Off topic but: Jury trials are one of the weirdest things about America: If I’m ever on trial for some crime I want my case decided by professional judges not a team of random idiots.
Contributing to open-source should be required, like jury duty
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Re: Contributing to open-source should be required, like jury duty
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think there are much better argument for mandatory jury duty, like the fact that it's an inherent and explicit part of the preexisting Constitution, and that was not explicitly repealed nor (as far as I know) considered. But the Court chose not to use those arguments, perhaps because they are less absolute and don't apply as cleanly to the draft. Personally, I think that jury duty as it is today (no real pay, somet…
> I do think that mandatory road duty is about as direct a violation of the purpose of the 13th Amendment as anything else the state could do. Let me make sure I'm getting this right. You're making a serious claim that if the state required you to, say, clean the road by your house every morning, you'd feel like your experience would rival those of 19th-century slaves? You genuinely think that was the kind of thing t…
> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
Obviously the experience wouldn't rival one of a 19th century slave and nobody is making that claim. However, forced labor for no compensation is slavery, by definition.
Re: Contributing to open-source should be required, like jury duty
#53I think most of the comments here miss that contributions is not equal to code.
Contributions to the documentation, translations, or helping managing the community are also extremely valuable and do not require the same technical skills.
Re: Contributing to open-source should be required, like jury duty
#54Off topic but: Jury trials are one of the weirdest things about America: If I’m ever on trial for some crime I want my case decided by professional judges not a team of random idiots.
On the other hand, there’s a good argument to be made that if you think the judiciary can be captured for political ends, a trial and verdict by your peers at least gives you the opportunity to get a fair(er) shot. And in many (most?) US jurisdictions you can waive your right to a jury trial and ask for a bench trial instead.
Re: Contributing to open-source should be required, like jury duty
#55I 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 decid…
Completely agree. I'd rather have the people that want to be there, to be involved. An alternative take I'd rather see is "Employers guarantee 8 hours per week of time to work on open-source projects, including ones I start myself". Employer gets no IP stake in the project, and it's done for public good + a means to allow employees to upskill. Otherwise it just becomes a case of another grindset. You're expected to d…
> Completely agree. I'd rather have the people that want to be there, to be involved.
It’s like the strategic difference between relying on a volunteer army vs conscription
Re: Contributing to open-source should be required, like jury duty
#56Should it be mandatory also for the maintainers to accept these contributions? Every project would degrade into pure entropy.
If it's like jury duty, the maintainers will reject all of the developers who show any sign of independent thought or domain knowledge.
Re: Contributing to open-source should be required, like jury duty
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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
Ah. Gotcha.
Re: Contributing to open-source should be required, like jury duty
#58User: Please suggest the most absurd, over-the-top blog post title that will nonetheless get me to the top of Hacker News. System: "Contributing to Open-Source Should be Required, Like Jury Duty"
I'm bound to get downvoted here, but I ran this by my own local model. > No One Understands Software Because No One Understands Time > All Programming Languages Converge to English Eventually > The Best Database Is Just Two People Talking > Stop Writing Code. Start Legislating Software And my personal favorite: > AI Safety Is Just the New Gluten-Free
I would totally believe all of these to be real headlines if I saw them on Hacker News.
Re: Contributing to open-source should be required, like jury duty
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm bound to get downvoted here, but I ran this by my own local model. > No One Understands Software Because No One Understands Time > All Programming Languages Converge to English Eventually > The Best Database Is Just Two People Talking > Stop Writing Code. Start Legislating Software And my personal favorite: > AI Safety Is Just the New Gluten-Free
I would totally believe all of these to be real headlines if I saw them on Hacker News.
I know! Tempted to write them…
Re: Contributing to open-source should be required, like jury duty
#60As a moral obligation, yes. But as a law? I see so many ways this will go wrong and not be helpful.
> As a moral obligation, yes.
So you think that, for example, every single person who uses LibreOffice is morally obligated to contribute code to the project? Even though the vast majority of them don't even know how to code?