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The company is giving him something, which is a huge vote of approval to his library. "You ship it, you own it" means Nintendo just said, "This guys code is Nin

The company is giving him something, which is a huge vote of approval to his library. "You ship it, you own it" means Nintendo just said, "This guys code is Nintendo-handheld quality code!" Big endorsement. And literally no-one in the world knows more about that code than him. Last but not least is just the feeling that your code is running in so many places! What a feeling of accomplishment. Over a career, you start to think more and more about what code you have running in the world. Where it used to run. Where you'd like it to run. That's a pretty satisfying feeling, and it also makes him one of the few bona fide people in the world at whom you can throw money to fix (or change) the library.

ascar 6y ago
I fully agree. A small piece of software I'm most proud of is a very small library I wrote for an ex-employer and was lucky enough to open-source. It isn't updated in years and should nonetheless still work. Since a few years ago it is used by the Gitlab main repo. I don't expect anything from them, they don't ask anything from me and just knowing that it is useful for such a big project is all endorsement I need.
- sheetjs 6y ago
  SheetJS was created because of a Microsoft licensing issue with a library (https://github.com/stephen-hardy/xlsx.js/issues/8 https://github.com/stephen-hardy/xlsx.js/issues/8). The other project had a nonstandard license with a clause that only applied to browsers run on Microsoft Windows, which is really bizarre for a JS library that can run on any browser. Apparently the original developer was working for Microsoft at the time, and Microsoft mandated the license clause. In a funny twist of fate, Microsoft now uses SheetJS open source to power some Excel exports in Office 365! https://tasks.office.com/License.html https://tasks.office.com/License.html is the license disclosure, and you can actually see it in action in the exported files. We were blown away when we found out. It's the ultimate endorsement! Oftentimes we just wonder what would have happened if Microsoft just let the original project adopt a standard open source license.
  - pillefitz 6y ago
    Happy customer of yours!
bartread 6y ago
Yeah: if it were me I'd be putting that on my CV. Quite an achievement.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
randmeerkat 6y ago
Imagine if Nintendo gave away their devices just so they could have the “feeling” of knowing people are using it, rather than selling it for money. It’s weird to me that developers write code that other companies use to make profits, while they just get paid with a “feeling” of satisfaction.
- tartoran 6y ago
  Hehe, I see what you did here. But it's a bit different in some ways. The developer decided in the first place to opensource the software while absolutely no one could produce a gaming platform that was free. And in this case the developer got acknowledged which is a big deal, generally big companies use FOSS without even bothering to do so. That acknowledgement may help improve the career for FOSS developers and raise the potential of obtaining really well paid commercial gigs. I wish FOSS were paid but then it wouldn't really be FOSS. At least being acknowledged is the first step towards fairness.
- malnourish 6y ago
  The developer was free to choose a different license.
- jgwil2 6y ago
  Well, for one thing, we've all benefitted enormously from open source projects in our careers, so it's nice to be able to contribute something back.
  - randmeerkat 6y ago
    Sure, but what does it mean to contribute something back? Is a for-profit entity taking your code and profiting off of it what the original idea behind open source was? Or was the idea more something like creating computer labs in Africa with Raspberry PIs? https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/building-computer-labs-in-western-africa/ https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/building-computer-labs-in-w...
    - pabs3 6y ago
excubiarum 6y ago
This right here, talk about a career boost. I don't think they will have to white-board to get a job ever again. Nintendo cares about code so that means they write good code and think about being able to walk around and seeing so many people smiling playing a device that unbeknown to you, you were a part of making possible. That would make my day if I ever contributed to something like that, making people smile.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
  > I don't think they will have to white-board to get a job ever again. But: https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768?lang=en https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768?lang=en I think they'll never have to fizzbuzz again, but probably still lots of whiteboarding in their future.
- names_are_hard 6y ago
  I don't think this is true. At the big companies that do leetcode interviews, my understanding is that the process is rather inflexible. Doesn't matter what your past accomplishments are, you go through the same pipeline as everyone else. Recently I was chatting with a young woman who competes in motorcycle racing at an international level. She's almost old enough to get a driver's license to drive on public roads. Do you think she gets to skip the driving test because she can ride better than all but a few people in the country? No, she'll do figure eights in a parking lot like everyone else. Big company bureaucracy functions similarly to government bureaucracy. The rules are built for the common case and exceptions for individuals, however reasonable, are hard to make.
  - sgtnoodle 6y ago
    I don't think that quite holds true. Big companies often have different pipelines when hiring for specific roles within special projects. When applying for a general software role, you typically get interviewed by random software enginespe, and so you end up with a fair amount of canned leetcode style questions. When applying for a specific role within a project, you typically get interviewed by engineers on that project; the interviews are usually more domain specific and less leedcodey.

ascar 6y ago

I fully agree. A small piece of software I'm most proud of is a very small library I wrote for an ex-employer and was lucky enough to open-source. It isn't updated in years and should nonetheless still work. Since a few years ago it is used by the Gitlab main repo. I don't expect anything from them, they don't ask anything from me and just knowing that it is useful for such a big project is all endorsement I need.

sheetjs 6y ago
SheetJS was created because of a Microsoft licensing issue with a library (https://github.com/stephen-hardy/xlsx.js/issues/8 https://github.com/stephen-hardy/xlsx.js/issues/8). The other project had a nonstandard license with a clause that only applied to browsers run on Microsoft Windows, which is really bizarre for a JS library that can run on any browser. Apparently the original developer was working for Microsoft at the time, and Microsoft mandated the license clause. In a funny twist of fate, Microsoft now uses SheetJS open source to power some Excel exports in Office 365! https://tasks.office.com/License.html https://tasks.office.com/License.html is the license disclosure, and you can actually see it in action in the exported files. We were blown away when we found out. It's the ultimate endorsement! Oftentimes we just wonder what would have happened if Microsoft just let the original project adopt a standard open source license.
- pillefitz 6y ago
  Happy customer of yours!

bartread 6y ago

Yeah: if it were me I'd be putting that on my CV. Quite an achievement.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

randmeerkat 6y ago

Imagine if Nintendo gave away their devices just so they could have the “feeling” of knowing people are using it, rather than selling it for money. It’s weird to me that developers write code that other companies use to make profits, while they just get paid with a “feeling” of satisfaction.

tartoran 6y ago
Hehe, I see what you did here. But it's a bit different in some ways. The developer decided in the first place to opensource the software while absolutely no one could produce a gaming platform that was free. And in this case the developer got acknowledged which is a big deal, generally big companies use FOSS without even bothering to do so. That acknowledgement may help improve the career for FOSS developers and raise the potential of obtaining really well paid commercial gigs. I wish FOSS were paid but then it wouldn't really be FOSS. At least being acknowledged is the first step towards fairness.
malnourish 6y ago
The developer was free to choose a different license.
jgwil2 6y ago
Well, for one thing, we've all benefitted enormously from open source projects in our careers, so it's nice to be able to contribute something back.
- randmeerkat 6y ago
  Sure, but what does it mean to contribute something back? Is a for-profit entity taking your code and profiting off of it what the original idea behind open source was? Or was the idea more something like creating computer labs in Africa with Raspberry PIs? https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/building-computer-labs-in-western-africa/ https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/building-computer-labs-in-w...
  - pabs3 6y ago

excubiarum 6y ago

This right here, talk about a career boost. I don't think they will have to white-board to get a job ever again. Nintendo cares about code so that means they write good code and think about being able to walk around and seeing so many people smiling playing a device that unbeknown to you, you were a part of making possible. That would make my day if I ever contributed to something like that, making people smile.

6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
> I don't think they will have to white-board to get a job ever again. But: https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768?lang=en https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768?lang=en I think they'll never have to fizzbuzz again, but probably still lots of whiteboarding in their future.
names_are_hard 6y ago
I don't think this is true. At the big companies that do leetcode interviews, my understanding is that the process is rather inflexible. Doesn't matter what your past accomplishments are, you go through the same pipeline as everyone else. Recently I was chatting with a young woman who competes in motorcycle racing at an international level. She's almost old enough to get a driver's license to drive on public roads. Do you think she gets to skip the driving test because she can ride better than all but a few people in the country? No, she'll do figure eights in a parking lot like everyone else. Big company bureaucracy functions similarly to government bureaucracy. The rules are built for the common case and exceptions for individuals, however reasonable, are hard to make.
- sgtnoodle 6y ago
  I don't think that quite holds true. Big companies often have different pipelines when hiring for specific roles within special projects. When applying for a general software role, you typically get interviewed by random software enginespe, and so you end up with a fair amount of canned leetcode style questions. When applying for a specific role within a project, you typically get interviewed by engineers on that project; the interviews are usually more domain specific and less leedcodey.