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I don't understand the penny pinching in this post. My shitty laptop costs pretty close to 3k with all the mods I have on it. My work laptop came it at over 5k

by antt 7y ago

I don't understand the penny pinching in this post. My shitty laptop costs pretty close to 3k with all the mods I have on it. My work laptop came it at over 5k. A descent desktop for a developer can cost around $10k. My fancy dream machine is over $20k. $30k is peanuts. That's one month's wages for a senior dev. I've seen project that cost 50 times as much and the only delivery was a button of a different color. I have no idea if anything else said there is true or not and I have no interest in looking at more drama.

sudhirj 7y ago
The point of the article is the lack of transparency and borderline exploitation. If KR had put up a fundraising page saying “buy me beer” or “support my work” this wouldn’t be an issue. The author is pointing out that the funds were raised for a team effort and the other members on the team were being dealt with in a shady way.
- antt 7y ago
  Like I said, I have no interest in the drama. I'm just pointing out that the sums they are talking about here are laughable. Anyone who thinks that 30k can pay anything to a team should have a look at getting a real job. Him getting paid for the bother of working as the project coordinator sounds about fair for two months part time. The rest of the contributors should have been doing the work out of interest when they have free time with nothing better to do. I have a hell of a time explaining to people that I'm happy to contribute 1 hour 8 times to their projects for free, but if they expect 8 hours once it will cost them.
- tyingq 7y ago
  "The author is pointing out that the funds were raised for a team effort and the other members on the team were being dealt with in a shady way" It doesn't appear, though, that the author was part of that team, or promised any of the money. The author says this: "If he'd found another way to use the money on Requests, then I would have been totally happy. I didn't have any claim on the money" Other parts of the post do seem to indicate something isn't right. But it's not exactly as straightforward as you're saying.
  - 0815test 7y ago
    > It doesn't appear, though, that the author was part of that team Apparently, there was some sort of agreement that OP would not be disclosing his own related work independently of Kenneth. This makes him very much "part of the team" in a rather significant sense, and he does seem to share some responsibility from that POV.
    - tyingq 7y ago
      "Apparently, there was some sort of agreement that OP would not be disclosing his own related work independently of Kenneth." Where's that? I'm unable to find anything close to that in the post.
sansnomme 7y ago
This. So much this. Python would be a lot less popular without Request.
porker 7y ago
> $30k is peanuts. That's one month's wages for a senior dev. Only in very unusual places in the world, with unusual employers. > My shitty laptop costs pretty close to 3k with all the mods I have on it. If it's "shitty" and cost almost $3k, you were either taken for a ride or have unrealistic expectations. > My work laptop came it at over 5k. A descent desktop for a developer can cost around $10k. What kind of work and developer are we talking about? The only ones with computers near this cost I've met usually called themselves "Engineers" and were doing fluid modelling/finite element analysis. Or realtime video processing.
- antt 7y ago
  >If it's "shitty" and cost almost $3k, you were either taken for a ride or have unrealistic expectations. 16 gb ram, i7, 1tb ssd, 2tb hd. It's also 5 years old, but I'm just too used to the bloody thing to get rid of it. That developer laptops are basically mass market machines is the reason why so much software sucks and why nothing new is being pushed out. >What kind of work and developer are we talking about? The only ones with computers near this cost I've met usually called themselves "Engineers" and were doing fluid modelling/finite element analysis. Or realtime video processing. My title does have engineer and principal in it, the other words change every six months or so. I run a lot of ML models locally before I let them run on the real machines. Most of the cost of the laptop came from all the ram I need to run a couple of dozen VMs to see how our wonderful heterogeneous data environment reacts to something being changed - most of the time the answer is "badly".
  - eesmith 7y ago
    Your penny-pinching complaint comes from the following quote from the original text: "The original Requests is a small pure-Python library; if you want to work on it, then any cheap laptop is more than sufficient. $5k is the price of a beefy server or top-end gaming rig." That task really comes nowhere close to the requiring the hardware you describe as being essential to your work.
    - antt 7y ago
Lazare 7y ago
I don't think this is about the amount. Allegedly, Reitz: 1) Knew about a feature a volunteer was working on 2) Started a fundraiser for the feature 3) Kept all the money Maybe $30k is peanute, but I'd have grave concerns if I saw a colleague stealing coins out of a tip jar at the local coffee shop, and the fact it's only a few quarters would honestly make it worse, if anything. Of course, like you, I have no idea if the underlying accusations are true or not, although I will note that all those archive.org links are going to be hard to explain away. But I don't think "it was only $30k!" is a valid defence here.
- antt 7y ago
  The tone of the article was very much about the 5k being a ridiculous expense. I find that very odd. If you're a volunteer and expect to be paid make it clear before hand. If you've written open source code and someone takes it without paying for it ... that's the whole point of open source. If someone tells you to work for them without compensation tell them to take a hike. At any rate, drama like this is why I don't work on open source any more. Too many people with too much time and too many issues.
  - Lazare 7y ago
    > The tone of the article was very much about the 5k being a ridiculous expense. I did not detect that tone at all. Rather, I interpreted it as surprise that Reitz spent $5k of a fundraiser very explicitly earmarked as being "to support Request 3.0 development" on a computer, when a new computer is not obviously something you need to develop Requests 3.0. I also didn't get the feeling that the author expected to be paid (in fact, he seems quite clear that he did not).
    - AgentME 7y ago
      Would paying him to work on it not be part of supporting Request 3.0 development? Unless he specifically said it was only going to operating costs or other people, I'd assume that at least a good part of a donation toward him would be for a salary for himself.
lexpar 7y ago
You can make any amount of money seem small by saying "well the top {1,0.1,0.001}% of people make that in a month".
prepend 7y ago
I don’t think the laptop price is really the principle argument but I noticed this too. People have different ideas about what computer. A high end Mac book pro is $4,249 with max cpu, 32gb and 1tb ssd and 4gb gpu. So if you add in bigger hard drives and software and taxes so you can hit $5k. It seems not very productive to argue over using cheaper tools. Obviously you can program python on a chromebook, but I would never work for a company that expected it. I think my last dev laptop cost $3500 or something.

by antt 7y ago

sudhirj 7y ago

The point of the article is the lack of transparency and borderline exploitation. If KR had put up a fundraising page saying “buy me beer” or “support my work” this wouldn’t be an issue. The author is pointing out that the funds were raised for a team effort and the other members on the team were being dealt with in a shady way.

antt 7y ago
Like I said, I have no interest in the drama. I'm just pointing out that the sums they are talking about here are laughable. Anyone who thinks that 30k can pay anything to a team should have a look at getting a real job. Him getting paid for the bother of working as the project coordinator sounds about fair for two months part time. The rest of the contributors should have been doing the work out of interest when they have free time with nothing better to do. I have a hell of a time explaining to people that I'm happy to contribute 1 hour 8 times to their projects for free, but if they expect 8 hours once it will cost them.
tyingq 7y ago
"The author is pointing out that the funds were raised for a team effort and the other members on the team were being dealt with in a shady way" It doesn't appear, though, that the author was part of that team, or promised any of the money. The author says this: "If he'd found another way to use the money on Requests, then I would have been totally happy. I didn't have any claim on the money" Other parts of the post do seem to indicate something isn't right. But it's not exactly as straightforward as you're saying.
- 0815test 7y ago
  > It doesn't appear, though, that the author was part of that team Apparently, there was some sort of agreement that OP would not be disclosing his own related work independently of Kenneth. This makes him very much "part of the team" in a rather significant sense, and he does seem to share some responsibility from that POV.
  - tyingq 7y ago
    "Apparently, there was some sort of agreement that OP would not be disclosing his own related work independently of Kenneth." Where's that? I'm unable to find anything close to that in the post.

sansnomme 7y ago

This. So much this. Python would be a lot less popular without Request.

porker 7y ago

> $30k is peanuts. That's one month's wages for a senior dev. Only in very unusual places in the world, with unusual employers. > My shitty laptop costs pretty close to 3k with all the mods I have on it. If it's "shitty" and cost almost $3k, you were either taken for a ride or have unrealistic expectations. > My work laptop came it at over 5k. A descent desktop for a developer can cost around $10k. What kind of work and developer are we talking about? The only ones with computers near this cost I've met usually called themselves "Engineers" and were doing fluid modelling/finite element analysis. Or realtime video processing.

antt 7y ago
>If it's "shitty" and cost almost $3k, you were either taken for a ride or have unrealistic expectations. 16 gb ram, i7, 1tb ssd, 2tb hd. It's also 5 years old, but I'm just too used to the bloody thing to get rid of it. That developer laptops are basically mass market machines is the reason why so much software sucks and why nothing new is being pushed out. >What kind of work and developer are we talking about? The only ones with computers near this cost I've met usually called themselves "Engineers" and were doing fluid modelling/finite element analysis. Or realtime video processing. My title does have engineer and principal in it, the other words change every six months or so. I run a lot of ML models locally before I let them run on the real machines. Most of the cost of the laptop came from all the ram I need to run a couple of dozen VMs to see how our wonderful heterogeneous data environment reacts to something being changed - most of the time the answer is "badly".
- eesmith 7y ago
  Your penny-pinching complaint comes from the following quote from the original text: "The original Requests is a small pure-Python library; if you want to work on it, then any cheap laptop is more than sufficient. $5k is the price of a beefy server or top-end gaming rig." That task really comes nowhere close to the requiring the hardware you describe as being essential to your work.
  - antt 7y ago

Lazare 7y ago

I don't think this is about the amount. Allegedly, Reitz: 1) Knew about a feature a volunteer was working on 2) Started a fundraiser for the feature 3) Kept all the money Maybe $30k is peanute, but I'd have grave concerns if I saw a colleague stealing coins out of a tip jar at the local coffee shop, and the fact it's only a few quarters would honestly make it worse, if anything. Of course, like you, I have no idea if the underlying accusations are true or not, although I will note that all those archive.org links are going to be hard to explain away. But I don't think "it was only $30k!" is a valid defence here.

antt 7y ago
The tone of the article was very much about the 5k being a ridiculous expense. I find that very odd. If you're a volunteer and expect to be paid make it clear before hand. If you've written open source code and someone takes it without paying for it ... that's the whole point of open source. If someone tells you to work for them without compensation tell them to take a hike. At any rate, drama like this is why I don't work on open source any more. Too many people with too much time and too many issues.
- Lazare 7y ago
  > The tone of the article was very much about the 5k being a ridiculous expense. I did not detect that tone at all. Rather, I interpreted it as surprise that Reitz spent $5k of a fundraiser very explicitly earmarked as being "to support Request 3.0 development" on a computer, when a new computer is not obviously something you need to develop Requests 3.0. I also didn't get the feeling that the author expected to be paid (in fact, he seems quite clear that he did not).
  - AgentME 7y ago
    Would paying him to work on it not be part of supporting Request 3.0 development? Unless he specifically said it was only going to operating costs or other people, I'd assume that at least a good part of a donation toward him would be for a salary for himself.

lexpar 7y ago

You can make any amount of money seem small by saying "well the top {1,0.1,0.001}% of people make that in a month".

prepend 7y ago

I don’t think the laptop price is really the principle argument but I noticed this too. People have different ideas about what computer. A high end Mac book pro is $4,249 with max cpu, 32gb and 1tb ssd and 4gb gpu. So if you add in bigger hard drives and software and taxes so you can hit $5k. It seems not very productive to argue over using cheaper tools. Obviously you can program python on a chromebook, but I would never work for a company that expected it. I think my last dev laptop cost $3500 or something.