Ideology and FLOSS Conviction
Ideology is often seen as a strong driver in FLOSS projects. What effect does it have on a given project, choices being made and the resulting design decisions?
FLOSS projects are unique in the sense that most of the time participants are not compensated financially in any structured way or form. One could even argue that financial incentives might act as a demotivating factor in certain ideologically involved participants in such projects. The notion of financially driven development in a FLOSS project might even be considered an idea with “(…) mismatched incentives” (Interview, Jellyfin). Then, if financial incentives are not the primus motor for continuing to maintain these projects it might not be immediately clear what is. FLOSS is often thought of as a very ideological entity, and while this is obviously a sliding scale unearthing what real world projects are motivated by is key to determining how to navigate these projects with design contributions in mind. When asked about ideology almost all of the participants in the projects agreed that they were ideologically involved with the Jellyfin project. Even most of the developers that were not primarily motivated by ideological conviction to the idea of FLOSS itself at least touched on the notion of helping others through their sharing of code and openness. For instance the creator of Taskcafe noted that he “(…) decided to release it open source in the hopes that it helps at least someone” not as the primary motivation, but as an added bonus to creating something that had no other reason to be private and closed. Others were heavily motivated by Emby’s switch to a proprietary model. One might think this to be an anti-capitalist ideal yet it would seem that the distinction is more complex than what a surface level analysis would reveal.
“(…) when they started, you know, being scummy for lack of a better word, I just kinda was like, okay, I’ve had enough of this.” (Interview, Jellyfin)
The idea of mismatched incentives was touched upon by another Jellyfin contributor who argued that “(…) this whole war between open source software and closed source software is pointless: both of them can coexist perfectly.” (Interview, Jellyfin). This goes to show that the ideological lines are more blurred than one might assume. The idea of making money from software development is not then in itself in opposition to the FLOSS mentality. Rather, the worry is that financial incentives might become an assertive force in these projects. The Jellyfin core members have for instance taken a hard stance against FLOSS bounty sites to avoid these aforementioned mismatched incentives. And has gone as far as to contact said sites to remove any active bounties that involved Jellyfin. One interviewee argues that if contributors are financially driven
“(…) at least in my view, I don’t want the contributor because they’re gonna say, hey, what can I do that maximizes my money rather than what helps the project” (Interview, Jellyfin).
In that sense the prevalent ideological mentality in the Jellyfin project is that financial incentives do not belong in FLOSS because it inevitably will damage the sense of community and the democracy of the project by favoring wealthy project members and external users and creating a lesser end product as a result.
Discuss
Summary
- Most FLOSS contributors seem to be ideologically driven by the very nature of wanting to contribute to a FLOSS project.
- Discussing financial incentives in your project early on seems to aid in streamlining a projects ideological goals.
- FLOSS is not necessarily inherently anti-capitalist even though one might assume so.
- Discussing this among project members might raise topics that reveal deeper motivations for why members stay active and committed.
- The sense of community and working together to create the best possible product seems to be the primary ideological motivator. Namely, creating something that helps yourself and others.