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Contributing to open-source should be required, like jury duty

joshbeckman.org

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Re: Contributing to open-source should be required, like jury duty

#11

Post by ozb »

So, like compulsory jury duty and the draft, this would be directly against the 13th Amendment.

Then again, according to the Supreme Court, even forced, unpaid road duty (chain gangs anyone?) is an inherent power of the government, so maybe this is ok.

> In view of ancient usage and the unanimity of judicial opinion, it must be taken as settled that, unless restrained by some constitutional limitation, a state has inherent power to require every able-bodied man within its jurisdiction to labor for a reasonable time on public roads near his residence without direct compensation.

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/240/328/

(spoiler alert: according to the ruling, the US Constitution, including Amendments, does not limit this power; and this is in fact cited as justification for upholding the draft)

Re: Contributing to open-source should be required, like jury duty

#14

Post by John23832 »

ozb wrote: post #11

So, like compulsory jury duty and the draft, this would be directly against the 13th Amendment. Then again, according to the Supreme Court, even forced, unpaid road duty (chain gangs anyone?) is an inherent power of the government, so maybe this is ok. > In view of ancient usage and the unanimity of judicial opinion, it must be taken as settled that, unless restrained by some constitutional limitation, a state has in…

> So, like compulsory jury duty and the draft, this would be directly against the 13th Amendment.

I'm pretty sure my Federal grand jury duty was compelled.

Re: Contributing to open-source should be required, like jury duty

#15

Post by frde_me »

I don't think dropping a random software developer into a random project to do their open source duty would end well

It takes a _lot_ of time for someone to meaningfully contribute to a project, and would just result in maintainers having the overhead of training that many new people on a project

I'd much rather figure out a way to finance those open source projects in a sustainable way where those projects can decide to hire full time employees.

Re: Contributing to open-source should be required, like jury duty

#16

Post by blenderob »

Hard disagree! Making open source contributions mandatory for those who lack genuine interest or motivation would lead to lower quality contributions ultimately increasing the workload for maintainers. Many maintainers already face burnout. This will only make it worse.

On another note: There's very little substance in this post. It comes across as a lazy, shallow, "hot" take! Which is fine. It's your blog and you should write however you like on your blog. But is this really a good fit for HN? It's frustrating to see shallow posts with no substance like this rise to the top but higher-effort go unnoticed.

Re: Contributing to open-source should be required, like jury duty

#18

Post by ozb »

John23832 wrote: post #14
ozb wrote: post #11

So, like compulsory jury duty and the draft, this would be directly against the 13th Amendment. Then again, according to the Supreme Court, even forced, unpaid road duty (chain gangs anyone?) is an inherent power of the government, so maybe this is ok. > In view of ancient usage and the unanimity of judicial opinion, it must be taken as settled that, unless restrained by some constitutional limitation, a state has in…

> So, like compulsory jury duty and the draft, this would be directly against the 13th Amendment. I'm pretty sure my Federal grand jury duty was compelled.

Yeah, I'm saying the Supreme Court is obviously wrong to allow it on the grounds that they do

Re: Contributing to open-source should be required, like jury duty

#19

Post by juvoly »

softwaredoug wrote: post #5

Sure but the real problem are the companies that consume, not just the developers. A lot of developers would love to contribute back, but companies put schedule pressures and have limited interest in contributing back. Companies actually want a kind of vendor relationship, but they don’t want to pay any money. Devs want something dev focused, and open source is usually code for being dev focused. I don’t think either…

I think the point is not about us being developers or employees, but about us being a civilian.
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