Nobody pays for FOSS, we can force them to

summary

The current open source ecosystem relies on an unstable equilibrium where unpaid maintainers bear the burden of critical infrastructure while companies pay third-party vendors for 'supply chain' security. Because voluntary charity and licensing restrictions fail due to market forces, the only viable solution is to shift the toll booth to the registry layer. By charging corporate users for access and distributing those funds as pro rata royalties to maintainers based on dependency usage, the industry can fund the long tail of developers without disrupting the open nature of the code.

key points

1. Open source is an evolutionarily stable strategy where 'free' always wins the code game, making any attempt to charge via licenses lead to forks and failure.
2. Companies already spend billions on 'supply chain' tools like JFrog and Snyk, proving they will pay for dependable access to code, even if that money never reaches the actual creators.
3. A registry-based royalty system would automate payments to maintainers based on their presence in corporate dependency trees, removing the need for charity or individual grant applications.

who should read it

Software engineers, open source maintainers, and tech executives interested in the economic sustainability of the global software supply chain.

discussion mixed