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> the ongoing maintenance of many widely used software components relies on the collaborative effort of volunteers who set their own priorities and choose their

> the ongoing maintenance of many widely used software components relies on the collaborative effort of volunteers who set their own priorities and choose their own tasks. We argue that this has created a new form of risk that we call 'underproduction' which occurs when the supply of software engineering labor becomes out of alignment with the demand of people who rely on the software produced. Someone in the know please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this risk precisely the reason that large companies such as Google et al assign some of their experienced developers to work on open source projects full time? Don't get me wrong, this risk of "underproduction" no doubt applies across many FOSS projects and is thus a good measure to take into account - but I wonder whether the impact of said risk is somewhat more contained than we'd be led to believe.

bawolff 6y ago
I think most big companies tend to assign devs when they get some bizz value out of it. Sure that can be a hedge against abandonware, but i think most of the time they're looking for a more direct benefit.
matkoniecz 6y ago
It is quite ridiculous and offensive to name it "underproduction". If I am making something for free, or for minimum amount of money, or based on unstable funding - then I am doing because I want to do it, and because I produce something that I like or want to exist. Obviously, I am not going to code features useful for oversized corporation that are neither useful nor interesting for me. If they want this features - they will need to hire people, and it is not my problem.
- jameshart 6y ago
  I don’t think it’s meant as a value judgement. But perhaps it would read better as ‘over demand’?
- nmstoker 6y ago
  You make perfectly reasonable points in your second and third paragraph but the name doesn't seem like something to take quite so personally. From a scan of the paper it makes sense as a name and only seems like it would be offensive if one were actively seeking to be offended.
- tbrownaw 6y ago
  No, it's a perfectly descriptive name that's appropriate to the context. Note they totally about it being a thing that happens partly because devs are volunteers. There are things that are more important than they are interesting. This is not a "how devs should behave" paper, it's an economics paper.
- jacques_chester 6y ago
  > It is quite ridiculous and offensive to name it "underproduction". Underproduction is a meaningful term in economics, where it refers to the way collective action problems cause a gap between a socially-desirable outcome and the actual outcome. However, from skimming the paper, this does not seem to be the direct source of the term. The authors appear to adopt it from Gorbatai[0], who is apparently using the economic term without defining it or referring to literature about underproduction generally. That means the authors of this paper may be unaware of the depth of economic literature in this field. [0] https://opensym.org/ws2011/_media/proceedings%253Ap205-gorbatai.pdf https://opensym.org/ws2011/_media/proceedings%253Ap205-gorba...
  - nickvincent 6y ago
    Section III definitely connects the choice to use this term to economics ("In an economic market, supply and demand are said to be aligned through a price mechanism. Alignment is reached because lower demand decreases prices, which disincentivizes production and returns a market to equilibrium.") Not 100% sure about the context of this conference, but my understanding is that it's a norm in these kinds of papers to refer to relatively basic concepts like supply, demand, and price signals without a citation (esp. given that page limits often limit your cites!). Totally get that some may disagree with this choice though. Sorry if this comes across as defensive -- I know the authors, so am very certain that they are aware of the rich literature on collective action problems and public goods.
    - jacques_chester 6y ago
      I don't think that connection is really very strong. Supply and demand is taught in a 101 course -- but maddeningly, discussion of externalities, public goods, information etc tend to get a fairly cursory glance. It's the latter which have been the most important developments in the past 70 or 80 years (starting with, say, Coase), because they so radically modify and constrain the applicability of pure theories of supply and demand. "Underproduction" belongs to these later developments.

bawolff 6y ago

I think most big companies tend to assign devs when they get some bizz value out of it. Sure that can be a hedge against abandonware, but i think most of the time they're looking for a more direct benefit.

matkoniecz 6y ago

It is quite ridiculous and offensive to name it "underproduction". If I am making something for free, or for minimum amount of money, or based on unstable funding - then I am doing because I want to do it, and because I produce something that I like or want to exist. Obviously, I am not going to code features useful for oversized corporation that are neither useful nor interesting for me. If they want this features - they will need to hire people, and it is not my problem.

jameshart 6y ago
I don’t think it’s meant as a value judgement. But perhaps it would read better as ‘over demand’?
nmstoker 6y ago
You make perfectly reasonable points in your second and third paragraph but the name doesn't seem like something to take quite so personally. From a scan of the paper it makes sense as a name and only seems like it would be offensive if one were actively seeking to be offended.
tbrownaw 6y ago
No, it's a perfectly descriptive name that's appropriate to the context. Note they totally about it being a thing that happens partly because devs are volunteers. There are things that are more important than they are interesting. This is not a "how devs should behave" paper, it's an economics paper.
jacques_chester 6y ago
> It is quite ridiculous and offensive to name it "underproduction". Underproduction is a meaningful term in economics, where it refers to the way collective action problems cause a gap between a socially-desirable outcome and the actual outcome. However, from skimming the paper, this does not seem to be the direct source of the term. The authors appear to adopt it from Gorbatai[0], who is apparently using the economic term without defining it or referring to literature about underproduction generally. That means the authors of this paper may be unaware of the depth of economic literature in this field. [0] https://opensym.org/ws2011/_media/proceedings%253Ap205-gorbatai.pdf https://opensym.org/ws2011/_media/proceedings%253Ap205-gorba...
- nickvincent 6y ago
  Section III definitely connects the choice to use this term to economics ("In an economic market, supply and demand are said to be aligned through a price mechanism. Alignment is reached because lower demand decreases prices, which disincentivizes production and returns a market to equilibrium.") Not 100% sure about the context of this conference, but my understanding is that it's a norm in these kinds of papers to refer to relatively basic concepts like supply, demand, and price signals without a citation (esp. given that page limits often limit your cites!). Totally get that some may disagree with this choice though. Sorry if this comes across as defensive -- I know the authors, so am very certain that they are aware of the rich literature on collective action problems and public goods.
  - jacques_chester 6y ago
    I don't think that connection is really very strong. Supply and demand is taught in a 101 course -- but maddeningly, discussion of externalities, public goods, information etc tend to get a fairly cursory glance. It's the latter which have been the most important developments in the past 70 or 80 years (starting with, say, Coase), because they so radically modify and constrain the applicability of pure theories of supply and demand. "Underproduction" belongs to these later developments.