Open Source XOR Money

Summary

The FOSS world is in crisis. Large, important and useful projects are being abandoned, left half-done and buggy. Collaboration in the OS world is falling apart. Projects are forking at the unprecedented rate. Why is this so? Internet services around the world are largely dependent on complex FOSS projects. We see developers burning out. We see that FOSS adoption in large companies is slow to non-existent, unless based on indispensable services. The FOSS dream is slowly dying, whilst the relevance of FOSS is increasing and finally (but slowly) being recognised in large companies and government. In this talk we'll identify what works (suprisingly little) and what doesn't (suprisingly much). We present an argument that financial non-compensation is certainly part of this problem, but not all of it. There are other factors the FOSS world needs to wake up to in order to succeed and indeed survive. We will then look at some controversial solutions we have thought up to spark a community-wide discussion on how to reconcile ideals with the real world.