No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This • Hacker News Board

Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#901

Post by kls » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 12:45 PM UTC

inglor_cz wrote: post #770

xen2xen1 wrote: post #759

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ridiculous treadmill of people saying UBI is going to work despite all evidence to the contrary, apparently a long, long time..

Citizens of rich oil sheikhdoms in the Gulf have had de-facto UBI, and a high one, for a long time, even though the formalities were a bit muddled. In practice, if you were lucky enough to be born as a Saudi or Qatari citizen, your needs would be covered. It did not lead to any explosion of creativity, arts and science there. People are morbidly obese and spend their money on gambling, drugs and sex. I am not very op…

My question and this truly is a question as I am not well read on UBI concepts and social theories is:

So it did not bring about nirvana and human nature is well human nature but did it eliminate suffering to a noticeable degree i.e homelessness, poverty, food security, healthcare?

It seems to me the two are not directly tied, people are always going to seek out the vices because they are the roots of pleasure but that does not mean that the other side of the equation is negative, if it does eliminate suffering then it would be a net positive. I am not advocating for UBI, I am completely ignorant on the subject, just trying to understand if it did produce positive results against suffering.

Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#902

Post by monoideism » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 12:55 PM UTC

kls wrote: post #896

monoideism wrote: post #857

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I should add that I got excited for a moment at the thought of some one-stop shop for sales and marketing for software devs building a product. But no, just packaging and delivery. Which is cool, and probably useful for some people. But it doesn't help address the biggest weak spot for solo devs, or small teams: sales and marketing.

Back in the days before the internet became a distribution platform, there actually used to be software distributors that acted like this, they would publish in hobbyist magazines as well as send out their own catalogs. Some were better than others and would get the small shops they represented to collaborate to make complementary products work better together. In those days you could be a one person shop and just wr…

> I don't know how one would recreate that model in todays realities

Seems like a good opportunity for innovation.

Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#903

Post by andi999 » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 1:34 PM UTC

laughinghan wrote: post #735

john_moscow wrote: post #675

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because you need to understand the difference between a project and a product. If you want your product to succeed, it must target decision-makers with a budget to buy your license, and it must make enough difference to them to justify the costs. Most software libraries aren't products. They target other software developers who are not responsible for allocating funds. Furthermore, if there wasn't a library, m…

You are explaining how a person can deal with the world as it is. But if you think of yourself as a builder, then you really ought to know better than to accept the world as it is. Are there probably choices available to a skilled software developer where they could make more money than just working on something that they love and that provides value to the world? Sure. But why is that an acceptable world to live in?…

The problem is 'feeling entitled to just compensation'; it is not a good concept. Lets imagine you favourite fast-food joint offers all menu items for 1cent. Then one week later they ask for more money, because:'If a work adds value to the world, shouldn't the worker rightly feel entitled to just compensation". And lets not make it about the company, lets say it has to close down and leave the workers unemployed if people dont chip in. Do you really think they should be entitled? What about if they gave away the stuff for 0 cents, any difference?

Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#904

Post by anon73044 » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 2:02 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #535

anon73044 wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty common size from the big box and home & garden type stores. https://www.lowes.com/pd/Sta-Green-43-lb-15-000-sq-ft-32-0-1... I'd be suspicions if he had 10-20 bags and didn't run a landscaping company or multiple acres or grass to maintain.

For an apartment in NYC??

Looked more like a row house than an apartment.

Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#905

Post by carapace » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 2:49 PM UTC

gtsop wrote: post #835

carapace wrote: post #672

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know the Bash shell is maintained by a single unpaid volunteer? He also maintains the GNU readline library.

What is your point? He can maintain it without pay. Good for him, good for us, good for all. This case is different.

Well I guess I have a few points:

1) We all depend on Chet Ramsey and don't spare a moment to think about it. How many people have emailed him a thank you note, let alone sent him money?

2) Is that good or bad? or both?

3) Mature software has low low maintenance costs (that's almost the definition of "mature software", eh?)

4) The real problem might be that we keep writing new code. If you restrict yourself to mature code your costs go way down, since you're not paying to write new code nor to maintain it.

(It might read like I'm saying Marak should be like Ramsey, that's NOT my point.)

Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#906

Post by thu2111 » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 2:50 PM UTC

jgilias wrote: post #554

cbm-vic-20 wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like providing that skill set would a good business opportunity.

Make it a SaaS!

JetBrains Marketplace is like this. It's a store for plugins to their IDEs but they also say they'll do co-branding and marketing with you, you get access to their reseller network, they handle a lot of the accounting etc.

But it's just for IDE plugins. Not the rest.

Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#907

Post by thu2111 » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 2:51 PM UTC

WalterSear wrote: post #690

AntiImperialist wrote: post #602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OR, - release it under a permissive license - wait until it reaches reaches a significant level of popularity for your purposes (see below) - flex it to get a good job at a good company - abandon the original project altogether or find new maintainers - focus on your new job, build skills and connections - invest most of your income in bonds and experiment with profitable side ventures which don't require much econom…

No interviewer has demonstrated anything but perfunctory interest in my open source work, popular or not. It's a myth, like 'nobody cares where you went to school so long as you can do the work'.

I think that's true for contributions to existing projects or other hard to notice stuff.

On the other hand, I got my current job exclusively via my open source work. But I created a project from scratch.

Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#908

Post by jokethrowaway » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 3:10 PM UTC

orthecreedence wrote: post #840

jokethrowaway wrote: post #824

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would I bother publishing it or creating it? I'm well fed and I don't need to sell myself.

Your only motivation in life is making enough money to meet your basic needs?

Not only my basic needs, I also had a strong urge to reproduce - but that would be irresponsible without being able to support the offspring.

When I was younger I always had an insane drive for making money, which translated into tons of business ideas and a true passion for working.

After having kids and after having enough money to buy a house in cash, a lot of that business drive disappeared. I definitely feel like I completed a part of my life. There is still some drive - and it's focused at creating enough value to pay all my expenses: food, entertainment, private school for the kids.

After that is done, I will spend my days working out, growing my kids, cooking, gardening, travelling.

I know society sells the lie you should be working yourself off (possibly for some giant evil corporation), hoarding as much money as possible until you die - but I couldn't care less.

Removing economic incentives would see a steady decline of value creation in society. Stakhanovism was most likely Stalin propaganda.

Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#909

Post by jokethrowaway » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 3:17 PM UTC

orthecreedence wrote: post #841

inglor_cz wrote: post #770

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citizens of rich oil sheikhdoms in the Gulf have had de-facto UBI, and a high one, for a long time, even though the formalities were a bit muddled. In practice, if you were lucky enough to be born as a Saudi or Qatari citizen, your needs would be covered. It did not lead to any explosion of creativity, arts and science there. People are morbidly obese and spend their money on gambling, drugs and sex. I am not very op…

Capitalism + UBI = still capitalism. Of course people are fat and lazy, there's an entire economic apparatus convincing them to be. This is why I prefaced the entire point with "abolish capitalism." If you were financially independent, what would you do or build? I know I'd never stop producing useful things.

I'm sure you believe this in good faith, but most human beings are not as driven and are not as good natured as you.

This is also why governments or any form or redistribution is inferior to a perfect market without human interference: you will always have bad apples stealing resources or being as inefficient as they can be. I know this because I'm a psychopath, I feel zero guilt or empathy and the thought that someone like me could be in a position of power is downright scary.

Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#910

Post by treis » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 3:18 PM UTC

kls wrote: post #900

growse wrote: post #883

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a good analogy. Most cars work in roughly the same way. Most software does not. Software engineering is a diverse enough topic that you can have two "software engineers" who, aside from very broad general concepts like control flow and modularity, have very little overlap in their areas of expertise. Developing microcontroller firmware requires a very different set of skills and knowledge to building an M…

It's actually not a good analogy because most mechanics nowadays specialize. You don't have an engine guy do an automatic transmission rebuild and you don't have your local car dealer do a coil-over 4 link suspension upgrade on your Jeep. This is exactly analogous to software in that you don't need to know deep algorithms to build CRUD web apps. They are a different part of the machine and closer to the business doma…

>The guy knows fuel maps, timing and compression ratios like the back of his hand, but I keep insisting that he tell me how the sun gear of the transmission engages the planetaries and in what sequence because he has to know this to be any good as an engine guy and come to the conclusion in my head that if he does not know transmissions it is a signal that he is not fit to be an engine guy.

Sure, but that's not what happened. The real story, in contrast to the tweet, is that he didn't really know what a b-tree was. And if you're hiring an engine mechanic and they tell you they don't really know what a transmission is, well, that's a pretty big red flag.