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I wish for a world where programmers code because they like it more so than to profit.

whimsicalism 4y ago
I don't make my money from copyright
strogonoff 4y ago
This happens a lot already. Probably the best program code was written without compensation. There’s also that infamous OS that started as a hobby project and reportedly runs 70% of public servers on the Internet these days. People who contribute to OSS have jobs to support themselves, but they also program outside of work, they enjoy doing it and they give away the results of their work for free. It’s puzzling but it turns out above certain point people don’t really care about making more and more money and start being motivated by purpose and desire to do something good. Unlike music, there’re no money-hungry middlemen between those who enjoy writing software and those who want to run it.
stavros 4y ago
So open source software?
Arainach 4y ago
Folks have to pay the rent somehow. Careers of passion are ripe for exploitation and burnout. Look at (American) teachers and game developers. That's not the model I want everyone to follow.
- strogonoff 4y ago
  I believe it’s similar in music-related jobs. There’re always opportunities to earn money doing work for hire (scoring, mastering, arranging, performing), but they tend to not pay too well.
schwartzworld 4y ago
I wish for a world where carpenters hammer nails because they like it more so than to profit
amelius 4y ago
For every happy coder, there's always a bunch of greedy managers and lawyers who control their output.
greggman3 4y ago
AFAICT you're living in that world. Just take a look at github. As of 2 years ago there were 128 million repos https://towardsdatascience.com/githubs-path-to-128m-public-repositories-f6f656ab56b1 https://towardsdatascience.com/githubs-path-to-128m-public-r... And maybe it's just me but AFAIK the vast majority of repos are personal projects done for fun, not for profit. Even if that number is inflated because of forks I'd just wager the majority of original repos are projects for fun, not profit

I don't make my money from copyright

This happens a lot already. Probably the best program code was written without compensation. There’s also that infamous OS that started as a hobby project and reportedly runs 70% of public servers on the Internet these days. People who contribute to OSS have jobs to support themselves, but they also program outside of work, they enjoy doing it and they give away the results of their work for free. It’s puzzling but it turns out above certain point people don’t really care about making more and more money and start being motivated by purpose and desire to do something good. Unlike music, there’re no money-hungry middlemen between those who enjoy writing software and those who want to run it.

stavros 4y ago

So open source software?

Arainach 4y ago

Folks have to pay the rent somehow. Careers of passion are ripe for exploitation and burnout. Look at (American) teachers and game developers. That's not the model I want everyone to follow.

strogonoff 4y ago
I believe it’s similar in music-related jobs. There’re always opportunities to earn money doing work for hire (scoring, mastering, arranging, performing), but they tend to not pay too well.

schwartzworld 4y ago

I wish for a world where carpenters hammer nails because they like it more so than to profit

amelius 4y ago

For every happy coder, there's always a bunch of greedy managers and lawyers who control their output.

greggman3 4y ago

AFAICT you're living in that world. Just take a look at github. As of 2 years ago there were 128 million repos https://towardsdatascience.com/githubs-path-to-128m-public-repositories-f6f656ab56b1 https://towardsdatascience.com/githubs-path-to-128m-public-r... And maybe it's just me but AFAIK the vast majority of repos are personal projects done for fun, not for profit. Even if that number is inflated because of forks I'd just wager the majority of original repos are projects for fun, not profit