jacobianMay 20, 2025

One of the most frustrating parts of running an open source foundation is seeing the disconnect between what companies _say_ about their support for open source and what they actually _do_.

So many of them, it seems, are more interested in being _seen_ as supporting open source than they are actually providing support. It's optics, not altruism.

Show threadjacobianMay 20, 2025

I think a large part of what frustrates me about this dynamic is the lack of honesty. If you came to me and said "we want more visibility in your community so they will buy our thing", we could have a serious conversation about how to make that happen and how we can all be happy.

But they lie, and say "we want to support the community!", and then throw up all sorts of nonsense roadblocks and requirements, and it's all a mad scramble because they wouldn't say what they want up front.

Show threadStuart LangridgeMay 20, 2025
@jacob hm. I’m not sure honesty would work, though, because I imagine it’s not that “clean” a motive. “We want to look like we care about open source because it gives us credibility with people who aren’t you. We mostly don’t give a shit about you, as long as we’re visible as being involved, but a few of our programmers do. You’re ok with all that, right?” is not a winning pitch for happy relations…
Show threadDanny Garside
@sil @jacob
I mean, that's what they're saying already, just not with words. I'm a vote for laying it all out as it is and going from there.
I do think that requires the individuals involved to do some inner work though - recognising that "support" in a general sense is different to "support" in a capitalist sense.
May 21, 2025 at 8:48amWeb