Want to Recruit Better Engineers? Open Source Your Code • Hacker News Board

Re: Want to Recruit Better Engineers? Open Source Your Code

#121

Post by Aeolun » Tue, Nov 20, 2018, 3:42 PM UTC

arendtio wrote: post #53

fipple wrote: post #42

On the contrary, I’ve found that companies who are actually doing hardcore software engineering, where the code is the main value driver for the business, rarely open source their best stuff, but they’re great places for engineers. Google doesn’t open source its self driving car code. Facebook’s value driver is the network, not the code, so it can open source anything. Dropbox’s client is amazing and is not only clos…

Seriously, the Dropbox client? I mean, I never used it but I can hardly imagine anything that makes it so special. I use Nextcloud and from what I can tell, there is nothing that sets the Dropbox client apart from the Nextcloud sync client (which is 100% open source). In addition, some parts of the Dropbox sync client are open source too: https://www.dropbox.com/de/help/desktop-web/linux-commands#b... Sure if your bu…

Well, for one thing, the dropbox client has never seen fit to randomly delete my local folders, which is kind of a bad thing for a sync client to do.

As in, failing at the one thing the app is supposed to be doing...

Re: Want to Recruit Better Engineers? Open Source Your Code

#122

Post by jlokier » Tue, Nov 20, 2018, 3:47 PM UTC

navaati wrote: post #49

cwkoss wrote: post #17

Quasi-ethical business idea: Sell open source software 'ghostwriting' services It makes an engineer look good to have solid commits to an open source project on their github profile. The people who actually make the bulk of these commits put in tons of (at times thankless) free labor. Create a grey market for open source software contributors to sell their diffs (that they've already written and actually entail usefu…

I don't know about the rest of the world but in France you cannot sell (or give, or transfer in any way) attribution rights, only copyright.

I thought this didn't apply to computer programs, but I looked it up and you're right... In France, authors' moral rights are quite strong.

In the UK, the moral right of attribution exist, but there's a specific exception for computer programs, so that programmers don't have a right to be identified as the author, or as far as I can tell any other moral rights.

Re: Want to Recruit Better Engineers? Open Source Your Code

#123

Post by bsenftner » Tue, Nov 20, 2018, 3:51 PM UTC

mscasts wrote: post #37

I don't know about you people, but I don't give a rats ass if the company I work for open source their code or not. I care what benefits i receive and mostly the salary and the possibility to work remotely. Also it is a positive thing if what I do is fun and/or meaningful.

Hey look! an adult.

Re: Want to Recruit Better Engineers? Open Source Your Code

#124

Post by sethammons » Tue, Nov 20, 2018, 4:02 PM UTC

austincheney wrote: post #118

sethammons wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would not define "senior" as "one who codes quickly." I also would not define a software developer's level as "newb." So there is that. Junior, mid-level, senior, and then maybe principal. I would gauge them by a combination of time in the market, ability to write production grade code, the ability to make informed tradeoffs, ability to work independently and as a team player, and ability to work across teams and d…

> I would gauge them by a combination of time in the market, Absolutely not. Time on the market isn't an immediate indication of competence. It certainly isn't an indicator of potential. In my experience you are so much better making an objective hiring choice by throwing EVERYTHING related to programming and interviews away and simply providing a battery of personality tests. I went through this when I was interview…

Time in the market is not good by itself, but can be a proxy for leveling. Someone could have 15 years of repeating 1-year experience and be a junior dev. Another could be out of school by 1 year and show tremendous potential and have shipped some great stuff and quickly fill a mid-level position. But time in the market is definitely a consideration. Not the most important, but, for sure, on the radar.

For a normal person, it will take time to develop expertise. Time for exposure to novel problems and time leveraged for (the opportunity of) growth.

After you get into an organization, you can level up quickly depending, to a degree, on the speed of execution. I also agree with you that it is uninteresting to gauge leveling based on code style, dependency count, and/or a favorite framework. However, discussions around those can lead to a better understanding of someones professional maturity.

Re: Want to Recruit Better Engineers? Open Source Your Code

#125

Post by vmh1928 » Tue, Nov 20, 2018, 4:32 PM UTC

sudhirj wrote: post #100

fipple wrote: post #42

On the contrary, I’ve found that companies who are actually doing hardcore software engineering, where the code is the main value driver for the business, rarely open source their best stuff, but they’re great places for engineers. Google doesn’t open source its self driving car code. Facebook’s value driver is the network, not the code, so it can open source anything. Dropbox’s client is amazing and is not only clos…

Think the MBA speak for this is “commoditising you competition”. It’s when you use open source or zero pricing to either offensively or defensively to nullify an advantage your competitor has. Google attacks Apple by offering an open source OS (Android). Now everyone can make a phone. They defend against Facebook controlling the internet by offering an open source browser (Chrome/ium). Microsoft defends against irrel…

Excellent point.

Re: Want to Recruit Better Engineers? Open Source Your Code

#126

Post by watwut » Tue, Nov 20, 2018, 4:34 PM UTC

austincheney wrote: post #117

watwut wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does open source changes anything in that situation? You think that open source people would care less about code style and framework tooling?

Because you can see the damage before committing to a salary.

Huh?

Re: Want to Recruit Better Engineers? Open Source Your Code

#127

Post by fipple » Tue, Nov 20, 2018, 4:34 PM UTC

dblock wrote: post #102

fipple wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not every company is Artsy. Artsy is an Internet company, not a place where new frontiers are being conquered. It makes sense to build Artsy in the public square, not so much Waymo.

Artsy CTO here. Interestingly for the first 2 years we were conquering the frontier of nearest neighbor search applied to art, using some pretty new algos. Then ElasticSearch just built something 10x better and we tossed our entire codebase. I wish we just did it in the open, the advantage was quickly lost to a stronger open-source effort.

I mean, exactly? When you had some novel tech, you kept it to yourself. Now that you have market power, you develop out in the open. Perfect game plan.

Re: Want to Recruit Better Engineers? Open Source Your Code

#128

Post by fipple » Tue, Nov 20, 2018, 4:49 PM UTC

fro0116 wrote: post #92

arendtio wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously, the Dropbox client? I mean, I never used it but I can hardly imagine anything that makes it so special. I use Nextcloud and from what I can tell, there is nothing that sets the Dropbox client apart from the Nextcloud sync client (which is 100% open source). In addition, some parts of the Dropbox sync client are open source too: https://www.dropbox.com/de/help/desktop-web/linux-commands#b... Sure if your bu…

For one, delta-sync was built into the Dropbox client from the very beginning, and I'm getting the impression from this thread that Nextcloud still doesn't have it till this day: https://github.com/nextcloud/server/issues/417 This is a major contributor to sync UX, and by no means trivial to implement. Another example is their file stubs implementation (Project Infinite) that works across platforms, which is also no…

LOL! I had given OP some credit and assumed that Nextcloud was a full featured competitor like Box. Whoops!

Re: Want to Recruit Better Engineers? Open Source Your Code

#129

Post by wool_gather » Tue, Nov 20, 2018, 4:52 PM UTC

sudhirj wrote: post #100

fipple wrote: post #42

On the contrary, I’ve found that companies who are actually doing hardcore software engineering, where the code is the main value driver for the business, rarely open source their best stuff, but they’re great places for engineers. Google doesn’t open source its self driving car code. Facebook’s value driver is the network, not the code, so it can open source anything. Dropbox’s client is amazing and is not only clos…

Think the MBA speak for this is “commoditising you competition”. It’s when you use open source or zero pricing to either offensively or defensively to nullify an advantage your competitor has. Google attacks Apple by offering an open source OS (Android). Now everyone can make a phone. They defend against Facebook controlling the internet by offering an open source browser (Chrome/ium). Microsoft defends against irrel…

> Chris Lattner tried to open source [...] LLVM

LLVM was open source from its beginning: it was Lattner's research project. Apple acqui-hired it/him, and they have a private fork.

I agree that it's pretty remarkable that Swift, which was conceived at Apple, was opened up, however.

Re: Want to Recruit Better Engineers? Open Source Your Code

#130

Post by ghaff » Tue, Nov 20, 2018, 6:01 PM UTC

pjmlp wrote: post #120

AsyncAwait wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? Most FOSS desktop software is not commercial to begin with, however there are companies like JetBrains that do sell quite successfully to Linux users, even as their core product is FLOSS.

Exactly, because everyone failed to monetize it. JetBrains sells developer tools, a very niche market, specially when a large majority of FOSS is allergic to paying for tooling. In fact I would bet a large percentage of those Linux users are using Android Studio or Community variants. It would be very interesting to know how many of those users has JetBrains actually managed to monetize on.

In all fairness, developers have always mostly been allergic to paying for things. Even way back, when a lot of developer tools were proprietary and often had pretty significant price tags associated with them, the developer tools business was always a pretty tough one. Like open source software, the model generally worked best when the developer tools were effectively in support of some other part of the business. (Microsoft is a great example.)