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Want to Recruit Better Engineers? Open Source Your Code

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

#61

Post by GlitchMr »

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…

Dropbox Nautilus Extension is open source because it has to be - GNOME Files is licensed under GNU LGPL. The amount of code in that extension is minimal, the proprietary Dropbox client pretty much does all processing, the extension is only responsible for displaying icons in a file manager.

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

#62

Post by fipple »

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…

How about you use it before assertively making claims about it. Just a good practice for life.

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

#63

Post by joshfraser »

I've seen a lot of teams write code internally with the intent of open-sourcing everything once they're done. If you're doing this, you're missing out on a huge opportunity. Just as important as open-sourcing the code, is open-sourcing the collaboration process. Why not make your code 100% open-source from the beginning and let contributors participate in the design process? Let your contributors join in your heated debates & hear the rationale behind your design decisions.

At Origin, 100% of our code is open-source and everything we do is "public by default". We have a culture of radical inclusion and transparency. Everyone is welcome to participate in our open-source engineering process and our product discussions. Our engineers collaborate every day in our Discord (1), we track our progress on a public project board (2), discuss what we're working on each week in a public Google video Hangout (3), and publish our engineering meeting notes for the world to see. (4). As a result, it's really easy for outsiders to get up to speed on what we're building, what our current needs are, and get a feel for our company culture. While our core engineer team is only 9 people, we've had over 60 contributors to our codebase and we have new people showing up every week wanting to get involved. We've also been able to attract and hire amazingly talented people we would never have discovered if we were running a traditional hiring process.

Don't just open-source your code. Open-source your collaboration process too.

(1) https://www.originprotocol.com/discord

(2) https://github.com/orgs/OriginProtocol/projects/2

(3) https://meet.google.com/pws-cgyd-tqp (Every Wed at 1pm PT)

(4) https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aRcAk_rEjRgd1BppzxZJK9RX...

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

#64

Post by jakecopp »

edem wrote: post #25
sudhirj wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s really difficult to have your engineering quality or culture NOT reflected in your open source projects. What are you going to do, keep the regular coders locked in the basement working on CRUD apps and a penthouse full of cool evangelist programmers writing OSS for no good reason? A company’s OSS is an excellent reflection of the people, decision making processes and culture that permeates it. Look at React, Go…

I know a company where they have this exact same setup. Ivory tower "elite" team + countless wtf teams writing crappy code.

I'd love to know who they are!

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

#65

Post by usrusr »

sudhirj wrote: post #16
fapjacks wrote: post #3

I was listening to a friend's music podcast tonight and they were talking about how industry will seize on any shred of creativity so that they can use it to sell cars, and this contributes to people getting defensive about the things they like becoming popular. There is a latent fear that just over the horizon, some marketing asshole is waiting to get their hands on something that is meaningful to you, in order to a…

It’s really difficult to have your engineering quality or culture NOT reflected in your open source projects. What are you going to do, keep the regular coders locked in the basement working on CRUD apps and a penthouse full of cool evangelist programmers writing OSS for no good reason? A company’s OSS is an excellent reflection of the people, decision making processes and culture that permeates it. Look at React, Go…

> It’s really difficult to have your engineering quality or culture NOT reflected in your open source projects.

Would it be completely unthinkable that a company runs an open source showcase team like Oracle runs their America's Cup boat, as an independent entity paid to project the brands name into the world? That would be far from the idea of business open source, but it might not be the worst way of funding the kind of free software that is not directly connected to a specific business case. Many of us don't exactly remember the name Transmeta for their CPUs, for example.

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

#67

Post by SmellyGeekBoy »

mariusmg wrote: post #21
onion2k wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you go through your dev career thinking only people who write and use open source code are brilliant you'll miss out on the opportunity to learn from some of the industry's best developers. There are loads of people working on entirely closed source projects who are very, very good engineers. Not every project is web.

>If you go through your dev career thinking only people who write and use open source code are brilliant I didn't said that. I have just pointed that even close source developers are using open source when working daily on their closed source projects. So saying they don't care about something they use daily is ....wrong. Also I didn't said anything about their level of brilliance :) >Not ever project is web. The sna…

> So saying they don't care about something they use daily is ....wrong.

A lot of people don't care about cars but will still own one to drive to work every day. It's just a tool.

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

#68

Post by SmellyGeekBoy »

spondyl wrote: post #31

I have a question for some other HNers that is kinda related to this topic. I've got a library built solely by myself that I'm interested in open sourcing. I'm tossing up between putting it on my own Github account, where it probably blends in with the rest, or putting it on the OSS page for the company I work for which, honestly, is a bit of a wasteland (numerous unused forks mainly) I guess I just wonder what looks…

I'm going to question my sibling commenters' assumptions here - reading between the lines of your comment it seems this may have been developed as part of a work project using your employer's time / equipment? In which case I'd look into the terms of your contract before releasing anything.

Of course if this is a side project on your own time then personal GitHub all the way - your employer doesn't deserve any of the credit at all. I always have a good look at job applicants' GitHub accounts and while contributing to open source isn't a requirement, it certainly helps.

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

#69

Post by thecatspaw »

jcbrand wrote: post #41
thecatspaw wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So? Just because your code is not open source does not mean you're not allowed to use it. They might not care about the company they are applying to opensourcing their code. Plus you have to try really hard nowadays to not use any open source code at all

> Just because your code is not open source does not mean you're not allowed to use it. Depends on the license of the OSS and wether you're distributing or hosting the code that relies on it.

Sure, but you will allways need to consider licensing, wether you're closed source or open source

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

#70

Post by amelius »

oblio wrote: post #55
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…

I think your comment is close to the truth but not quite there. Companies don't open source their core business, basically an extension of "don't outsource your core business" ( https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/10/14/in-defense-of-not-... ). Google: Search engine? Closed source. Ads service? Closed source. Facebook: yes, the network is important, but still: Ads service? Closed source. Data science stuff they use f…

I guess another reason for Facebook to not open source their social network code is security.
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