DEV Community: Helad

Developer Spotlight @ FOSDEM 2020

Helad — Mon, 27 Jan 2020 13:22:32 +0000

This weekend I'll be at FOSDEM conference in Brussels, Belgium.
I will be looking for open source developers who want to share the story behind their project(s) and willing to interview on camera.
We will produce 60-second spotlights about each developer and his/hers project, which will be promoted on our Youtube channel, social pages and more.
If you are interested in participating and talking about your open source project, contact me at elad@xscode.com for more information.
Or fill in the form here:https://valueopensource.github.io/DeveloperSpotlight/

See you all at the event,
Elad

Open source is free - but expensive

Helad — Wed, 15 Jan 2020 14:14:50 +0000

Source: https://xscode.com/686/open-source-is-free-but-expensive/

While over 90% of software companies use free open source components, only a handful are actually aware of the hidden costs behind using “free” code. This article discusses the real cost of using open source in commercial software, the risks behind it and how they can be mitigated.

The benefits of using open source components when developing software are clear. According to Github (source), over 90% of software companies use open source in their commercial software. Using ready-made components is cost-effective, speeds up development, and frees costly developer hours to focus on mission-critical tasks. Moreover, the ability to see the source code, rather than using closed-source proprietary software, exposes the development team to new ideas, technologies and solutions, which can later be implemented in their custom application code. But these benefits come at a price. Downloading the code is free, but actually using it in a mission-critical production environment - is often not. Diving into the usage statistics and analyzing the open-source time-value-spend relationship, reveals the true cost of free software.

A small clarification before we proceed - open source software is often referred to as ‘free software’ - where the word ‘free’ is used in the sense of ‘freedom’, not ‘free-of-charge’. For the sake of clarity, and as this article discusses mainly financial aspects, and not the legal and philosophical principles of open source, I will use the word ‘free’ in its traditional sense henceforth. If you’re interested in free software and what it means, I highly recommend reading this.

"Open source has grown from a small, academic sharing network to a giant, global web of dependencies. It now forms the backbone of the internet and technology in general. Just like any growing city, we have to coordinate the knowledge, infrastructure, and tools for the good of the whole community.” Devon Zuegel, Github

Finding the true cost of open source

Let’s start by factoring in the direct costs of using open source in a commercial setting.

Since open source components are rarely ready to use out-of-the-box, there are direct costs that incur when integrating, customizing and maintaining them. According to a recent survey conducted by Tidelift (Source), developers spend 35% of their time researching, testing and maintaining code. 25% of that time, revolves around open source code. With an average salary of $43/hour (source, in western countries), companies with 100 developers spend close to $1MM annually, just on open source ‘housekeeping’ tasks. This doesn’t include time spent on finding the right project for the task at hand, learning about the project from the usually scarce documentation, customizing, integrating it into existing code etc. The real cost is likely closer to double the figure we just saw. That is an astonishing figure, even for multi-million dollar companies. And those are just the direct costs. Other, indirect costs should be factored in as well, such as legal and security risks, management overhead, purchasing of software tools to manage open source components and the lost time that could be directed towards other, more critical tasks. This huge expense hides in plain sight, embedded deeply in development expenses, and very difficult to catch, let alone - reduce.

“The true heart of open source isn't the code at all: it's the community. Projects with a strong community survive longer and are adopted much more heavily than those that don't. With that in mind, it's a good idea not only to embrace but actively plan for the community you hope to build around your project.” Jim Salter, Opensource.com

Is using open source a risk?

Research (source) indicates that developers using open source components are concerned with how well the code they are using will be maintained in the future. Unmaintained, and even abandoned projects are not uncommon in the open source ecosystem, and can cause severe damage to companies relying on them in a production environment. Imagine relying on a Github repository for your code builds, and suddenly the developer decides to remove the repository from Github, or make it “private”? This has happened before, and will happen again, creating a real risk.

The open source sustainability problem has become the subject of many discussions, forums and blogs. It has become a major concern for everyone developing and using open source, and it appears that software companies and open source developers alike, are starting to understand that the continued growth of open source is at risk, unless a viable business model is created to provide developers with a continued incentive to better maintain their code.

Some of the largest organizations in the world are looking for maintainers to hire just for maintaining the open-source projects they are using. Other companies choose to donate to their favorite projects. This sounds like there’s a solution for open source issues, but these two solutions apply only to about 1-2% of the open source projects out there. The other 99% of the components are maintained by individual developers, who are not compensated at all to support their work. Companies are finding themselves building products that rely on components, created by people who might not be here tomorrow to maintain the code, fix bugs or resolve security issues.

When pros become cons

Organizations that develop software invest a lot of resources in hiring, training and keeping their software developers happy and committed. But if your organization is using open source components, developed by individuals you don’t know, never hired and never paid, how can you trust the quality, support and continuity of their code?

Open-source developers start their projects for many reasons: a need that came up, personal interest, recognition in the community and more. Developers want to share their knowledge with the community and hope their project will gain popularity and a following. Some projects do so well in terms of popularity, that developers become the victims of their own success. When an open source project suddenly explodes, it generates enormous stress on the developer. He is suddenly bombarded with bug fixes, features requests, questions and comments. At some point, the developer can’t continue to invest the required time and effort in maintaining his project. Sometimes this means less maintenance, unfixed bugs, or new releases that are postponed until the developer has time. In some cases - this means project abandonment. In both cases - the headache to maintain the project becomes the company’s.

Paying open source developers is trending

Although I can't support this notion with hard-numbers, browsing through social media pages and blogs which are popular with developers, is showing a trend. More and more developers are realizing that in order to continue developing their projects, they would need ongoing, reliable financial support. It appears that asking for donation is not a viable and dependable business model, and some developers have resorted to monetizing their code in a variety of ways. One option, is offering their code under dual licensing, where a restrictive licensed version of their code remains free, while a permissive licensed version is offered for-fee. The developer of Vue-tables-2 (link), a popular Vus.js library, did just that, and looks like its working for him. Another widely popular library called FUSE, also decided to 'close-off' the code and license it commercially (source).

This trend is likely to grow, and the sooner software companies understand that it is in their best interest to start paying the open source developers behind the code they use - the better it will be for all of us, users and developers alike.

What’s next

Open source is here to stay. It became so widely used, that it is improbable software companies would stop using it, as the benefit outnumber the problems. But something needs to change. If the software industry and the open source community won’t find a viable, sustainable way of developing, using and paying for open source - it might not be here tomorrow. At least not in the same volume it is today. Platforms like Github are incredible, in the way they facilitate the distribution, development and adoption of open source. But companies need something more. They to be able to connect with the developers who create the code they use, so meaningful and profitable relationships are created. The same process that happened with many large scale open source projects like Redhat, needs to happen with smaller-scaled projects. The same way Redhat is offering paid support and added value services to a free, open source Linux distribution, should also apply to the +30M open source projects used by everyone. Where there would be compensation - the will be motivation. Compensated and motivated developers will be the ones leading open source into the next decade.

Netanel Mohoni, CEO, xs:code.

Want to learn more about how companies can buy products and services from the individual developers behind the code they use? Check out xscode.com

WHY WE’VE STARTED XS:CODE

Helad — Wed, 08 Jan 2020 15:03:03 +0000

Source:
https://xscode.com/352/why-weve-started-xscode/

November 14, 2016, scrum meeting: “We’re still working on this feature. It will take us longer than we thought” said the tech lead @ VIDOO, a start-up company that developed a video-ad creation platform for small businesses. Back then, I was the CEO, and I followed that statement with the obvious question: “Why? What’s the hold?.” To which he answered: “There are a lot of bugs in the open-source code we chose, so we’re trying to get in touch with the developer who wrote it, and in the meantime, we are trying to deal with it ourselves.”

That open-source project was exactly what we needed at that moment, and it was pretty popular on Github, but the answer from the developers didn’t come. After spending weeks trying to fix several bugs ourselves, we’ve decided to move on and kill the feature. Two weeks later, the repository owner emailed us back saying he will get to fixing the bug soon, but that was already too late for us.

In terms of numbers, I would say that we spent approximately 170–220 hours per developer/year on these types of problems.

In other cases, we tried buying an MIT license for repositories we needed and licensed with GPL. The answers from developers were something along the lines of “I need to think about the price” to “even if I want to help/sell you the code with a permissive license, I can’t.’’ In the end, the answer we always got was “It’s too complicated, sorry.”

When I left VIDOO in December 2018, my first priority for my next project, was to try and find a solution to the “Open-Source sustainability” problem. After talking with over 100 developers and 35 R&D leaders, my partner, Chen Ravid and I created xs:code

The idea was to motivate open source developers to maintain their code, while giving them the freedom to make their open source projects better and build relationships between the open-source developers and the companies who use it commercially, without damaging the awesome ideas being the open-source community.

The Market Research

As a result of our meetings with the R&D leaders and the OS developers (with many of them working at industry-leading tech companies), Chen and I started looking for ways to motivate developers to maintain their code, writing better documentation and fix bugs. Of course, Chen, being the smart one between us two, had a brilliant idea and suggested that we “Just ask them”. So we did. After dozens of phone calls, meetings, emails, and two meet-ups in Tel-Aviv, 95% of the developers had one answer to the question “What will motivate you to maintain your project?”. The answer was MONEY.

Will companies pay for OS?

Following those meet-ups we came to some major conclusions: if a developer can code for someone else (employer) for money, they would definitely code for their own interest if they were compensated. This, combined with the input from our meetings with R&D leaders, led us to understand that the companies will be more than happy to pay for the open-source projects they use and motivate the developers. They will actually want to have a relationship with the developers they’re working with, even though they’ve never met before.

Our next question for the CTOs was obvious then: “If you’re using them, why don’t you donate to open source projects?”
Their answer: “The same reason you don’t donate to Wikipedia”. Made sense.

The Numbers

After 11 months of late-night meetings and evaluating the market size — a $19B market with over 40M developers, 28M public open-source projects growing over 15% annually, most of them on Github, and the fact that 90% of the software projects in the world are using open source, (including markets like government, banking, and military) we realized that this was a huge opportunity for us!

The Vision

Our vision is based on four guiding principles: increasing developer motivation, maintaining open source sustainability, solving the market failure (millions are working without any compensation) and enabling developers the freedom to create and code. Our main focus and the heart of xs:code is to empower developers.

I worked with a lot of developers for the past 15 years, many of them live in eastern Europe. Many of them make no more than $3K/month, and not aware that their Github repository was being used commercially by thousands of companies. With xs:code, in three to four months, and a conversion rate of 3% of their commercial users, they will be able to quit their jobs, keep coding and contribute to the community. Needless to say that projects with 100K stars on Github may probably be able to afford a nice Ferrari within a year or two.

Our mission is to create a new software economy and support it all the way. Our platform allows developers to monetize their code projects, share the revenue with their contributors, and keep a free version for community use. We’ve made it our priority that using xs:code will free developers to keep coding, while xs:code handles everything else (billing, invoicing and other corporate nightmares).

Happy coding

What are you go to badges on your GitHub readme file?

Helad — Mon, 06 Jan 2020 09:28:27 +0000

5 THINGS I LEARNED ABOUT OPEN SOURCE DEVELOPERS

Helad — Thu, 19 Dec 2019 17:35:51 +0000

Source:
https://xscode.com/583/5-things-i-learned-about-open-source-developers/

I’ve spent the past 12 months working intensely with open source developers. In previous ventures I worked on, my teams and I used open-source libraries, but this was the first time I actually crossed the lines from just another faceless person git cloning some code, to actually meeting the people behind the repository. It’s been (and still is) an enlightening journey.

Strictly speaking, I’m not a developer myself. I can write code, but trust me – you wouldn’t want to read it, let alone run it. I feel more comfortable on the product side. As a product manager and entrepreneur, I worked with a lot of software developers over the years. During that time, I’ve developed a deep appreciation to the trade and its unique craftsmanship. But open source developers, mainly those who start their projects from scratch and the developers that help maintaining them over long periods of time, have always been a mystery to me. Kept being amazed by how those developers created intricate pieces of software, spending countless hours of their spare time, over months and years – solely out of their own volition.

I Can’t think of anything remotely similar happening in other industries, and the past year really caught me off guard. I wasn’t sure what types of people I’d find behind the projects, but let me tell you – it was worth it.

They’re not JUST smart
Developers are smart. They have to be. Writing code is an incredibly complicated task. The sheer brain power required to perform even some of the most basic tasks that from a users’ perspective seem obvious to non-programmers, would blow your mind if you’re not accustomed to it. I always say that working with developers is both extremely rewarding and extremely tough, because you need to deal with the smartest 1% on the planet. As such, they are demanding, and sometimes just trying to keep up with a developer trying to explain some complex concept, would cause my head to spin.

But open source developers have something extra. A lot of software developers spend most of their time working on tasks that are handed down in hierarchy. In many cases the developer has little say about the why. Developers have a lot of leeway on how to perform a task, but rarely do they have the chance to partake in the why they are doing it.

Open source developers not only have the skills to code, but also have the foresight and systematic point of view to decide the what, the how – and most importantly, the why. It might seem trivial, but the why is the most important part of any software project. If the why is week, the entire project might be useless. Open source developers who start projects from scratch, usually have a highly developed sense of why that burns so hard, they just cannot sit back. They have to do it. They have to code. This sense of purpose, of knowing the why, combined with extreme technical prowess and curiosity – is a rare quality possessed by few.

They have more than passion
The burning sensation I just mentioned is something that a lot of us feel sometimes. We all have ideas we’re sure are great, but only a handful are willing to actually grind and put in the time and effort to execute them. It takes an extreme amount of passion to keep an open source project going for years. Only those who have a true passion for solving a problem, can go through the long and tedious process of creating and maintaining a useful, stable, production-grade project.

This problem solving passion is what drives many of the open source developers I’ve spoken to. Both the developers who created the projects, and the developers who help maintain them. It usually starts with an issue they encountered in their day job, that made them wonder “why isn’t there a solution to this problem?”. There is a wide chasm that stretches between “there’s a problem” to “I’ll solve this problem so everyone else can use my solution”, and only a select few cross it. When the problem they started with is solved, it’s their passion that drives them to continue exploring, develop more features and push the envelope further. There’s no boss. No JIRA tasks. No deadlines or clients waiting for builds. It’s pure passion.

They keep going
I was born in Israel. Many call it the Start-up nation, since Israel has the highest ratio of startups per capita in the world outside of silicon valley. I think it has something to do with the entrepreneurial spirit Israelis are instilled with from birth. But along with success stories like Waze, Wix, Fiverr and Mobileye, there are a lot of ‘want-epreneurs’ around. It’s probably not unique to Israel, but as a local I can tell you I’ve met quite a few. People who think they have a great idea and can ‘talk the talk’, but lack the persistence to ‘walk the walk’ and actually put in the work to make it happen. Making a great product takes time. A lot of time. An idea is not enough, you need persistence to push things through.

Open source developers and maintainers have the unique ability to persist working on a project for a long time. No project is perfect at version 0.0.0.1. It takes time, work and discipline to continue working on something and make it actually usable. When I sat with some developers, going over their earliest versions made them laugh. Persistence is what made them go from a few messy functions, to complex projects, used in thousands of commercial applications.

They are the unsung heroes of code
I was going through some early commits with a developer, trying to understand how his project went from about 100 lines of code, to a massive library of Vue components he’s been developing for more than 3 years. Turns out many of the features and components he developed, came from requests some of his early users sent him. He told me that he was so happy others were using his code, he felt obligated to help them out and develop what they had asked for.

Try comparing this to any other profession. Other than volunteers doing charity work, I cannot think of one professional lending his hard earned expertise, and little spare time, to help others working on commercial projects that are none his concern. True, the developer I mentioned was helping fellow developers who were not directly making money off of his code – they were working for the companies who did, but have you seen any lawyers drafting contracts for free for other lawyers who are not sure what to write?

This pure selflessness and capacity to share their knowledge is something I am hoping humanity will find in other places, not just programming. If we could save the world with code, I’m pretty sure open source developers would be leading the way.

They are under-compensated
Open source developers are not in it for the money. Clearly, right now, there isn’t any. They do what they do thanks to the reasons I wrote above. Lucky us! But having interviewed dozens of open source developers, I started seeing cracks in the wall. Overworked, under-appreciated and sometimes even overlooked, open source developers are slowly realizing the harsh reality of under-compensation for their efforts.

Open source became so common, we rarely stop to think about the people behind it. Working in commercial software companies, we use open source components for almost everything. They are truly everywhere. I’ve read that 90% of commercial software developed today has some reliance on open source components or systems. These components became so common, you don’t even think twice before using them.

If you worked on any commercial software and used an open source component – have you ever thought about the countless hours and sleepless nights that person or team had to pull so you’ll have this incredible piece of software that just saved you months of work? True, some of us contribute back, but only a handful actually develop code from scratch for others to use.

If we want open source to keep growing, we need to understand that the good people behind it are not compensated enough. Actually, they are not compensated at all. When a developer takes the time to handle bug fixes, work on new features, support new framework versions and more – without ANY form of compensation, it might not last. I’ve seen numerous open source projects get abandoned by their developers because they just didn’t have the time or resources to continue working on them. Too many bug reports, too much work to continue developing more features, handling security issue, adapting to new technologies coming out. Open source developers never asked for money, but if they don’t get the resources they need to keep developing – we all stand to lose.

Conclusion
Open source is an incredible thing. Sometimes it feels like electricity. We all use it, but rarely think about what would happen if it were gone. The people with the rare traits described above, along with a unique combination of conditions, made open source what it is today. Ubiquitous. Free. Plentiful.

It seems to me the software industry needs to take a long, hard look at open source usage, and start thinking about how we can make sure open source developers have an incentive to maintain their projects, and make sure the next generation of developers will create the next generation of open source projects – for all of us. If we don’t make sure to provide developers with the best conditions to keep going, even the smartest, most passionate, persistent and selfless of them all, would just might stop. Or just make their repositories private.

Who is coming to FOSDEM 2020?

Helad — Wed, 18 Dec 2019 17:38:22 +0000

A Steady revenue stream from open source projects?

Helad — Tue, 10 Dec 2019 19:17:57 +0000

We all know that open-source developers put there blood sweat and tears into their projects, most of the time with no compensation at all.
Those who try to use donations as a way to get compensated usually find out that it's not really working.
Companies and organizations use those projects for commercial use and make a profit while the owner gets nothing, except demands to keep maintaining his code and fix bugs and so on...

A new startup called xs:code (disclaimer - I work there) is trying to solve this problem by giving developers the tools to start monetizing their code while keeping it open source.
The platform is launched today for beta and I'm inviting you guys to take a look and share with me your thoughts and feedback.

you can check out our platform here:
https://xscode.com/

Thanks,
Elad

THE WORLD RUNS ON OPEN-SOURCE, BUT WHO’S PAYING FOR GAS?

Helad — Thu, 05 Dec 2019 19:57:28 +0000

Source:

https://xscode.com/433/the-world-runs-on-open-source-but-whos-paying-for-gas/

Open-source developers face a unique challenge, uncommon with other professionals. They spend thousands of hours of their spare time, creating incredible software, used by millions. In exchange for their efforts, they are bombarded by a torrent of bug reports, pull-requests, support and feature requests. Years of waiting for donations, and next-to-zero compensation for their contributions, is making many of them think again about putting in the same amount of effort.

This article is the result of more than a year of research and summarizes some of the insights we have gained and our projections for the open-source economy in the near future.

Background – The growth of the gig economy

2020 opens with some interesting economic trends. The gig economy is expanding three times faster than the US workforce as a whole (Forbes), affecting over 40% of US-based workers. In the graphic design or digital marketing industries for example, where financial compensation is usually lower than tech, more and more workers are choosing the freelance path, citing independence, better salaries, and an improved work-life balance.

And yet, even with superior compensation, constant top ranking in the “Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For” and other treats such as time to work on personal projects (Google) and 4-day work weeks (Microsoft Japan) – more and more software developers choose to leave the corporate world behind and go solo. Marketplaces such as UpWork, report that more people than ever see freelancing as a long-term career path, many of which are software developers.

Why are developers leaving their corporate comfort zone?

Motivation matters

My team and I were looking for an answer to this question when we interviewed over 130 software developers. One of our questions was: “What has motivated you to sell your software development skills as a freelancer, on platforms such as Fiverr and Up-Work?”. The primary factor cited was ‘The freedom that comes with running their own business’. Self-employed developers set their own schedules, get to choose their projects and clients, and work from the comfort of their home – unlike a standard 9-to-5.

It appears that in 2020 working remotely is almost a standard in the IT industry, and being a corporate developer is not the favored career path for many. The deeper we dove into this notion, another facet of the story was revealed – there was something more, hidden in plain sight. And this is where we discovered the link to open source.

Service vs. Product

The main difference between software developers and other freelancers is the value they create. While a graphic designer offers his service, technically pricing his hours, the software developer can offer something more than just time; He can offer his code as a product.

Open-source developers have the unique possibility to turn a 1 to 1 compensation ratio (1 hour’s work equals 1 hour’s pay) into a 1:n ratio – 1 hour’s work can equal n clients who purchased their product.

Many open source developers already have thousands and even millions of developers and companies using their code, many of them commercially. The next logical step for developers after freelancing – is productizing and monetizing their open-source projects. Open source monetization is the future.

Should companies pay for Open-Source?

The fact is they’re already paying – a lot.

In the absence of a healthy economy based on supply, demand, and price, open-source suffers from critical market failure. Many open source developers we interviewed reported that burnout, lack of time and no compensation are the main reasons for not maintaining their existing projects or creating new open-source projects. Thousands of open source projects are abandoned every year by their developers, leaving their users in a bind. That is a big issue for the companies who spend billions of dollars every year for handling obsolete, undocumented and generally unmaintained open source projects used in their commercial software. When a company assigns a $50/hr developer to fix a bug in a ‘free’ piece of software, it stops being free. Why not pay the original developer for a great open source project that frees corporate resources to tackle mission-critical tasks?

The potential – a steady revenue stream

Companies need functional open-source projects and have the interest to reduce expenses for maintaining them – while developers have the product, the users and the tools to monetize it. This intersection of interests is unavoidable – and will happen soon. Developers are waking up.

Our research indicated over 200,000 open-source projects, excluding huge projects, very small or ones that are not suitable for commercial use, with a revenue potential of $19B annually.

Considering 98% of all software projects rely on open-source connections or core concepts in one form or other (source: GitHub), and with over 40M developers on Github, including 10M new users in 2019 – open source is nearing a boiling point. Without a viable solution for motivating open source developers through financial rewards, the entire open-source ecosystem might become unsustainable.

Conclusion

In the next few years, companies will focus on developing core functionality for their products, and scaling in-house teams down in favor of paid open source projects for more ubiquitous code modules surrounding the core. More open-source developers will be doing what they love, maintaining their projects for their paying clients, and share more, better code with the open-source community.

I promise to keep updating you with our mission: empowering developers and make a better open-source economy.

Netanel Mohoni

Co-Founder, CEO xs:code

The Dark side of donations

Helad — Sun, 27 Oct 2019 09:55:34 +0000

Hi all,

I'm writing an article about why donations are not sustainable for most open source projects, I was wondering if you can share from your experience dealing with donations and if you got any to your projects.

Thanks!

Open Source is like ... PIZZA

Helad — Wed, 25 Sep 2019 11:08:20 +0000

Is open source like PIZZA?
Check out this video:
http://bit.ly/2l6vfy6
Please share your thoughts

Disclaimer
This is a promotional video from
https://xscode.com

What would be the most useful giveaway I can give developers?

Helad — Sun, 15 Sep 2019 13:17:22 +0000

Hi, I'm preparing a giveaway for developers that I meet in events and focus groups, and I was wondering what is the most useful thing that you would like to receive as a gift? Laptop stickers, Bluetooth speaker, Notebook, Webcam cover, Laptop sleeve, thermal bottle, T-shirt, etc ...

What would make you a happier developer?

Helad — Mon, 05 Aug 2019 12:36:25 +0000

Well, I mainly direct this question to opensource developers and contributors,
I found the open-source community and mission very important, and I wonder what can make the developers happier?
And also the developers using open source code.

What do you think?