 Hey everyone, we're gonna get the next debate started a little a little explanation of of the way you can help us keep it going When we're gonna have a timer up and the speakers are on strict time limits And when we get to about 20 seconds if we could start to let them know that they're really running out of time By snapping our fingers or rubbing them together if we all do it together It's a really nice sound and when they run out of time We all applaud which then it tells them that they're out of time in a really nice way and they'll stop the speakers I will have notes by me where you can see how much time is left So you don't have to turn well, I'll have I'll put up a five and a two and a one So the the I believe the affirmative position will be that we need sustainability in open-source free software, correct Sustainability initiatives right is that what you're right right and you're taking the affirmative. It does need sustainability Okay, and with that we'll do the first affirmative Can you hear me? Yeah. Are we good? Yeah, who can hear me? Okay, you were eating right. It's fine So that's free open-source software needs sustainability Yes We're done right Now but actually the question is a little bit more deep than that right what kind of sustainability Free and a pursue software needs is maybe the real question behind that right Because we really have a kind of sustainability for many projects, right? We have many models many things that works Okay, but there may be time for some improvements, right and the debate here is about what what could be these improvements, right? But first we need to remind what is open-source right at we have only seven minutes, right? But the idea behind that is is open-source just a legal framework for copyright or it's a a movement a model a Social social idea, right that we try to defend right a non-rival society where Things reproduces into the comments, right? What sustainability model we need for that? for that definition right It's also because humans you open source like every human construction is made by humans humans are weak You mind send their mind when money comes humans are lazy and Humans die Right, so how we can achieve sustainability over all these human things, right? How we can how we can have the how we can have this transcendental idea that that That continues from the one who were before us and continues for the one after us, right? So that's the first thing and And so I will so we need better open-source software Sustainability and I will define five points quickly five points for these new models, right? Five minutes five points great The first one is the idea how we can sustain the idea of sustainability and open-source software, right? The open-source software definition is the first step But how we can sustain it more how we can educate more people to know it to educate them to defend them in their communities But also how we can contribute to it to sometimes a model of How it has been decided that was not as Contributive as it could be today how we can open source the open source definition, right to make it sustainable with today's society, right? That's the first step the second so We need to understand that that fire we need to keep it alive, right? And so maybe we should we need to open it the second thing is the people All right, how many developers are in burnout because they have been completely burned at the fire of the open source software idea, right? How many projects are sustained on the global level? But destroyed health and lives of the lone maintainers in each of them on 20 years yet sustainable But how many casualties? We have seen in all of these projects, right? so we need to define also a global sustainability model and also a Low a sustainability model for the individual right that is there, right? The third thing the third thing is the low infrastructure Right how we can have sustainable license which are not the sustainable license we talked about That we close the software to sustain it But sustainable license that will keep open source software forever as I call it free and always free open source software, right? That's different the promise that we make it open will stay forever, right? No, and so we need to keep that infrastructure that low infrastructure sane enough to have this living right to be able to innovate in terms of of law, right? But also to be able to be to be adapted depending on the project So let's see how that can work together. The fourth is the money, right? We'll talk later about that in the second affirmative panel But yeah, we need we need sustainable funding, right and again this system it works right now. It works For many projects, but how we can have a sustainability funding model that is not based on few Corporation deciding to fund money for organization to fund some project they decide for their own interest, right? So that's my fifth point How we can apply all these first four models into a more independent software developer in open source model? Right how we can apply all the same money laws and infrastructure ideas and people to enable them to develop Yeah, an independent model that based on all the first things Right that we enable to leave from the software they built because people build it at people use it afterwards the solution to that really makes the economical impact with What people produce so it's not just sponsoring deciding what I like in French we call the kings decide right the kings decide who they fund Right, but no like it's really matching the users and the producers, right? So these five models define what maybe maybe many the the better sustainability, right? I will just finish. I'm gonna have yeah up to more minutes. I'll just finish by saying that To compare to environment, right? If just imagine we ask Yeah, does environment needs to sustainability, right? It's obvious. It's yes, right? It's just it's our living environment if you want to live in a world where open source software brings Value in our society. Of course it needs sustainability, right? It needs but it needs better ones better than we have right now We need to make sustainability cost go down to zero at maximum, right to make to enable more projects to be sustainable I will just get that quote from a famous ecologist to say we don't inherit from the word from our parents But we just borrow the words from our children, right? Should be the same for open source software, right? Sustainability of our generations, right? Based on the five principle. I've shared I shared earlier, right? And so for the people things. I'm a utopist, right? I've made two companies that are profitable. I've done many things organized tech conferences I'm a utopist with a business model Right, so it's possible and it's possible and you will see in the second affirmative fiction that it's possible to have a better Sustainability models for open source software. Thank you very much So by mutual agreement of both debate teams a neutral party will be doing all the cross-examination. So I'm handing that to Miriam Thank you. So I actually have two questions for you first question. You said keep the fire burning, right? so people are really and enthusiastic sorry and enthusiastic about it and You know, we want it we want to keep that up at the same time you're proposing a system Which means that we need external input to keep the fire burning doesn't that actually mean open source community The open source community needs life support So your question is like does open source community need life support? Let's say that what doesn't your system mean that the open source community needs life support So I think I'm saying the opposite. I'm saying that open source communities need more independent source of Funding let's say who could talk about funding for example more independent source of funding and at maximum tied to the usage of their software So if they if we tie with the usage of the software and again, they're I don't want to their their ways to do that Right, but if we tie it with the usage of the software and we find a model. There are many models possible, right? We can have independent Funding or community-based funding or user-based funding, right and not again a copy right here Yeah, just to say so we just everybody knows right, but yeah So that would avoid this life support thing because for me the life support is people who is money sometimes with models Who are not open source, but they make a foundation which has money and then they decide to love support or not this kind of project Okay So I was gonna ask you a second question I'm gonna ask you a different question that I actually intended for Lewis, but I'm because it fits now so But how is that system then different from a proprietary license? I understand what you're saying is that you don't get the license free from the entity using the software You get it from someone else, but doesn't even doesn't that actually mean you still need to pay for the license somewhere? And it's actually not being paid by those who use it. How do you tie it to the use? So just an example, I didn't want to talk about it here directly, but you asked me the question you attended to Lewis So just an example a trademark, right? You can use threat. You can make people pay for trademark goodwill Of the software, so it's not copyright. It's just trademark, right the company applies your trademark into a onto a commercial Brusher, right? It's not it's not copyright here, but then they make money out of your trademark goodwill Right and so they can say actually we use Your community what your community brought to the system, right the trust Representing to the trademark, right? And so now we we can pay you because we make millions out of you not copyright Trademark not intelligence to swag. That was an that's an option Thank you. So now we'll have the first negative and what you're doing that Okay, so can you use that mic? Seven minutes for the first negative so my friends this all sounds very jolly, but I'm making the gift of free and open code to you and I think you shouldn't look into the Gifted horse mouth You are demanding sustainability, but I think we don't need that kind of sustainability And in particular, there's there's eventually a some kind of emerging military industrial complex of sustaining or so-called sustaining organization and That would cover non-profit Such as the software freedom conservancy The free software foundation that demands that you assign their copyrights to them as well as for profits or Non-profit 501 cc consortions, which are conglomerates of companies such as the Linux Foundation the open collective and seminars all of these are Kind of a parasite organization which are trying to skim and take their cut On top of your work Anywhere between 10 to 20 percent sometimes trying to lure you saying they won't take Any any cut on top of the funding that's usually yours For a period of time. So I think we really don't want nor need this kind of sustainability That's my first argument And the other thing is that again free and open to software is a gift by injecting system into requirements Which is your own mandate? It's it's not mine. I made a gift and you want me to sustain get this forever I don't think that's a fair Fair demand on your side You also turning free and open source software developers which are volunteers into Some kind of hired guns, you know, they want to sustain so you're saying the emergence of A software project that really demand funding to be able to achieve anything which is Contrary to everything. I believe are the ethos of free and open source software. I already mentioned the notion of this emerging Notion of so-called sustaining organization in the end They're really deep brand thinking of sorts and they're trying to make sure that not only they take a cut on top of your funding They're trying to get that forever By lowering you in the organization worse than that some of your users large corporations May actually demand That you join these organizations in order to use your software There's another argument that can be made that in the end when you also fund organization and From from projects and it's really the ones which are the best are seeking grants That are eventually able to get the money So you may end up sustaining projects which really don't deserve it and you you see I won't point in fingers to anyone They're really crappy code and crappy project that are heavily funded and and that's not fair, right? the best code the the one that produced the best code may not be the one of the best at seeking grants and and the best marketing there and In the end You could even make an argument that somehow the way FOSS free software free and open source software is really Equivalent to Diamond oils and minerals which are being strict mined by by by these sustaining organizations and and somehow colonialist powers so That's pretty much it. I think the free software free software has been self-sustaining itself and self-organizing itself for a long period of time and this self-organization is key to success and and This sustaining Problem is not a problem. It's something that actually spoils the whole free and open source software Okay, so first question for you. You said we don't need external support to sustain open source development, right? I'm not saying we don't need external support to sustain open source of development I'm saying we may not need that kind of support. Okay in particular if we're here today How did we get there, right? This means like for the last 20 30 40 years nothing has been able to sustain itself We wouldn't be here. Otherwise, it wouldn't be 10,000 people at first them today. Okay But you say I mean, you know, we're taking away like money or money taking money from someone else putting that into open source development Right that that's not necessary. It will work itself out, right? That's the position that I took away so doesn't that mean that open source development becomes less accessible to Just everyone in general because it also means you need to be able to afford to work on a project that doesn't really properly pay you Over time and I mean I get why you would make that argument But how can you justify that? Well, I think you you can make a very simple Darwinist argument which is if Software is not able to sustain itself. If a project is not able to sustain itself It probably doesn't deserve to be there in the first place. I didn't choose to be on that side of the argument Doing my best efforts in good faith to actually support this point Obviously you want to support those who can you know survive on their own already How can you justify that? Companies are already Using open source software to a large extent right and at the same time they are developing other software Internally and they are paying their internal developers. Well, whereas the open source software that they are relying on even more Does not get paid equally well, I think there's a there's a simple argument that could be made there if you're eventually depleting the commands of Oxygen by using open source without ever giving back anything these companies will eventually Collapse on themselves if you were to Think about something like the Linux kernel if nobody was somehow collaborating and contributing to it Their business will event companies that rely on Linux to run their business like banks and large of changing would eventually collapse on their own So there's an argument that can be made that This would eventually Not be in their long-term interest So I thank Philippe for that. I've never had I'm enjoying these based on our ads so much fun being called an extortionist The skim that pays my salary fortunately brought me here So You know, and I do want to Correct Bradley because he said that Miriam was going to be neutral and what he meant was aggressively hostile to everyone which is So big thanks to Miriam for jumping in at the last moment I want to pick up on two threads From what many started us with and those are the importance of independence and the importance of finances in Creating a healthy open source and I think those are intertwined with the sustainability, right? So open source like the software industry as a whole is concentrating Right. We are all at the end of the day We're all at the end of the day heavily dependent on Microsoft and Amazon and Google To build the things that we want to do now. We like our corporate benefactors Everybody from github here. No the github folks left. Okay. We hate our corporate benefactors. We need to have Oh, the Google folks are still here. Sorry We you know sustainability in the context of independence means that we want independence so that Communities can be strong and diverse and not dominated by a single player if the open source community You are in is dominated by a single company or even a small number of companies who all have the same interests then That is not a sustainable community and so we need to figure out how we sustain Independence within our communities so that they can be the strongest communities You know as we've been hearing throughout the day from people who both Apparently believe and do not believe it communities are really important and You know if all open source merely flows uphill to Google and Amazon and the sponsors of the Linux Foundation What's the outcome of that? You know max sills from Google was here earlier and Telling us that open source is about love which is very nice and max occasionally gives me free lunch at their cafeteria But you know and it's a super healthy lunch very San Francisco fresh organic So my heart feels good, but then also I have to leave eventually they throw me out And they also have a special cafeteria just for employees that are not allowed to bring friends to Or open source contributors, so You know, I'm not sure if licensing is the best way to fight for this independence But I submit the fighting for it is a great idea at the sort of corporate level, right? There's also individual diversity in our communities, right getting involved in open source I want Miriam to be my lawyer As she was saying getting involved in open source is an immensely privileged thing Right, so I got involved in open source while I was in college Because I knew that I could dick around and not get great grades in my classes and life would still work out Right, or at least I was dumb and young and stupid enough to believe that right and thankfully nobody told my parents Sorry and so the You know I Was able to Spend a whole lot of time in college that I probably shouldn't have Contributing to open source because I have that immense privilege of Or naivete of believing that it would all work out We need to focus on sustainability so that open source is a thing that is for all Individuals regardless of their economic privilege or their individual background Not just for the privileged few who are lucky enough to get paid to do it Which brings us to the second point that many raised which is funding So who here is super excited about capitalism? All right, the Google employee is super excited about capitalism and Yeah, so we published a blog post on my company blog a little while ago That said essentially how many of you here have heard of the phrase bus factor in the open source context, right? So for those of you who are not familiar with it bus factor is the notion of well What happens to this community if the leader gets hit by a bus, right? Which is a sort of grim thing, right? But the core idea is that a healthy community for the leader gets hit by a bus Everyone will be sad and then the community will still be able to continue going forward, right? Here's the thing the good news is in fact basically nobody gets hit by a bus what they get hit by all the time Is their bosses? So there's actually some great research from Carnegie Mellon that looked a bunch of github and and tried to figure out Why did communities? Why did open source projects? go un-maintained and the single biggest cause for Open source project going on maintained was something at work So they got laid off the company switched from Java to rails because it's 2020 and come on Java and where'd Jim go and You know and then all of a sudden all their Java libraries were were Abandoned right or their boss said, you know, we were allowing you to do 20% time on open source But now it's only 10% and you have to make some tough calls right there And so that boss factor is really what's The most one of the most important things in sustainability when we're talking about how do we keep? Projects sustained over the long term right and this conflicts directly even though it turns out bosses all the time Tell people sorry you can't work on that open source anymore By the way, there are now four trillion dollar companies in the world and they are all heavily dependent on open source Weirdly the acronym for them is MAGA Microsoft Amazon Google and Apple You know and when these trillions of dollars of value been created by open source Doesn't that suggest some solutions to our open source sustainability problem? I'm gonna speed through the rest because I only have one minute Working for big companies is fine right. There's nothing wrong. I do genuinely love my friends at Google Especially when they get me lunch But if everyone does that then I would submit to you that open source is not very interesting an open source That is healthy and vibrant is not going to end up with us with all of us working at those four companies Even though that sometimes looks like the trend right now. So what do we need to do? Well We should have new licenses That's You know prohibit car that prohibit competition that's obviously one solution to the sustainability problem and You know and I think we also need new economic models right where we help individual developers figure out how they can sustainably work on open source and You know that's are we still clipping or are clapping I can't Five seconds we need new economic models. Yay So you talked about the mega companies right yet You still want to put the developers in charge of making sure the open source community is sustained Or the communities are sustained over time And Why don't you put it on those who actually use it most? Oh? Oh, absolutely. Thank you. Thank you for giving me that opportunity to talk about new economic models You know, I think that we need to What we currently do is we beg those companies for charity, right? We say oh, please buy us dinner Please fund our conference. Please fund Conservancy you should all fund conservancy But you know when we rely on guilt as the model as opposed to Return on investments. That's not very sustainable, right? It means they can roll out of bed one day and say hey, you know what actually I don't feel so guilty anymore Karen's You know Karen's just not quite so effective in making me feel bad today. So I so Yeah So we're going to drop a zero off that check like that's not a way to build true sustainability that's That's a charitable model that still leaves us at the mercy of the billionaires who run these companies So it's definitely not developer centric if we don't have an economic model Okay, second question now you get someone to pay for The sustainability right you get mm-hmm the guilt factor is still okay, right? And then you go ahead because you have the projects Making sure you know sustainability is present And then you take money away from that and don't pay all of the money that you actually get in To the developers. How is that fair? Oh? What I think somebody said it's something about a 20% skim earlier and You know the Apple standard is a 30% skim and we should aspire to be every bit as good as Apple and Yeah, I mean I think that part of the way we're going to build this I mean look this already happens right the Linux Foundation is the biggest sustainability player by the way they don't employ any engineers And actually some of that is okay, right employing sales people employing people who help with infrastructure and documentation in Okay All right, okay The I was told just yesterday by a Linux Foundation employee that they proudly did not employ any engineers. I apologize The But I think the general point still stands which is that most of the Linux Foundation sub projects Focus on higher-level governance infrastructure, and you know what those things are valuable. Those are part of sustainability Thank you So mark Jones will do the final Negative, but yeah, it's all right. Let's strike where I am And then we'll have cross-semination for that and then we'll they're doing no final rebuttal So have audience questions after that. So go ahead mark Am I allowed to disclaim the disclaimer? Is it is it okay? Yes, I did in my debate. So yes, you may I Think most of what I'm about to say I actually believe or at least I'll believe for like I don't know the rest of today So if you want to hold me to it, that's fine Really the problem here is that the affirmative side is presupposing that there is a sustainability problem, right? And there there might be a sustainability problem from a business perspective But the reality is is that the reason why this conference is so big the reason why businesses care so much about free software is That we have a lot of it. We made a lot of it in the last, you know, 30 40 years I don't actually have a sustainability problem It might not be working the way that everyone wants it to work and maybe it's not optimized for some businesses Maybe it's not optimizes for some businesses. Lewis might run I Figured, you know, since we're going we're going personal by the way the the the word was symbiotic right not parasitic That was what you were trying to defend yourself as But you know, we don't have to the freeze offer community shouldn't have to change how it operates to accommodate other people We shouldn't have to compromise our principles as people believe in free software just because it's more convenient for other people if Businesses want to take advantage of the great benefit that free software is Successfully creating and has been doing for a while and there's no reason to think it's going to stop tomorrow In fact, we're probably getting even more of it. They should learn how to use free software They should learn how to work with free software the way free software works free software doesn't need big business Big businesses need free software Lewis is right the MAGA companies were built off of free software So maybe they should figure out how they can make even more money by figuring out how we actually work how we produce this free Software instead of asking us to change to be more convenient to fit into their corporate structures Maybe it's okay that we're right about one more thing, right? We were right about the licenses We were right about how to build Software maybe we're right about how businesses should work too, right? Maybe we're right about how businesses should treat other people And that this is a lesson that we can teach them. I've still gone off my notes at this point Yes, the important thing so you'll notice if you look at the web page describing this debate One of the things we were supposed to talk about was the sustainable license that have come out last year And I didn't hear a lot of defense from it, but the reality is right Part of the reason we're talking about sustainability is because businesses want there to be a crisis so they can justify Forcing people into using let's face it our proprietary licenses, right? You know that the SSPL like really good shot really good shot at it And maybe there is a world where you can convince me like with these facts are there But it's not a free software license and you know, even if you can make some technical argument It's completely disingenuous to say that you support the free software community when you're putting that license out there These these licenses were created because it's better for business and the way they are operating right They built their businesses off the free software community They went out to their customers and said that they're selling a free software product because free software is cool And their customers know it's cool and they wanted the extra branding that came with being free software producers And now that they're successful and that their VC fund backers want to cash out They're trying to figure out well How do we maximize the amount of profit that we can get and their answer is oh, well, let's just pretend That there's a sustainability crisis and the only way that we can keep being successful free software companies is to stop being free software companies That's and we'll just convince everyone making free software that that's true that if they want to continue to make free Software right who here in this room thinks that they need money to go write code for an hour Like they don't right if you have a passion for it if you have a reason for it you can go write code It's one of the great things about our movement. It's a macro size that we don't need permission From large companies. We don't need their salaries to do it Now I'm not saying that you shouldn't get paid a salary free software You absolutely should my salary is paid with free software because there are business models that work with the free Software ethos work with the community and don't we don't go out and ask the communities We work with to change how they're operating with we're okay with that We figured out how to take advantage of free software the way it is without asking free software to compromise Well, I didn't prepare enough notes Corporate homes This is another the idea that all projects need to go into some kind of nonprofit home or for-profit home That's not the reality of it now some of them might be parasitic. Maybe there is a military industrial complex I'm not going to name who's in it, but They have their purpose for it, but we already have those models right the projects that that makes sense for and there are a lot of Them can go to those homes. We don't need to create new kinds of it We certainly don't need to force every project into it even if it's convenient for some businesses Yeah, it might be easier for some businesses to go say oh well I really really really want an exception So it would be great if you can go find a corporation and a board of directors so you can have a boss who it'll tell you like Oh, all we have to do is centralize our copyright So you can give an exception because it's really really important for this one person that they don't have to follow the license But a lot of projects are fine just being projects the motivations for creating that project might not be to satisfy Every businesses whim it might be because they have something else Maybe they're using it for a side business Maybe they're using it as part of a larger business model. Maybe it's a hobbyist project We don't need to find homes for all these projects in some kind of legal structure And we know that because these projects existed right if the project didn't exist Oh, maybe we have to think about that But you don't tell me that a project has existed for a year two years five years ten years Without some kind of corporate master needs a corporate master to continue to exist in the future I'm going to reserve the balance of my time Okay, so currently sustainability is well not an obligation But it's more like a charity thing that companies can do or users can do if they want to write Now if you say companies are at the same time Many developments right and depending to a large extent on free and open source software Shouldn't everyone who's using open-source software really care about sustainability because if what Lewis said is true and there is What was it called bus? Boss factor. Sorry. Yes, and there is a bus factor Isn't there a threat that you just use the basis of your development at any time unless you you care about sustainability Yeah, that sounds like a business problem. I mean it's in and that's kind of my No, no, no, that's my point is that if if businesses are worried about the sustainability of free software They shouldn't ask free software to change. They're getting a gift from the free software community They took advantage of that gift They now realize that they've created dependency on it because they're being competitive in the marketplace relies on it So what they need to do is they need to figure out how to work with a free software community It's not a sustainability tougher for the free software community It's a sustainability problem for corporations have chosen to be dependent upon it Yeah, but isn't that the same thing then is it doesn't that then necessarily mean that you need to ensure? You you keep that alive what you keep alive what you're depending on and isn't that exactly what this is about? For the for the businesses and I'm that's what I'm saying But the business what why do we care if the business succeed? I would be perfectly happy if all the proprietary software companies went out of business and were placed with free software companies Without having to compromise the ethical values in the community without having to draft new licenses that are clearly not free software licenses But doesn't uphold every single project though that that doesn't ensure sustainability for all projects No, and that's I mean that's one of the great things That's well, that's one of the reasons that make capitalism works right That's one of the things that makes free software work is that not everything deserves to survive Right like there some things are going to fail and that's okay. Actually. I think free software encourages that right last question So if it's not sustainability like proposed here, what's your solution? How how do you make sure? I'm still trying to figure out what the problem is because I think the real problem here is that people are pretending There's a problem around sustainability If we do this next year, I think Miriam just got herself recruited as the permanent cross-examiner all day So she may regret that I don't I thank her for doing that Again, I want to mention the the panelists agreed to forego their rebuttals So that the audience can ask questions you're welcome to ask question of either side or both And I asked the panelists to share I apologize we only have two mics That's the Fosdom set up So please be fair to each other each side with that Mike that you have there no questions I've got a question In in the one of the panelists said that if you've got an hour you can always do open source You can always write code, which is true Some of the things that's necessary to make a successful community Maybe take a bit longer than an hour. Maybe do need skills that aren't available How how can we help companies sustain communities with things other than just the code contributions? Is that question directed at anyone in particular? We could do it in an hour. Yeah, we can do everything in an hour No, I so I I think that's a great question, right? I think the answer is that companies really should find out how successful free software projects that worked And make it part of their employees jobs Officially not just an extra 20% time where yeah, you could go, you know Volunteer at a nonprofit or you can work on a free software project The company's really built off of free software then make that your business model and pay your developers To write free software as their full-time job like there are ways of making that work Just don't expect free software developers who don't work for you to adjust to your corporate business We're staying in character, right Yeah to answer fun to add to your to answer a question Let's Retake the comparison with the environment right everybody can have an hour to go clean the streets or make something good for the planet Who does it more than one hour two hours ten hours? It needs to be managed right at some point of society ever like every commons needs to be managed Right, so this is a dream that hobbyists can change the world only themselves if they're not organized And and I'd add that The problem is not business is changing their model. It's the people right like It's not the businesses think that oh, I switched from Java to rails And so now you're doing rails instead of Java that's fine The person who's forced to walk away from his Java community because now it's his weekend time and he has kids And so he doesn't do weekend time And so that Java community breaks apart because his boss has made a decision The business model for the company is fine It's the model for the human being and the community around that human being that has failed So I've got a question for Luis right here Did I understand you correctly that you're agreeing with mark that maybe Licenses aren't the right vehicle to support sustainability I'm staying in character So yes licenses are totally a great way to support sustainability You know, I mean I think that As I also in character said in the previous Talk I think that there's probably some experimentation to be had there in a healthy way and I think there's probably a bit at least in some cases somewhat less skepticism is warranted right like I see a lot of You know in the case of the Cryptographic autonomy license. Yes, it is a company pushing this thing But it is also a thing that very clearly and very explicitly is about data, right? And everyone said oh no, you're just a company trying to make sure that nobody else is ever using the thing. It's like well Actually, they seem to be as best as I can. I mean, yes, it's a company But it's also a company that seems to want users to actually have access to data And so why are we so like hyper aggressively skeptical? When you know, this is an attempt by a company as mark was saying this is an attempt by a company to actually adopt Free software principles in I think the healthiest of ways and we've basically told them that they're well not we collectively But some of us have told the sponsors of that license that they're Bad people which I find and unsupported by the evidence and I'm not just saying that because they're lawyers around here somewhere So Luis you can stay in your character by saying that does fast these to ten sustainability. Yes But not with license. You can stay in character, right? Yeah, I mean, that's true right like I you know, I think the bottom line is You know to stay both stay in character and to be completely honest here, right? It frustrates me when people say that the entire sustainability problem is a corporate problem When I have friends who don't attend FOSDM anymore because they got burnt out Right, they were expected to do things on weekends They were expected to do things when they could be spending time with their kids so they don't do open source anymore, right and Like to say oh, this is a business model problem. Like yeah, you know Yeah, some of it is a business model problem, but a lot of it is also a very deeply human problem and so to throw The English phrases throw the baby out with the bathwater You know, so yeah the I don't like the SS Getting a little out of character here or somewhere in between I don't really like the SSPL but to say there's no sustainability problem because you don't like the SSPL is to confuse to Related but distinct things Okay, I have a question This is coming from the open street map space where we rely on volunteer mappers and paid now a lot of paid Contributors through a lot of companies are doing mapping So what happens in your community when you know You started as a volunteer project and then some corporate contributors come in and they start to do a lot of the maintenance and Contribution and I guess this would be a question for you mark Is it you know how sustainable can your community remain when that influence is still exerting itself? And you can't just say go do your own thing or listen to us so really it's when you've gotten the influx of Money from a large corporate contributor and you've grown to a certain size Just resources just resources just resources um Well, you know go staying in character and and honestly too You know for nonprofits like that really is a problem and actually for profits as well, right? How do you manage your growth, right? It's probably a I think Depending upon what you're doing It's hard for for profits to say oh we grew too quickly we regret that although sometimes they do sometimes they do I think it's a lot more real for nonprofits because you really can collapse underneath your own weight if you grow too quickly especially if You know of resources showed up and then they suddenly disappeared and you just kind of counted on it, and it's managing that I mean, and I think that's a challenge for all nonprofits regardless of What they're doing, right? It's not just a free software problem If you're a nonprofit and you suddenly get an influx of volunteers You have to ask like how dependent do you want to become on them and manage their contributions? So if they do suddenly disappear one day You either have a way of replacing those resources or you have a way of scaling back down Can I add also in character? But also again, honestly if you're thinking about It helps to think about these things I find in a sustainability frame because if money just drops from the sky It can be super just and you're just like great money You know that that can be as Mark said very disruptive Whereas if you think about it in terms of like how are we building capacity? How are we building human capability in the long run which is in part organizational and financial and but it's a big fractal thing and if you just treat it as like You know, I mean as you know from the open street map community, right? It's not just like yay It's millions more map data points, but that is a two-edged. That's a super two-edged short, right? Fractal fractally edged short. Is that a thing? Just to the point which is too much money can really spoil things And I know of a few open source project which are somewhat good at seeking funds and funding Which have been basically founded and receiving grants several times for the same code That's you know, when there's a lot of money eventually that Generates this kind of behaviors. So it's it's really something which can spoil the the community and The originally volunteer and generous gift of code that was made in the first place Hi, gentlemen. So first of all, I want to thank the fine folks have been Running the microphones up and down all day I know we've had a host of characters doing that and I'm very grateful. So thank you So I have two questions, but the first one is a show of hands, so it's super fast How many of the folks up in the front of the room have done research into prior art and Sustainability such as the brunt land report and the corporate sustainability movement back in the 1980s. Just show of hands One excellent. That is 25% more than I normally find So question number two you've spent the last nearly 50 minutes up there talking about sustainability And I haven't yet heard anyone define what they mean on either side by sustainability Could each side please do that for us? Just to see whether you're even talking about the same thing in character So in character sustainability means finding all the technical financial human and let's say and philosophical means to Accomplish your your your fate so that's sustainability what you want to read to deliver I think we are taking in the idea of sustainability from production of the continued production of free software and in character I don't subscribe to the existence of sustainability So this question's for Lewis Conservancy for example has About we estimate something we in our member projects have about 5000 volunteers we estimate and we pay about 120 contractors per year for software engineering work What should we be doing differently? Why like what what is not sustainable about that? So I actually think that that's a pretty that that feels to me like a Reasonably healthy ratio right like to me part of the sustainability puzzle is how you Balance that ratio of paid people often doing infrastructure work often doing work that enables other people to do long-term things With healthy volunteerism right because the most sustainable long-term communities Are those communities that have that blend right that have people who can do some of the Occasionally boring but necessary stuff right For example, I got my professional start in open source being It's a little bit of a gross and oversimplification, but son Indirectly it was paying me to do bug tracking work in the GNOME project so that we could get GNOME 2.0 out the door That was not something that people in the community were like chomping at the bit To like oh, I just want to sit in front of the bug tracker all day, right? I'm weird I actually did want to do that and then somebody paid me to do it and critically. I also built a community around Actually probably in a ratio fairly similar of one paid person to You know 20 30 40 a different times volunteers many of whom went on to careers in open source who were Helping get that release out the door by understanding the QA right so if you were to tell me yeah I'm paying 4900 of those 5,000 people which is the ratio in some communities Communities in quotes that's not very sustainable right because when the companies involved decide as in fact in the longer Run happened to GNOME. GNOME had a very long hard period when it's corporate sponsors And the reason that GNOME has continued to sustain is because it did have I think better than a lot of communities had a healthy community around those corporate contributions, right? So you want to be able to do both right and and that ratio like honestly Not just an in-character thing sounds to me like a pretty healthy one And I'm sure that you have individual projects within that where there's really only one or two people and they're all Paid or there's a maybe not right. I'm just numeric like the odds are but if not even better, right? So It's quickly on my side Just saying that Luis just conceded that his kind of susceptibility carries the seeds of the demise of Some of the project he wants to help being sustained I would just say to refer to your previous question just beating being sustainable It's not only surviving right being sustainable is achieving the goals you set to yourself And I would just answer if you're as a free some the freeze of their conservancy you your fate is to have 5,000 contributors pay 120 contractors and it's enough to define your sustainability You're sustainable if it's 100,000 volunteers with I don't know 2,000 contractors You're not yet sustainable It's just the fate you want to apply to yourself that define your sustainability model So surviving is not just being sustainable for some people unfortunately it is but for some people who have the chance to have a better Goals your sustainability need to match these goals, right? I Mean if I can be super in character here sustainability is getting a Lambo You know Yeah, I'll just leave it that So so within the session we've been doing questions at the end of each debate rather than declaring a winner How many people learn something about this issue? They didn't know before they came in here during this debate More than half the audience that's wonderful How many of you have changed your position or views on the issue of false sustainability because of this debate? Wow, yeah, so six or seven people in the audience have changed their position Do before we finish this particular one? Do any of you want to state they'll like come out of character and say like like a more aggressive disclaimer or anything Yeah, just very quickly. Yeah Yeah, yeah