7 ms·

Genuine question, is there any other professional field in the world where people work for free like how Software Engineers work in open source?

Hamuko 3y ago
Volunteer firefighters.
- Hendrikto 3y ago
  At least in Germany, they are not professionals working unpaid. They are just volunteers with other jobs. Not really comparable.
  - Hamuko 3y ago
    Not everyone in open source is a professional software engineer.
  - mminer237 3y ago
    In many smaller communities, at least in the US, they are just volunteers with other jobs, but they still have to do hundreds of hours of training each year to keep all the certifications.
- willyt 3y ago
  In Britain they are paid as well. They get a yearly retainer of ~£6k for being on 5 min standby and are also paid per call out.
joshxyz 3y ago
pro bono aka volunteer work that hones their skills
sureMan 3y ago
Off course, vets volunteering at animal shelters, same for MD's, medics and nurses at shelters, lawyers doing pro bono work, etc
fhd2 3y ago
People working on open source don't necessarily do it for free, I know tons who are sponsored by their company. That aside, at least in Germany, there is a considerable amount of volunteers, e.g. in social work.
d0gsg0w00f 3y ago
Politics. People want to influence their world and volunteer for local seats. Then they have to figure out how to not be corrupted by the power.
dikei 3y ago
To be fair, there are not many professions that a single individual can make so much impact as Software Engineering. People say 10x Software Engineer, rarely 10x Electrical Engineer.
- moooo99 3y ago
  I would argue most volunteer firefighters and other social volunteers have more net-positive impact than the vast majority software engineers.
  - Cyphase 3y ago
    They didn't say positive. I think they were thinking in terms of leverage.
  - MichaelZuo 3y ago
    Are you sure? A huge chunk of cost increases in modern high rise building (outside of land and taxes) is due to ever more stringent fire safety requirements.
    - moooo99 3y ago
      Would you like to see your house burn completely to the ground? Would you know how to deal with a car wreckage? I don’t, I’m grateful for those people existing. Regarding safety regulations, those were most often driven by tragedies that occurred prior to those regulations being in place. I prefer being alive over saving money
      - MichaelZuo 3y ago
        You’ll almost certainly get outvoted by the lower housing cost crowd, considering the usual comments on HN for these topics.
        moooo99 3y ago
        well its been 5 hours and it doesn't seem like it has happened (yet). But trust me, I understand the sentiment. Housing becoming increasingly unattainable is a issue on many levels, I just think that there are other, worse, contributing factors to the overall situation. Compromising on fire safety or other reasonable safety factors effectively won't help anybody when there still is an ever increasing amount of institutional investment hiking prices on the market.
Hendrikto 3y ago
Lawyers often do pro bono work.
NeoTar 3y ago
A few examples: - Doctors/Nurses working at free-clincs, - Legal professionals will sometimes offer their services for free to needy individuals (I don't mean no-win-no-fee, but more writing a letter to a landlord on a tenant's behalf) - Many people in the accountancy profession will offer their services to local groups/societies as treasurers or to do annual accounts, (indeed the whole boards of such groups are often unpaid, but may be less of a profession), - Often at least some members of a board-of-directors for a charity will be volunteers, As a more out-of-left field example, I recently met a really quite famous academic volunteering as a tour-guide at a historical house.
- seabass-labrax 3y ago
  > Legal professionals Pro bono legal work, which is unpaid, is actually a requirement for practising lawyers in some jurisdictions. New York is one such example. > Often at least some members of a board-of-directors for a charity will be volunteers Depending on how you define the terms, all of the directors will be volunteers. The most common structure for charities is a board of trustees/directors between around 5 and 10 members, who are all unpaid and part-time. The board is led by the Chair(man, woman) of the Board, who is otherwise just an ordinary board member. The meetings are facilitated by the Chief Executive, who is not a board member but a full-time, paid employee of the charity. Underneath the Chief Executive are other full-time paid staff who are supposed to follow the leadership of the Chief Executive, and who often don't get to attend the board meetings. This group may be any size between zero and thousands of individuals! Confusingly, some organisations call certain people in the middle-management of this team 'directors'. To conclude: Board: unpaid - '(Non-executive) Directors', 'Trustees' or 'Councillors'. Staff: paid, usually full-time - includes 'Executives', '(Executive) Directors' and possibly many other non-management roles. Some charities' boards get so large they become more like the parliaments of liberal democracies - Speakers, votes, elections. That's only the most conventional structure - I'd be happy to elaborate on the edge cases too! :)
- morkalork 3y ago
  I had a language teacher that before working professionally spent many months as a volunteer teaching free classes for immigrants and refugees. The way he made it sound was that nobody got hired without doing that free work.
phkahler 3y ago
>> Genuine question, is there any other professional field in the world where people work for free like how Software Engineers work in open source? Woodworking, restoring old cars, building airplanes. These are all things that people do for themselves at their own cost. The difference is that software has a marginal cost of zero, so they hand it out to everyone and collaborate to make it better.
izacus 3y ago
Huge huge majority of open source (especially famous one) is developed by people that are paid to do so by corporations. So it's a misleading premise.
non-chalad 3y ago
Collaborative writing (1), movie making (2), terrorist hunting (3), and volunteer forum moderation (4), are all things. Fanfiction (5) is also written for free. All of these have been, in the past, variyng degrees of professional. 1. https://www.makeuseof.com/collaborative-fiction-sites-improve-writing-skills/ https://www.makeuseof.com/collaborative-fiction-sites-improv... 2. Iron Sky (2012), Moon (2009), Norwegian Ninja (2010) all involved free collaboration, to varying degrees. 3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OR6epSP_Xlw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OR6epSP_Xlw 4. https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3491102.3517628 https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3491102.3517628 5. http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/1/Harry_Potter_and_the_Methods_of_Rationality http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/1/Harry_Potter_and_the_M...

Hamuko 3y ago

Volunteer firefighters.

Hendrikto 3y ago
At least in Germany, they are not professionals working unpaid. They are just volunteers with other jobs. Not really comparable.
- Hamuko 3y ago
  Not everyone in open source is a professional software engineer.
- mminer237 3y ago
  In many smaller communities, at least in the US, they are just volunteers with other jobs, but they still have to do hundreds of hours of training each year to keep all the certifications.
willyt 3y ago
In Britain they are paid as well. They get a yearly retainer of ~£6k for being on 5 min standby and are also paid per call out.

joshxyz 3y ago

pro bono aka volunteer work that hones their skills

sureMan 3y ago

Off course, vets volunteering at animal shelters, same for MD's, medics and nurses at shelters, lawyers doing pro bono work, etc

fhd2 3y ago

People working on open source don't necessarily do it for free, I know tons who are sponsored by their company. That aside, at least in Germany, there is a considerable amount of volunteers, e.g. in social work.

d0gsg0w00f 3y ago

Politics. People want to influence their world and volunteer for local seats. Then they have to figure out how to not be corrupted by the power.

dikei 3y ago

To be fair, there are not many professions that a single individual can make so much impact as Software Engineering. People say 10x Software Engineer, rarely 10x Electrical Engineer.

moooo99 3y ago
I would argue most volunteer firefighters and other social volunteers have more net-positive impact than the vast majority software engineers.
- Cyphase 3y ago
  They didn't say positive. I think they were thinking in terms of leverage.
- MichaelZuo 3y ago
  Are you sure? A huge chunk of cost increases in modern high rise building (outside of land and taxes) is due to ever more stringent fire safety requirements.
  - moooo99 3y ago
    Would you like to see your house burn completely to the ground? Would you know how to deal with a car wreckage? I don’t, I’m grateful for those people existing. Regarding safety regulations, those were most often driven by tragedies that occurred prior to those regulations being in place. I prefer being alive over saving money
    - MichaelZuo 3y ago
      You’ll almost certainly get outvoted by the lower housing cost crowd, considering the usual comments on HN for these topics.
      - moooo99 3y ago
        well its been 5 hours and it doesn't seem like it has happened (yet). But trust me, I understand the sentiment. Housing becoming increasingly unattainable is a issue on many levels, I just think that there are other, worse, contributing factors to the overall situation. Compromising on fire safety or other reasonable safety factors effectively won't help anybody when there still is an ever increasing amount of institutional investment hiking prices on the market.

Hendrikto 3y ago

Lawyers often do pro bono work.

NeoTar 3y ago

A few examples: - Doctors/Nurses working at free-clincs, - Legal professionals will sometimes offer their services for free to needy individuals (I don't mean no-win-no-fee, but more writing a letter to a landlord on a tenant's behalf) - Many people in the accountancy profession will offer their services to local groups/societies as treasurers or to do annual accounts, (indeed the whole boards of such groups are often unpaid, but may be less of a profession), - Often at least some members of a board-of-directors for a charity will be volunteers, As a more out-of-left field example, I recently met a really quite famous academic volunteering as a tour-guide at a historical house.

seabass-labrax 3y ago
> Legal professionals Pro bono legal work, which is unpaid, is actually a requirement for practising lawyers in some jurisdictions. New York is one such example. > Often at least some members of a board-of-directors for a charity will be volunteers Depending on how you define the terms, all of the directors will be volunteers. The most common structure for charities is a board of trustees/directors between around 5 and 10 members, who are all unpaid and part-time. The board is led by the Chair(man, woman) of the Board, who is otherwise just an ordinary board member. The meetings are facilitated by the Chief Executive, who is not a board member but a full-time, paid employee of the charity. Underneath the Chief Executive are other full-time paid staff who are supposed to follow the leadership of the Chief Executive, and who often don't get to attend the board meetings. This group may be any size between zero and thousands of individuals! Confusingly, some organisations call certain people in the middle-management of this team 'directors'. To conclude: Board: unpaid - '(Non-executive) Directors', 'Trustees' or 'Councillors'. Staff: paid, usually full-time - includes 'Executives', '(Executive) Directors' and possibly many other non-management roles. Some charities' boards get so large they become more like the parliaments of liberal democracies - Speakers, votes, elections. That's only the most conventional structure - I'd be happy to elaborate on the edge cases too! :)
morkalork 3y ago
I had a language teacher that before working professionally spent many months as a volunteer teaching free classes for immigrants and refugees. The way he made it sound was that nobody got hired without doing that free work.

phkahler 3y ago

>> Genuine question, is there any other professional field in the world where people work for free like how Software Engineers work in open source? Woodworking, restoring old cars, building airplanes. These are all things that people do for themselves at their own cost. The difference is that software has a marginal cost of zero, so they hand it out to everyone and collaborate to make it better.

izacus 3y ago

Huge huge majority of open source (especially famous one) is developed by people that are paid to do so by corporations. So it's a misleading premise.

non-chalad 3y ago

Collaborative writing (1), movie making (2), terrorist hunting (3), and volunteer forum moderation (4), are all things. Fanfiction (5) is also written for free. All of these have been, in the past, variyng degrees of professional. 1. https://www.makeuseof.com/collaborative-fiction-sites-improve-writing-skills/ https://www.makeuseof.com/collaborative-fiction-sites-improv... 2. Iron Sky (2012), Moon (2009), Norwegian Ninja (2010) all involved free collaboration, to varying degrees. 3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OR6epSP_Xlw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OR6epSP_Xlw 4. https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3491102.3517628 https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3491102.3517628 5. http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/1/Harry_Potter_and_the_Methods_of_Rationality http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/1/Harry_Potter_and_the_M...