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In open source we've carved a huge hole in the middle of our ecosystems where projects go to die specifically because of our instance that everything is free or its creator is a greedy capitalist.

Most all of the open source maintainers I know would LOVE to work on their projects full-time for a modest wage. But developers, teams, and companies have no interest or mechanisms to support that model... which is why VCs swept in to try to corrupt open source into a twisted product lead growth strategy.

Sorry to rant. I'm so glad mrdoob could do all this amazing work without needing revenue from it. I just get bristly at anyone who claims maintainers wanting to focus on their passions are "profit-driven".

2 comments

He claims money wasn't the motive and I'm sure that's true but I thought he was a for hire website creator of the type that had a website with fancy demos to adversize his skills and therefore get clients. So, while three might have been a fun hobby project it was also something he used to make client sites or at least lure clients.

Then, as three got popular he got lucky and google hired him full time to maintain it. Who knows where it would be without a corporate sponsor to fund it fulltime. it's unlikely he'd have been able to keep it going so long if he needed to spend all is time on other things to earn a living.

In other words, he is getting revenue from it. In fact on a google salary he's getting quite large revenue from in and he also takes donations in top of his $500k+ salary. https://github.com/sponsors/mrdoob

Super happy for him and super jealous. Wouldn't we all like a high paying corporate sponsor for our personal project

Not sure if you're familiar with the state of 3D browser graphics when this project started; it was not good. Even by the time I came to the party in the mid 2010's mrdoob had been at it for a while. I was trying to build visual, interactive modeling software for the energy industry, competing with big enterprise software and still remember my first boardroom demo when we bluescreened their computer with a "web app".

My point is you frame this like he planned to capitalized on it and was really lucky, but based on the context I think you've got it backwards. Mrdoob had already poured so much work and effort into this it would have been a foolish & unsustainable strategy if it was a way to "get clients and a great job". That's like deciding to do a startup as the best way to get really rich. I find it hard to believe given the consistent energy and progress of three.js that it's the product of someone with a "lottery winning" mentality.

I'm not suggesting he planned to capitalize on it. I am suggesting it was work adjacent. That while it was fun to make it was also useful for his day job.

On top of that, even if it wasn't a goal he did win the lotto in the end. There were 12 or so competing 3d js libraries back when three.js started. He won both the popularity lotto and then the sponsorship lotto.

> which is why VCs swept in to try to corrupt open source into a twisted product lead growth strategy

I wouldn't call it 'corrupt', but rather a by-design "feature" of open-source: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point....

> I just get bristly at anyone who claims maintainers wanting to focus on their passions are "profit-driven"

The person you replied to never said that.