Value in Open: PostHog - James Hawkins on VC-funded open source

https://www.valueinopen.fm/episode/posthog-james-hawkins

I started a new podcast!

I’ve been in open source for 15 years. Half of it as a volunteer, the other half as a paid employee of commercial open source projects. I’m never working on anything that’s not open source again. But I’m also never going to work primarily as a volunteer again: I’ve had my share of burnouts already.

I know that I deserve, at the very least, a living wage for the value that I’m putting forth into the open. Any open source value creator is deserving of a fair share of the profits that their work generates for others. But figuring out reasonable ways to “collect” without running afoul of deeply rooted open source principles is an incredible challenge.

On this podcast we pay tribute to project creators who are pursuing the greatest openness possible, up to whatever point where they are still able to sustain themselves and their collaborators, and thus also the project in perpetuity.

If there’s an opportunity to turn this into a collaboration with the SustainOSS movement/podcast, I’m all ears.

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