{
  "id": 8855141,
  "title": "Nobody pays for FOSS, we can force them to",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/20/nobody-pays-for-foss-we-can-force-them-to-8855141",
  "topic": "tech",
  "section": "Tech",
  "published": "2026-09-20T21:04:32.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Hacker News Best",
    "slug": "hacker-news-best",
    "url": "https://seldo.com/posts/nobody-pays-for-open-source-we-can-force-them-to/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Open source software, often referred to as FOSS, operates on a unique economic model that many people find perplexing. It is not uncommon to assume that there must be a monetary incentive for developers to contribute their time and effort. However, the truth is quite different. In the open source world, developers contribute their work for free, driven by a desire to collaborate, share, and build community.\n\nThe source material emphasizes that this model is not a failure, but rather a carefully balanced equilibrium. The economics of open source can be understood through the lens of evolutionary biology, specifically a concept called the evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS). In this model, a population of animals competing for a resource tends to stabilize into a mix of hawks (those who compete aggressively) and doves (those who cooperate and share). Similarly, in the open source world, we see a mix of hawk-like closed source software and dove-like open source software.\n\nClosed source software, like a hawk, aggressively competes for market share and profit by withholding its source code and charging premium prices. Open source software, on the other hand, operates like a dove, freely sharing its code and gaining benefits from the collective contributions of a large community. The equilibrium in this market is a balance between the two, with free software winning in terms of user share and closed software winning in terms of profit.\n\nThis balance is not without its challenges, however. The source material highlights that a significant portion of open source maintainers – around 60% – are not paid for their work. In fact, 61% of these unpaid maintainers work alone, and nearly 60% of all maintainers have considered quitting due to the strain of their workload. This has led to a worrying statistic: 11% of open source projects were actively maintained as of 2023, according to Sonatype's analysis.\n\nThe implications of this situation are profound. With only 11% of open source projects actively maintained, a small group of developers end up shouldering a disproportionately large amount of responsibility. This creates a fragile system where the disappearance of even a few key developers could have devastating consequences. The source material points to the xz compression library as a cautionary tale, where a single unpaid maintainer's struggle led to the discovery of a backdoor in a widely used piece of software.\n\nWhile it may be tempting to view this situation as a failure of the open source system, the source material argues that this is not the case. Open source is a stable equilibrium, one that has persisted for decades despite the challenges it faces. The maintainers who contribute to this ecosystem are willing to endure significant personal sacrifices in order to uphold the values of collaboration and openness. Rather than seeing this as a broken system, we should acknowledge the human cost of maintaining open source software and strive to support its developers in sustainable ways.",
  "summary": "Article URL: https://seldo.com/posts/nobody-pays-for-open-source-we-can-force-them-to/ Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49780064 Points: 171 # Comments: 165",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 2,
    "also_reported_by": [
      {
        "outlet": "Hacker News",
        "title": "Nobody pays for FOSS, we can force them to",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/20/nobody-pays-for-foss-we-can-force-them-to",
        "published": "2026-09-20T21:04:32.000Z"
      }
    ]
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}