate to feel entitled, but not those who do it to show genuine appreciation for his work. And I doubt former kind even makes it to the donation form in the first place.
A feeling of entitlement does not work that way. People aren't that rational; they don't donate for the purpose of having a say in what happens. They probably donate for honorable reasons, but once something they want becomes an issue, they feel entitled because they donated.
Typically when someone is as driven as this and you get the output of all the labour that went in to it the proper words are 'thank you' and if you feel like rewarding the creator then that's great. But that does not entitle anybody to future preferential treatment or even any guaranteed output level.