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The Internet Relies on People Working for Free

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Re: The Internet Relies on People Working for Free

#341

Post by flukus »

gitgud wrote: post #194
rhizome wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody's saying it has to be, uh...what's the name of a profitable internet company that isn't Facebook? But making demands on people who are working for free is bad manners . I don't care if you think the internet changes everything, it's still possible to be an asshole. My off the cuff solution is for project owners to add a status flag to their issue trackers: PAID. Anybody can submit a bug as PAID, but it costs $…

Charging money to fix something because of who they are seems unethical to me... Maybe it's just capitalism, which is usually antithetical to open source free software... If they want it fixed, let them add resources to the project like submit a pull request, donations or charge people support fees for urgent bugs, which many OSS projects do...

> Charging money to fix something because of who they are seems unethical to me

Are you aware of how much price discrimination these corporations do to everyone (including yourself) every single day? Most stuff we buy everyday, including the name brand generic stuff, is priced at what we will spend and is completely divorced from any kind of cost to produce. You will be charged more if you live in a wealthy area, you will be charged more just for living in a developed country, you will be charged more for shopping at certain times of day, you will be charged more because advertising manipulated you.

It's unethical, but giving them a taste of their own medicine isn't.

Re: The Internet Relies on People Working for Free

#342

Post by killjoywashere »

joshlemer wrote: post #89

Some other commenters in this thread have pointed out that nobody is forcing open source developers to work on the contributions that they make, and that is strictly speaking true. But in the culture of software development, there does seem to be an ambient message often repeated or hinted at, that it is good to "give back" to open source by contributing and that it is virtuous to do so. I now am starting to rethink…

As someone making hiring decisions, I very much do visit the github accounts of my applicants. I consider the quality of their code and look favorably on them for making code available. I look even more favorably on those who bother to make licensing decisions for their code. Do you get an extra $5k for pushing 1k lines of GNU-licensed code? No. Did you get a callback on your job application? You bet. Do I take pride in the OSS work of my people? Yes. Does that factor into their performance review? Yes. Does that factor into their annual raise and prospects for promotion? Yes.

I have also hired people who don't have GitHub accounts. In those cases, they have some other proof of work. Papers, thesis, references (which are a drag, because then I have to also figure out how to vet the reference) and, particularly valuable, referrals from people I already know personally. This last one goes both ways: not only do I have high confidence in the good intentions of the person making the referral, I can then retrospectively assess this contact's ability to assess.

Re: The Internet Relies on People Working for Free

#343

Post by steinuil »

killjoywashere wrote: post #342
joshlemer wrote: post #89

Some other commenters in this thread have pointed out that nobody is forcing open source developers to work on the contributions that they make, and that is strictly speaking true. But in the culture of software development, there does seem to be an ambient message often repeated or hinted at, that it is good to "give back" to open source by contributing and that it is virtuous to do so. I now am starting to rethink…

As someone making hiring decisions, I very much do visit the github accounts of my applicants. I consider the quality of their code and look favorably on them for making code available. I look even more favorably on those who bother to make licensing decisions for their code. Do you get an extra $5k for pushing 1k lines of GNU-licensed code? No. Did you get a callback on your job application? You bet. Do I take pride…

Does your company allow engineers to work on OSS while they're not busy? If not then how can you claim you're proud of their contributions, and don't you feel like you're coercing people into working overtime to get a better raise or a promotion?

Re: The Internet Relies on People Working for Free

#344

Post by nikdaheratik »

joshlemer wrote: post #89

Some other commenters in this thread have pointed out that nobody is forcing open source developers to work on the contributions that they make, and that is strictly speaking true. But in the culture of software development, there does seem to be an ambient message often repeated or hinted at, that it is good to "give back" to open source by contributing and that it is virtuous to do so. I now am starting to rethink…

What helped me understand this better was thinking about writing software as a subset of all types of writing. People do write for free because they enjoy doing so or because they feel like they can advance knowledge in a particular area. This is true for both prose and also for the software medium. In both software and prose, you can gain valuable contacts and social credit by sharing your writing with others even if you don't make as much direct income from it.

The publishing industry is much better than software at getting the money to flow towards the creator, but software jobs overall pay better than most writers because of the skill sets involved. Both publishing and software, however, do have multiple ways of going from amateur enthusiast to highly paid professional if you have the talent and connections. And open software, like contributing to small literary magazines, is one way that you can make that transition.

Re: The Internet Relies on People Working for Free

#345

Post by dredmorbius »

senderista wrote: post #219
partialrecall wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Amazon doesn't pay you, then why are you scared of breaking Amazon? I understand why somebody would be scared of that. They're big and important to the tune of many many billions of dollars, while you or I are not. But you shouldn't let that get to you. You should make a conscious effort to not let that get to you. If they want you to take their problems personally, let them hire you. If they can be broken by you…

https://youtu.be/3XGAmPRxV48

Mike Monteiro's version runs slightly longer:

https://invidio.us/watch?v=jVkLVRt6c1U

(Fuck you, pay me.)

Re: The Internet Relies on People Working for Free

#346

Post by steinuil »

Ayesh wrote: post #331
miloignis wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps I'm in my own echo chamber, but I definitely view open source contributions on a resume as a huge positive when I'm reviewing resumes (as a software dev my boss trusts to evaluate applicants), and I had thought that if that wasn't at least the norm that it would be pretty common among tech companies / companies where developers are part of the evaluation process. edit: Also, all of the open source I do or tha…

Have you encountered applicants with OSS on their GitHub profiles just to show off to HR? ResumeWare if you will?

I've seen a few trying to apply to my company. They had a few projects in the languages they had on their resume, but upon closer inspection you could see they were just project templates they had gotten from some tutorial, made one or two insubstantial changes to and then uploaded to github.

Re: The Internet Relies on People Working for Free

#347

Post by dredmorbius »

snek wrote: post #291
esotericn wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If someone from Amazon reports a bug it's kind of scary, you feel like you've broken Amazon. Really? If Amazon filed a bug on one of my repos I'd probably see dollar signs flashing.

Some companies do have systems set up to pay OSS projects, but it's hard to navigate. I think a lot of people enjoy donating their time to OSS because it's fairly low-stress (until the above situation happens). I don't want to figure out billing and stuff when companies want my support, it's not a company, and that's why the article here exists. That's why this discussion is happening.

That's their problem, not yours.

https://invidio.us/watch?v=jVkLVRt6c1U

Re: The Internet Relies on People Working for Free

#348

Post by ClumsyPilot »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #140
zulln wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would fall under "perceived benefit" and thus not free, according to the parent's definition.

The joy of a "rational actor" is that their utility function can be anything, and therefore their "rational" behavior can be anything - including things that an outside observer would consider irrational:)

Theory is good when it makes specific predictions, that can be shown to be true or false, like theory of gravity.

If a rational actor might do anything for any reason, then it's of limited use. I think that by changing the utility function to include personal feelings, you are putting the cart before the horse.

Re: The Internet Relies on People Working for Free

#349

Post by ptah »

minikites wrote: post #25
ptah wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

humans are not "rational actors"

Which explains a lot about how capitalism works out in the real world.

it's complicated. capitalism is just one tool of many and shouldn't be used for every single thing. it is great at some problems though

Re: The Internet Relies on People Working for Free

#350

Post by wawawiwa »

steinuil wrote: post #343
killjoywashere wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone making hiring decisions, I very much do visit the github accounts of my applicants. I consider the quality of their code and look favorably on them for making code available. I look even more favorably on those who bother to make licensing decisions for their code. Do you get an extra $5k for pushing 1k lines of GNU-licensed code? No. Did you get a callback on your job application? You bet. Do I take pride…

Does your company allow engineers to work on OSS while they're not busy? If not then how can you claim you're proud of their contributions, and don't you feel like you're coercing people into working overtime to get a better raise or a promotion?

My take: He can claim he is proud because he acknowledges their work and - as the rest of the work - it influences promotion and raises. He enjoys and rewards the positive impact this work has for the company image and the skills of the employees.
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