Is open source in trouble?

First, the bad. I would argue that current open-source practices and usage are unsustainable, or at the very least, there is a lot of room for improvement. In the current climate, there is a long litany of structural problems.

These include the growing possibility of burnout, as some of the most talented developers are working for free or with little — usually no — compensation, even though that compensation would be well warranted. Burnout is a real issue. Then, at a high level, there is the problem of large tech companies using open source but giving little, if anything, back to the community, essentially using free open-source resources not to become rich, but to become even richer.

Then there are those I have come into contact with who have long been project maintainers and have moved on from the companies that paid them to work on those projects. Out of love for the work and intellectual curiosity, they continue to maintain a toe in the project. Again, their time is limited, as they likely work 60 hours a week at their day jobs and want to have a life. In many cases, the open-source project is fun to work on, but it is something else altogether to maintain over the long term.

Then there is the diversity factor — the huge lack of it. The ethical case for advocating diversity in open source development is a major issue and goal; diversity also leads to significantly better health for open source projects. A case in point I have lived through is childcare involving kids. The statistics show that women are disproportionately responsible for childcare, although in my case, childcare was also an issue previously. That does not leave much time to work on an open-source project, even if you love it and enjoy contributing to it, when you have kids to take to doctor’s appointments, baseball games, and school, along with everything else that comes with childcare.

What I really appreciated about the talk that Marga Manterola, an engineering manager at Igalia — who has contributed to several major open source projects Flatcar Container Linux, Inspektor Gadget and Cilium during the past 25 years — gave during the keynote “Free as in Burned Out: Who Really Pays for Open Source?” last week at FOSDEM in Brussels is this: her talk was not just about listing what is wrong with open source — she gave real reasons for how it could be improved and how it could be fixed. She called it utopia. I would argue it is not utopia; it is this or nothing, because open source will otherwise wither — not necessarily die, but if it maintains its current trajectory, it is simply not viable. The current static flow is not viable, in my opinion.

Manterola’s core argument focused on how the status quo excludes a vast demographic of potential contributors.  In her speech, she pointed out that “being able to do a second job for free during your nights and weekends is a privilege” that many lack. This is particularly true for women, who, she noted, are “disproportionately in charge of caretaking responsibilities,” effectively making open source work a “second shift” they cannot afford to take on. By only paying senior developers who are already established maintainers, the industry fails to create space for new talent or those without the luxury of free time, she said.

Two frameworks

To reach this goal, Manterola offered two concrete frameworks for corporate involvement:

The Open Source Pledge: She encouraged companies to donate $2,000 per developer per year to projects they depend on. While she acknowledged this amount might be high for some, she urged companies to start with whatever they could afford, emphasizing that “gaining steady income is more important, even if it’s less”.

The Open Source Employment Pledge: For companies unwilling to donate cash, she proposed a time-based commitment. Under this pledge, for every 20 developers a company employs, it would dedicate 50% of one person’s time to open-source development. Critically, she specified this time must be “completely free of company influence,” allowing the developer to maintain the project however they see fit.

The “utopia” Manterola mentioned in her talk is one in which open source contributors are organized into professional teams and paid a “steady salary”. In this model, senior engineers would be supported by junior developers helping with “bug reports or documentation,” allowing for a natural progression where new maintainers can eventually take over or start their own projects. Manterola argues that since “97% of software depends on open source,” it is reasonable to expect that anyone wanting to work on it full-time should be fairly compensated rather than “begging for scraps.”

“I advocate for donating a steady amount every month, rather than big lumps of money to different projects, as gaining steady income is more important, even if it’s less,” Manterola said in her talk. “I’m proposing the open source employment pledge, which is, well, if you are not willing to donate money, maybe you are willing to donate the time of your employees…Every 20 developers in your company, 50% of one person’s time goes to them developing open source, and that 50% is like, completely free of company influence.”