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Open source was such a powerful movement. In 2011, I was making six figures in a major city for a huge company. Then, I got laid off and couldn't afford rent an

Open source was such a powerful movement. In 2011, I was making six figures in a major city for a huge company. Then, I got laid off and couldn't afford rent anymore, so I had to move back to my hometown in another state that same month. I had barely any savings at all due to the relocation costs I just paid to move to said city. I pulled a 5-year-old desktop computer out of storage, bought a new $50 hard drive for it, put my resume on Craigslist (of all places), installed Ruby on Rails and all my development tools, and within two weeks I had a job working from home for $40 an hour. I didn't have to re-certify, renew any licenses, or pay anyone any fees of any kind. I didn't lose access to any tools I relied on in my previous job. My only expense for maintaining my employability was $50. I have a four-year degree only. I don't know of any other industry where that's possible, and I don't know if it's possible to do that in this industry anymore. I know it is because of the hard work of the open source movement. I've been thinking a lot about how to preserve that level of economic empowerment in software. I don't think the answer is in licenses, but in something like a union (although you are right in that most developers are rabidly anti-union). Perhaps an alternative corporate structure would have the same result, and that's why I decided to start the first for-profit software collective.

morenoh149 8y ago
Where is the idea that software engineers are anti-union coming from? I'd like to know. I like the idea of a software union and would love to flesh that out. Its been well documented that the FANNG corps have been suppressing wages for several years. Software is eating the world and if we have a role in that creation we should have a larger portion of the benefits.
- intelliderp 8y ago
  Any union-related post on HN fills with anti-union comments pretty fast. It may only be artificial. I suppose HN is as susceptible to astroturfing as any online platform. If that's the case, we would just need an expressly pro-union discussion forum or a subreddit to become popular for the idea to take off. Edit: Huh. Incidentally, I just stumbled upon /r/devunion which appears to be exactly that, although it's shut down.
- morenoh149 8y ago
  @intelliderp you got buried. I'd love to see links to such anti-union hn discussions. I kinda get that HN is very capitalistic and unions check reckless capitalism. But at the same time HN is very dev focused and unions promise larger benefits/money to devs. I'll go on the record saying I'm pro dev union. Even if its just a glorified professional organization. I'd love to hear the holes in the argument. The corporations are financially motivated to prevent unionization. If you want a piece of the future you have to be just as savvy. One tricky bit is if unionizing just causes a massive exodus of development to offshore. Thoughts on that?
  - steveklabnik 8y ago
    Here's a recent HN discussion about unions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19433610 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19433610 You can read the thread and draw your own conclusions. My impression is taken from reading a number of these threads over years; I could be wrong!
    - morenoh149 8y ago
      My guess is that that sentiment arises from the meritocratic attitude that if you are disproportionately talented you should be compensated much much more. And I get that. To a point. I don't like when corporations collude to artificially suppress wages either. Or when information asymmetry is used to keep an engineer's salary low or prevent negotiating higher salaries. I'll read that discussion.
  - intelliderp 8y ago
    Yeah, I'm apparently shadow-banned on HN for some users. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13564440 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13564440 Arguments often encountered: * Compensation/mobility is good enough not to need unions. * Workers don't have enough leverage to do anything anyway. * Unions restrict you in undesirable ways. * Unions are shady and corrupt.

morenoh149 8y ago

Where is the idea that software engineers are anti-union coming from? I'd like to know. I like the idea of a software union and would love to flesh that out. Its been well documented that the FANNG corps have been suppressing wages for several years. Software is eating the world and if we have a role in that creation we should have a larger portion of the benefits.

intelliderp 8y ago
Any union-related post on HN fills with anti-union comments pretty fast. It may only be artificial. I suppose HN is as susceptible to astroturfing as any online platform. If that's the case, we would just need an expressly pro-union discussion forum or a subreddit to become popular for the idea to take off. Edit: Huh. Incidentally, I just stumbled upon /r/devunion which appears to be exactly that, although it's shut down.
morenoh149 8y ago
@intelliderp you got buried. I'd love to see links to such anti-union hn discussions. I kinda get that HN is very capitalistic and unions check reckless capitalism. But at the same time HN is very dev focused and unions promise larger benefits/money to devs. I'll go on the record saying I'm pro dev union. Even if its just a glorified professional organization. I'd love to hear the holes in the argument. The corporations are financially motivated to prevent unionization. If you want a piece of the future you have to be just as savvy. One tricky bit is if unionizing just causes a massive exodus of development to offshore. Thoughts on that?
- steveklabnik 8y ago
  Here's a recent HN discussion about unions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19433610 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19433610 You can read the thread and draw your own conclusions. My impression is taken from reading a number of these threads over years; I could be wrong!
  - morenoh149 8y ago
    My guess is that that sentiment arises from the meritocratic attitude that if you are disproportionately talented you should be compensated much much more. And I get that. To a point. I don't like when corporations collude to artificially suppress wages either. Or when information asymmetry is used to keep an engineer's salary low or prevent negotiating higher salaries. I'll read that discussion.
- intelliderp 8y ago
  Yeah, I'm apparently shadow-banned on HN for some users. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13564440 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13564440 Arguments often encountered: * Compensation/mobility is good enough not to need unions. * Workers don't have enough leverage to do anything anyway. * Unions restrict you in undesirable ways. * Unions are shady and corrupt.