6 ms·

Today we treat work by a professional as being of higher standard than an amateur. A pro footballer clearly plays better than someone in an amateur league. But

Today we treat work by a professional as being of higher standard than an amateur. A pro footballer clearly plays better than someone in an amateur league. But it was not always so. In recent history "professional" indicated that the task was bounded by time, and thus constrained in quality. An amateur building say a clock could take unbounded time, and hence create a superior product whereas a professional had to sell the clock, so it had to be produced in affordable time. John Harrison starts life as a carpenter, making some clocks on the side as a hobby, interested more in perfecting the concept of clock than selling clocks for money. (although he had a prize in sight for inventing an accurate nautical clock.) Despite making only a handful of clocks in his life, he's credited as being the most important clock maker ever. Thus it is with OSS. Given the lack of monetary benefit, the benefits of writing it have to be elsewhere. In the satisfaction of a job done well. In the beauty and elegance of the code. The timeless perfection. Or the idea that OSS presence will look good on your CV and held get you that job. In which case just throw stuff at Github to make a "portfolio". Never to be looked at again. I think it's safe to say that the majority of OSS is the later, but we are all better off for the fraction that is the former.

mpol 4y ago
Nicely worded. As examples I would like to call out ffmpeg and x264. Years of refining and refining make it software of a quality that didn't exist before in the world of codecs.
amadeuspagel 4y ago
The meaning of the word amateur comes from the latin "amare", which means love, so an amateur quite literally is someone who loves his work.
- rikroots 4y ago
  I don't like the word "amateur" in this context - the semantic shift from its origins, and the baggage the word brings with it today makes it feel ... dismissive, insulting; easy to discount and ignore. Looking at the word's synonyms reinforces that feeling[1]. "Hobbyist", on the other hand, feels both knowledgeable and at the same time homely, unthreatening, to me (see synonyms[2]). I don't like talking about my JS library on GitHub[3] as a "side project" (a phrase I think many people would interpret as: "something that may one day make some good money"). Rather, I think about it as one of my hobbies, something I do because the work both fascinates and pleases me, allows me to experiment and push boundaries of what's possible to do with a 2d canvas element in the browser without the need to meet the demands and constraints of employers, clients, time, etc. One of my other hobbies is writing poetry, which probably explains why I care too much about the meanings of words ... [1] - https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/amateur https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/amateur [2] - https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/hobbyist https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/hobbyist [3] - https://github.com/KaliedaRik/Scrawl-canvas https://github.com/KaliedaRik/Scrawl-canvas
  - bawolff 4y ago
    Personally i feel like hobbyist has much more dismissive connotations than amatur, but that is just me.
- mplanchard 4y ago
  Yes, and it retains this meaning in french, where amateur is a false cognate of the english word
nonrandomstring 4y ago
Remuneration is only one dimension in this. A certain distance has opened up in modernity. It is between what is accounted for and what is casual. Between the formal and the informal. Official, and unofficial. It is about what it "recognised" ... by whom? Paradoxically, this age in which everything must be measured, approved, certified and stamped, has made the amateur-professional distinction more about the rituals and symbols of quality rather than measurable quality. My bachelors degree in CS&EE meant reading about 12 books, plus validation through a gauntlet of examinations. For my troubles I got a nice certificate and 40 years of salary increase. The reality is that I read two dozen other books in my spare time as a teenager, just for fun and interest, and received no degree for them. Since then I've read many hundreds of books in my life, on philosophy, law, psychology, politics and other subjects. No degrees. Out of love, I've paid more attention, taken better notes and more deeply considered those subjects than I did in the brief 3 years upon which my credentialled career is predicated. Interestingly a doctor, lawyer or professional politician [1] is as free to write code on which a billion people depend as I, yet I cannot practice law, treat patients or have much of a say in how my society is run [2] - not that I'd be any good at those things. Professionalism seems as much about money as it is about how society, including its incumbent elites and class structures, select who is "recognised", who gets to bestow the blessings, and ultimately to control produce and behaviour. While in the army many young lads, whose "heart isn't really in it", are technically "professional soldiers". They hang up their boots after the first tour. Only the crazy ones who become "contractors" (mercenaries) might be said to have the truest instinct for it. Software has carved out a very unusual niche this past 50 years. It's a mercenary game, so complex and difficult that a genuine meritocracy ensues, one that cannot be ignored or papered over with accolades or associations. Either your code works or it doesn't. But that unregulated laissez faire has also created a brutal world in which becoming a "professional" coder is certainly the best way to kill any fun and love for it. Meanwhile many well paid, hard working lawyers and doctors hold on to the love for their work. So I think "professionalism" and the identity, recognition, provision and protections it can offer makes for some very interesting distinctions. [1] Should we even have "professional" politicians? [2] Voting in a race between two idiots doesn't count.
- Silverback_VII 4y ago
bawolff 4y ago
We also used to have a much larger idle rich aristrotic class that could fully devote their energies to their hobbies. In modern times it is usually assumed that an amartur has a real job and can only devote so much time to their hobbies.
- ekianjo 4y ago
  in modern times everyone has become an aristocrat if you compare disposable time and means available to experiment and access to information.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- jart 4y ago
  Could you talk more about this? I mean, I don't think it makes one an aristocrat to be an independently motivated person who isn't living hand to mouth. But what do you think allowed more people to focus on unfettered hobbies in the past, and why would you say are fewer people able to do that today?
  - rjsw 4y ago
    The point about being independently wealthy is that you don't have to work at all, you can spend every waking minute on your "hobby".
    - jart 4y ago
      Yes but you don't have to be wealthy to not work. 42% of Americans aren't employed. Would you say they're all aristocrats? You don't even necessarily need a family member to support you either, if you're willing to couchsurf, backpack, and be creative in how you acquire food. Lifestyle anarchists do that for instance, so they can move out and focus on their passions.
      - gjm11 4y ago
        I think most not-employed people fall into categories like these: - People too young to be in employment. - People too old to be in employment. - People with illnesses or disabilities that make employment difficult or impossible. - People who don't have skills that anyone wants to pay them for. These people are not aristocrats, for sure, but most of them will not be highly effective working for love as opposed to working for money. Also, being poor can be exhausting. Someone who isn't employed and isn't an aristocrat is likely to have a lot of their mental energy taken up with surviving, which again is likely to make them less able to do wonderful things working for love. Important note: of course all the above is "most", "likely", etc.; there will be exceptions. Some school-age people are geniuses. Some retired people still have plenty of energy and focus. Some people have illnesses or disabilities that make ordinary jobs impossible but can still do great things if they can do the work on their own time and on their own terms. Some people have skills that others would pay them for if the others had any sense but for whatever reason don't sell themselves well. Etc., etc., etc. But, proportionally, there are going to be fewer people suited to create great things while not employed among that 42% than among the aristocrats of an earlier age. (Or of this age.) Another important note: Of course the starving artist or writer is something of a cliche, so it was never all aristocrats who were creating great things outside the constraints of paid employment.
HidyBush 4y ago
>the benefits of writing it have to be elsewhere. In the satisfaction of a job done well. In the beauty and elegance of the code. The timeless perfection. or, more realistically and less rose tintedly, people want to implement a functionality for their personal use case and hack together some code and libraries to get it done as quickly as possible
- jart 4y ago
  Then what would be the point in publishing it? Open source isn't just copying files to GitHub. If you aren't putting yourself out there and helping others understand how they might benefit from your work, then it's like a tree falling in the forest. Evangelizing is probably the bulk of the effort. So who would risk embarrassing themselves by evangelizing a giant hairball they slapped together? Any open source of note, you can always count on the fact that someone poured their heart and soul into it, at some point in the project's lifecycle.
  - necovek 4y ago
    Uhm, I've worked on both free software projects that were "a giant hairball" and on nicely structured things to be proud of. Whoever has ever done something knows that you can help someone more with a messy project that does something than a near-perfect codebase that does nothing of value. And you publish something to help someone else! A personal project can be done to achieve something or to aim for that illusive perfection we can never achieve at work (or both, ofc: it's not a XOR). Neither is to be discounted!
    - jart 4y ago
      Yes but without vision, elegance, and leadership, open source is just a dumpster for corporations. Sure dumps are very helpful. But it's still a dump. There's no reason why it has to be that way. For example, something like Goodwill that's helpful and pleasant at the same time.
Dalewyn 4y ago
The (modern?) association of "professional" and "quality" (aka "higher standard" as you describe it) has to do with this simple question: Are you willing to part with your money for something? Being a professional implies that you will deliver a minimum standard of quality and consistency to your customers, because you as a professional are demanding money for your work. Amateur work by comparison can be all over the place, ranging from the mindblowing to the putrid, with no guarantees. The flipside of this is that the only qualification to be a professional is whether you make money with your work. No matter how skilled or knowledgable you are, you aren't a professional if you can't successfully demand or aren't demanding money for your work.
- lioeters 4y ago
  > ..The only qualification to be a professional is whether you make money with your work. So true. And professionals can range from "mindblowing to the putrid, with no guarantees" too. In fact, I'd say they are able to achieve a far greater level of putrid than non-professionals, "amateurs". > An amateur is generally considered a person who pursues an avocation independent from their source of income. Amateurs and their pursuits are also described as popular, informal, self-taught, user-generated, DIY, and hobbyist. That does describe much of the open source world. But great work has come from amateurs. Ah, Wikipedia has a wonderful description of this. > Contribution of amateurs > Many amateurs make valuable contributions in the field of computer programming through the open source movement. > Amateur dramatics is the performance of plays or musical theater, often to high standards, but lacking the budgets of professional West End or Broadway performances. > Astronomy, chemistry, history, linguistics, and the natural sciences are among the fields that have benefited from the activities of amateurs. Gregor Mendel was an amateur scientist who never held a position in his field of study. Radio astronomy was founded by Grote Reber, an amateur radio operator. Radio itself was greatly advanced by Guglielmo Marconi, a young Italian gentleman who started out by tinkering with a coherer and a spark coil as an amateur electrician. Pierre de Fermat was a highly influential mathematician whose primary vocation was law. > In the 2000s and 2010s, the distinction between amateur and professional has become increasingly blurred, especially in areas such as computer programming, music and astronomy. The term amateur professionalism, or pro-am, is used to describe these activities.
- 4y ago
quickthrower2 4y ago
Makes me think of the Olympics which is after all the ultimate sporting event and the competitors are amateurs.
- WJW 4y ago
  This hasn't been the case since the 90s (though the move towards allowing them started much earlier). Professional athletes are allowed to compete in all sports these days. IIRC boxing was the last sport to hold on to the "amateurs only" rule but abandoned it for the 2016 olympics.
ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
> Thus it is with OSS. Given the lack of monetary benefit, the benefits of writing it have to be elsewhere. In the satisfaction of a job done well. In the beauty and elegance of the code. The timeless perfection. > Or the idea that OSS presence will look good on your CV and held get you that job. In which case just throw stuff at Github to make a "portfolio". Never to be looked at again. > I think it's safe to say that the majority of OSS is the later, but we are all better off for the fraction that is the former. In my case, it's the former, but the latter happens to be a byproduct. The analogy that I use, when someone asks me why I do what I do, is thus: Think of me as the old Swiss geek, making cuckoo clocks in his basement. I like making cuckoo clocks. Like, a lot. Cuckoo clocks aren't everyone's cup of tea, and that's fine with me. They are my cup of tea, and that's what matters to me. It's my goal to make the best damn cuckoo clocks available. I hang them all over my house. Every hour on the hour sounds like a Munich Beer Hall band. If you want a cuckoo clock, I'm your man. If you don't, that's fine. I don't lose any sleep over it.

mpol 4y ago

Nicely worded. As examples I would like to call out ffmpeg and x264. Years of refining and refining make it software of a quality that didn't exist before in the world of codecs.

amadeuspagel 4y ago

The meaning of the word amateur comes from the latin "amare", which means love, so an amateur quite literally is someone who loves his work.

rikroots 4y ago
I don't like the word "amateur" in this context - the semantic shift from its origins, and the baggage the word brings with it today makes it feel ... dismissive, insulting; easy to discount and ignore. Looking at the word's synonyms reinforces that feeling[1]. "Hobbyist", on the other hand, feels both knowledgeable and at the same time homely, unthreatening, to me (see synonyms[2]). I don't like talking about my JS library on GitHub[3] as a "side project" (a phrase I think many people would interpret as: "something that may one day make some good money"). Rather, I think about it as one of my hobbies, something I do because the work both fascinates and pleases me, allows me to experiment and push boundaries of what's possible to do with a 2d canvas element in the browser without the need to meet the demands and constraints of employers, clients, time, etc. One of my other hobbies is writing poetry, which probably explains why I care too much about the meanings of words ... [1] - https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/amateur https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/amateur [2] - https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/hobbyist https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/hobbyist [3] - https://github.com/KaliedaRik/Scrawl-canvas https://github.com/KaliedaRik/Scrawl-canvas
- bawolff 4y ago
  Personally i feel like hobbyist has much more dismissive connotations than amatur, but that is just me.
mplanchard 4y ago
Yes, and it retains this meaning in french, where amateur is a false cognate of the english word

nonrandomstring 4y ago

Remuneration is only one dimension in this. A certain distance has opened up in modernity. It is between what is accounted for and what is casual. Between the formal and the informal. Official, and unofficial. It is about what it "recognised" ... by whom? Paradoxically, this age in which everything must be measured, approved, certified and stamped, has made the amateur-professional distinction more about the rituals and symbols of quality rather than measurable quality. My bachelors degree in CS&EE meant reading about 12 books, plus validation through a gauntlet of examinations. For my troubles I got a nice certificate and 40 years of salary increase. The reality is that I read two dozen other books in my spare time as a teenager, just for fun and interest, and received no degree for them. Since then I've read many hundreds of books in my life, on philosophy, law, psychology, politics and other subjects. No degrees. Out of love, I've paid more attention, taken better notes and more deeply considered those subjects than I did in the brief 3 years upon which my credentialled career is predicated. Interestingly a doctor, lawyer or professional politician [1] is as free to write code on which a billion people depend as I, yet I cannot practice law, treat patients or have much of a say in how my society is run [2] - not that I'd be any good at those things. Professionalism seems as much about money as it is about how society, including its incumbent elites and class structures, select who is "recognised", who gets to bestow the blessings, and ultimately to control produce and behaviour. While in the army many young lads, whose "heart isn't really in it", are technically "professional soldiers". They hang up their boots after the first tour. Only the crazy ones who become "contractors" (mercenaries) might be said to have the truest instinct for it. Software has carved out a very unusual niche this past 50 years. It's a mercenary game, so complex and difficult that a genuine meritocracy ensues, one that cannot be ignored or papered over with accolades or associations. Either your code works or it doesn't. But that unregulated laissez faire has also created a brutal world in which becoming a "professional" coder is certainly the best way to kill any fun and love for it. Meanwhile many well paid, hard working lawyers and doctors hold on to the love for their work. So I think "professionalism" and the identity, recognition, provision and protections it can offer makes for some very interesting distinctions. [1] Should we even have "professional" politicians? [2] Voting in a race between two idiots doesn't count.

Silverback_VII 4y ago

bawolff 4y ago

We also used to have a much larger idle rich aristrotic class that could fully devote their energies to their hobbies. In modern times it is usually assumed that an amartur has a real job and can only devote so much time to their hobbies.

ekianjo 4y ago
in modern times everyone has become an aristocrat if you compare disposable time and means available to experiment and access to information.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
jart 4y ago
Could you talk more about this? I mean, I don't think it makes one an aristocrat to be an independently motivated person who isn't living hand to mouth. But what do you think allowed more people to focus on unfettered hobbies in the past, and why would you say are fewer people able to do that today?
- rjsw 4y ago
  The point about being independently wealthy is that you don't have to work at all, you can spend every waking minute on your "hobby".
  - jart 4y ago
    Yes but you don't have to be wealthy to not work. 42% of Americans aren't employed. Would you say they're all aristocrats? You don't even necessarily need a family member to support you either, if you're willing to couchsurf, backpack, and be creative in how you acquire food. Lifestyle anarchists do that for instance, so they can move out and focus on their passions.
    - gjm11 4y ago
      I think most not-employed people fall into categories like these: - People too young to be in employment. - People too old to be in employment. - People with illnesses or disabilities that make employment difficult or impossible. - People who don't have skills that anyone wants to pay them for. These people are not aristocrats, for sure, but most of them will not be highly effective working for love as opposed to working for money. Also, being poor can be exhausting. Someone who isn't employed and isn't an aristocrat is likely to have a lot of their mental energy taken up with surviving, which again is likely to make them less able to do wonderful things working for love. Important note: of course all the above is "most", "likely", etc.; there will be exceptions. Some school-age people are geniuses. Some retired people still have plenty of energy and focus. Some people have illnesses or disabilities that make ordinary jobs impossible but can still do great things if they can do the work on their own time and on their own terms. Some people have skills that others would pay them for if the others had any sense but for whatever reason don't sell themselves well. Etc., etc., etc. But, proportionally, there are going to be fewer people suited to create great things while not employed among that 42% than among the aristocrats of an earlier age. (Or of this age.) Another important note: Of course the starving artist or writer is something of a cliche, so it was never all aristocrats who were creating great things outside the constraints of paid employment.

HidyBush 4y ago

>the benefits of writing it have to be elsewhere. In the satisfaction of a job done well. In the beauty and elegance of the code. The timeless perfection. or, more realistically and less rose tintedly, people want to implement a functionality for their personal use case and hack together some code and libraries to get it done as quickly as possible

jart 4y ago
Then what would be the point in publishing it? Open source isn't just copying files to GitHub. If you aren't putting yourself out there and helping others understand how they might benefit from your work, then it's like a tree falling in the forest. Evangelizing is probably the bulk of the effort. So who would risk embarrassing themselves by evangelizing a giant hairball they slapped together? Any open source of note, you can always count on the fact that someone poured their heart and soul into it, at some point in the project's lifecycle.
- necovek 4y ago
  Uhm, I've worked on both free software projects that were "a giant hairball" and on nicely structured things to be proud of. Whoever has ever done something knows that you can help someone more with a messy project that does something than a near-perfect codebase that does nothing of value. And you publish something to help someone else! A personal project can be done to achieve something or to aim for that illusive perfection we can never achieve at work (or both, ofc: it's not a XOR). Neither is to be discounted!
  - jart 4y ago
    Yes but without vision, elegance, and leadership, open source is just a dumpster for corporations. Sure dumps are very helpful. But it's still a dump. There's no reason why it has to be that way. For example, something like Goodwill that's helpful and pleasant at the same time.

Dalewyn 4y ago

The (modern?) association of "professional" and "quality" (aka "higher standard" as you describe it) has to do with this simple question: Are you willing to part with your money for something? Being a professional implies that you will deliver a minimum standard of quality and consistency to your customers, because you as a professional are demanding money for your work. Amateur work by comparison can be all over the place, ranging from the mindblowing to the putrid, with no guarantees. The flipside of this is that the only qualification to be a professional is whether you make money with your work. No matter how skilled or knowledgable you are, you aren't a professional if you can't successfully demand or aren't demanding money for your work.

lioeters 4y ago
> ..The only qualification to be a professional is whether you make money with your work. So true. And professionals can range from "mindblowing to the putrid, with no guarantees" too. In fact, I'd say they are able to achieve a far greater level of putrid than non-professionals, "amateurs". > An amateur is generally considered a person who pursues an avocation independent from their source of income. Amateurs and their pursuits are also described as popular, informal, self-taught, user-generated, DIY, and hobbyist. That does describe much of the open source world. But great work has come from amateurs. Ah, Wikipedia has a wonderful description of this. > Contribution of amateurs > Many amateurs make valuable contributions in the field of computer programming through the open source movement. > Amateur dramatics is the performance of plays or musical theater, often to high standards, but lacking the budgets of professional West End or Broadway performances. > Astronomy, chemistry, history, linguistics, and the natural sciences are among the fields that have benefited from the activities of amateurs. Gregor Mendel was an amateur scientist who never held a position in his field of study. Radio astronomy was founded by Grote Reber, an amateur radio operator. Radio itself was greatly advanced by Guglielmo Marconi, a young Italian gentleman who started out by tinkering with a coherer and a spark coil as an amateur electrician. Pierre de Fermat was a highly influential mathematician whose primary vocation was law. > In the 2000s and 2010s, the distinction between amateur and professional has become increasingly blurred, especially in areas such as computer programming, music and astronomy. The term amateur professionalism, or pro-am, is used to describe these activities.
4y ago

quickthrower2 4y ago

Makes me think of the Olympics which is after all the ultimate sporting event and the competitors are amateurs.

WJW 4y ago
This hasn't been the case since the 90s (though the move towards allowing them started much earlier). Professional athletes are allowed to compete in all sports these days. IIRC boxing was the last sport to hold on to the "amateurs only" rule but abandoned it for the 2016 olympics.

ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago

> Thus it is with OSS. Given the lack of monetary benefit, the benefits of writing it have to be elsewhere. In the satisfaction of a job done well. In the beauty and elegance of the code. The timeless perfection. > Or the idea that OSS presence will look good on your CV and held get you that job. In which case just throw stuff at Github to make a "portfolio". Never to be looked at again. > I think it's safe to say that the majority of OSS is the later, but we are all better off for the fraction that is the former. In my case, it's the former, but the latter happens to be a byproduct. The analogy that I use, when someone asks me why I do what I do, is thus: Think of me as the old Swiss geek, making cuckoo clocks in his basement. I like making cuckoo clocks. Like, a lot. Cuckoo clocks aren't everyone's cup of tea, and that's fine with me. They are my cup of tea, and that's what matters to me. It's my goal to make the best damn cuckoo clocks available. I hang them all over my house. Every hour on the hour sounds like a Munich Beer Hall band. If you want a cuckoo clock, I'm your man. If you don't, that's fine. I don't lose any sleep over it.