Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Write some software, give it away for free

nonogra.ph

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 285 posts

Re: Write some software, give it away for free

#271

Post by bigstrat2003 »

borplk wrote: post #229
OldSchool wrote: post #135

This has always confounded me when presented as a first choice when developing something with value. I can't think of any other fields with so much practical value where all participants are practically shamed for not giving away something that is identical to their most commercially valuable skill. Most of my life has been financed by closed source products I developed on my own to fill a real need and others had it…

Unfortunately nerds are easy to trick. Good luck convincing any other discipline to do free labour for optional donations, vibes, and "the community".

People in other professions do that all the time. Doctors go to serve in poor places so that they can have medical care, carpenters volunteer to help make furniture and structures for charity projects, and so on. It simply is not the case that programmers are the only professionals who will donate labor for the sake of the communal good.

Re: Write some software, give it away for free

#273

Post by ianhxu »

jonathanstrange wrote: post #207
ianhxu wrote: post #185

This is a wonderful ideal. Like some ancient scientists and philosophers, they don't have many worries about money and can pursue pure passion. This also seems like a key source of social progress -- diverse purposes and paths of exploration.

I'm always interested in how they pay their bills. Unless I know how they make a living, the advice is worthless. Of course, you can give away things for free if you're a rich aristocrat in a society of slave holders, like many ancient philosophers were.

"A rich aristocrat in a society of slave holders" is certainly one type, but there are many other types that still meet mainstream standards today, such as heirs to fortunes, tenured university professors, etc.

Re: Write some software, give it away for free

#274

Post by nl »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #270
nl wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was there. It's mostly rose tinted glasses. There were some amazing feats. But it was slow and frustrating. Like you wouldn't believe how long things took. In the 90s most technical documentation was in actual physical books. If you wanted to learn something you had to order and buy the book (and Amazon wasn't a thing everywhere!), and it would take weeks or months to arrive. Or you did inter-library loans (which w…

I was also there. It isn't rose-colored glasses. The tech truly was better back in the 90s and 2000s. Not perfect, certainly, but it was made by people who gave a damn and were trying to actually make good things. It wasn't like today, where most software is slop (not necessarily AI slop, but slop nonetheless) churned out by companies whose decisions are made solely by how much profit they can squeeze out no matter i…

> It wasn't like today, where most software is slop

Did you ever use Window 3.1? Or any windows software?

Are you forgetting the multiple crashes per day? Or the incessant playing with system.cfg to get MSDOS drivers to work?

And Linux was only better because it didn't do much.

The only hardware damage software has ever caused was some 1994 Linux driver for a Trident video card getting a frequency wrong and frying a monitor.

> churned out by companies whose decisions are made solely by how much profit they can squeeze out no matter if the quality tanks.

As opposed to 1990's Microsoft or IBM?

Re: Write some software, give it away for free

#275

Post by matheusmoreira »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #269
echelon wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. It's that simple. Companies shouldn't get your labor for free. Especially the big ones. Trillion dollar companies don't deserve hand outs. We should have figured this out twenty years ago.

When I make open source software, it's a gift to the commons for the enrichment of all mankind. It doesn't cost me, or humanity, one bit if a big tech company benefits from it. The idea that companies shouldn't be able to benefit from contributions to the commons is not really justifiable.

https://zedshaw.com/blog/2022-02-05-the-beggar-barons/

> No, this begging is particularly different because it capitalizes on the good will of open source developers. Microsoft, Apple, and Google are standing on the internet in their trillion dollar business suits with a sign that reads "Starving and homeless. Any free labor will help." They aren't holding people up at gun point. Rather they hold out their Rolex encrusted hand and beg, plead, and shame open source developers until they get free labor.

> Once they get this free labor they rarely give credit. They're ungrateful beggars that take their donated work hours, jump in their Teslas, and ride off to make more trillions proclaiming, "Haha! That open source idiot just gave me 10 hours of free labor. What a loser."

Re: Write some software, give it away for free

#276

Post by y0eswddl »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #42
y0eswddl wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What disappoints me most is just how many people have been successfully disabused of so much hope, confidence, and imagination that they just accept our current reality as inevitable.

Ugh. Try being conscious of this situation and also the parent of a very smart 15 year old who is also rapidly becoming conscious of this situation.

I want MORE of this - the earlier they see through the world's bs, the better.

Re: Write some software, give it away for free

#277

Post by y0eswddl »

alex_suzuki wrote: post #148
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ugh. Try being conscious of this situation and also the parent of a very smart 15 year old who is also rapidly becoming conscious of this situation.

Man do I feel this. :-( Got a very smart 11 year old and she’s starting to ask questions.

that's great! tell them all the truth so they can help build better!

Re: Write some software, give it away for free

#278

Post by cmrdporcupine »

y0eswddl wrote: post #276
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ugh. Try being conscious of this situation and also the parent of a very smart 15 year old who is also rapidly becoming conscious of this situation.

I want MORE of this - the earlier they see through the world's bs, the better.

3 days in a row of kid refusing to go to high school was enough for me, honestly

Re: Write some software, give it away for free

#280

Post by dlenski »

nirui wrote: post #146
dlenski wrote: post #136

> If software development is treated as a vehicle for self-exploration, rather than just a means to a financial end, this makes a lot more sense. From my experience, it also generally produces better software that doesn't come with user hostile (value extracting) actions or features because there's no expectation of a financial return. I strongly identify with all of this. I started programming computers when I was a…

> but I didn't like being a professional software developer for a huge tech company This feeling is probably shared by many lefties people. They love to work, they just don't like to be restricted/manipulated into working under a highly specified and standardized environment, especially when every bit of their performance is measured for competition. But I have grown to understand the environment of the "big tech" co…

I've worked for two huge tech companies.

At one (Intel from 2010-2015), I was on the hardware and manufacturing side. I was one of the hamsters keeping the Moore's Law Treadmill spinning. It was a great place to work. Almost without exception, my colleagues and managers were smart, well-intentioned, hard-working, good communicators, conscientious. We were "extracting value" as you put it, but we were doing rational and systematic things to produce great products: lower energy consumption, more capabilities, and more reliable with each new generation of semiconductor process.

At the other (Amazon 2020-2024), I was working on cloud service software. The internal processes were a mess, and the quality of the products--particularly in terms of reliability and documentation--was frankly horrible. AWS seemed to be coasting on its existing near-monopoly status in a lot of areas. With a few exceptions, I found the managers to be terrible. It was difficult to develop new things and to advance career-wise, and everything got tangled up in internal politics and poor communication even though Amazon claims to be averse to such things unlike "legacy" companies.

Post reply on HN