6 ms·

First job platform exclusively for FOSS jobs

69 points by mo 14y ago

jfaucett 14y ago
First I'd like to say I love the idea since I'm a huge FOSS guy. Also I think there is and will become an ever increasing demand for this niche. I'm assumng this is a show HN (could be wrong), so if its critiques you'd like I'd say the #1 problem is the design and visual layout, the generic bootstrap is nice for quickly throwing ideas together but for an actual project where you want traction for me its kind of too unprofessional looking. Otherwise, great job though, I think from an idea and functionality perspective this is awesome, and I would be interested in helping out if you would like it :)
- readme 14y ago
  Meh. This site looks better than 99.9% of sites on the web. Craigslist looks like garbage, yet that is where most people post jobs now. Something tells me design isn't really make or break here, as long as it's usable
  - corysama 14y ago
    Craigslist is often called out as an form of "worse is better" in that having a crappy, 90s site design helps to keep regular Joes from being too intimidated to participate. It's OK to post your boring, crappy whatever because nothing there is "impressive" and everyone's having a fine time.
- Joeboy 14y ago
  > for me its kind of too unprofessional looking For me, I don't care. I want to be able to see the info easily and I want the pages to load / render quickly. I suspect this is a common sentiment among the site's target audience.
- mtgx 14y ago
  > for me its kind of too unprofessional looking That's the case with most open source projects, unfortunately, unless they are led by a big company.
- tobiasu 14y ago
  I'm one of the targets for this site, and I think it looks just fine. Works without JS, offers RSS feeds to drop into rss2email. It's pretty nice for the first version, IMO.
- cloverich 14y ago
  > generic bootstrap is nice for quickly throwing ideas together but for an actual project where you want traction for me its kind of too unprofessional looking. Unprofessional because it doesn't have a unique design? Cause its clean, well put together, and has better usability than 90% of the other sites out there. How is that unprofessional???
  - joshontheweb 14y ago
    yes, because it doesn't have a unique design. It signals a lack of time spent and attention to detail. Not that I don't like the idea.
    - mo 14y ago
      It's a volunteer project all driven by myself. You are right, I did not spend too much time on it - even the source code is mostly not mine. But I think it serves its purpose, and it was more important for me to actually have a platform for FOSS jobs than spend hours coding one.
  - jfaucett 14y ago
    all good and valid points. As I said this is just my opinion, but I think having a unique design is important for distinguishing yourself from the crowd and does help boost the user base, it doesn't have to be beautifull, and of course it depends on the context and your goals. Maybe in this case, it doesn't matter at all if the design is the same as many other sites. Also though, unprofessional was maybe the wrong word, I guess more apt would be "project looking" or something related because I'm so accustomed to seeing github projects that use bootstrap to have a project page in no time.
- pnathan 14y ago
  design kvetching always strikes me as shallow. Just because something looks like others, it's not a problem.
- mo 14y ago
  Sure, I can use all help I can get! The source is on Github, feel free to improve it. Or, if you don't like it at all (it's PHP, and not the cleanest code), drop it and write a replacement. Contact me via email and we can chat about it. You can also find me as "gamambel" on IRC, eg. irc.oftc.net in #tor. This goes for anyone reading these lines :)
mickeyben 14y ago
I think you should add a breadcrumb: when I click on any element on the left navigation list I'm kinda lost. Otherwise, great idea and great execution!
- mo 14y ago
  Thanks for the suggestion. https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/issues/4 https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/issues/4 Maybe someone else wants to pick this up and implement it?
p4bl0 14y ago
We have had such a platform in France for a few years already at http://fr.lolix.org/ http://fr.lolix.org/ :-).
earroway 14y ago
Great idea. Good luck. Have bookmarked it for future use.
padraigm 14y ago
"Is this job ad fake? Report it! or Recommend to a friend" Why would I want to recommend a fake job to a friend? ;)
kephra 14y ago
Great idea, but only two jobs so far. Lets hope they get more offers.
- Vivtek 14y ago
  And one of those doesn't appear to be open-source - it's a job working with what appears to be a closed-source static analysis tool for identifying all the open-source code in an enterprise project so that you can guard against the vulnerabilities introduced by open source. Call me a purist, but guarding against open source doesn't sound like an open source job.
- desaintmartin 14y ago
  It seems they take a bit of time to validate offers. Let's wait. ;)
pjmlp 14y ago
Nice idea. Waiting for possible offers in Europe.
tyena 14y ago
Neat idea! Looking forward to your progress. Have you considered open hardware gigs as well? Currently, I work for http://gun.io http://gun.io - we're trying to encourage FOSS community growth as well (FOSS/non profit postings are free), but trying to also include other code-related jobs
- Evbn 14y ago
  https://www.google.com/search?q=gun.io+github+spam+whitespace https://www.google.com/search?q=gun.io+github+spam+whitespac... gun.io, the outfit that spammed github repos with bogus pull requests with ads attached.
  - Mizza 14y ago
    Oh, lighten up. It was totally open source and many people, including jenkins-ci, have taken my idea and improved upon it, which was exactly my intention with the project: to apply the automatic curation principles of Wikipedia and apply them to F/OSS as a whole.
- mo 14y ago
  YES, open hardware goes as well! I actually thought of a alternative name to "FOSSjobs" to include Open Hardware, but could not imagine a better name. I have updated the short description on the website to reflect that.
ChristianMarks 14y ago
At the tremendous risk of being downvoted, if the site were to list the FOSS jobs that don't pay, the number of listings would be enormous.
- xentronium 14y ago
  If you don't get paid, it's not a job.
  - guyzmo 14y ago
    That's what I keep telling my boss!
skbohra123 14y ago
http://fossjobs.in/ http://fossjobs.in/ this has been active for at least a couple of years now.
- mo 14y ago
  It doesn't actually list jobs FOR open source (companies), but - like many others - jobs USING open source.
cmalpeli 14y ago
Awesome work! I recently launched a niche job board platform and would be happy to give you a free account/site to allow you to focus on growing audience rather than features. I'd love to be able to support your efforts. Check it out at http://www.jobboard.io http://www.jobboard.io
rhc2104 14y ago
Cool. In addition to being a job board, perhaps you could scrape the feeds of FOSS companies. Mozilla- http://hire.jobvite.com/CompanyJobs/Xml.aspx?c=qpX9Vfwa http://hire.jobvite.com/CompanyJobs/Xml.aspx?c=qpX9Vfwa Khan Academy- http://hire.jobvite.com/CompanyJobs/Xml.aspx?k=JobListing&c=qd69Vfw7 http://hire.jobvite.com/CompanyJobs/Xml.aspx?k=JobListing&#3... Canonical- https://ch.tbe.taleo.net/CH03/ats/servlet/Rss?org=CANONICAL&cws=1&WebPage=SRCHR&WebVersion=0&_rss_version=2 https://ch.tbe.taleo.net/CH03/ats/servlet/Rss?org=CANONICAL&...
- mlinksva 14y ago
  https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings Also, https://www.fsf.org/resources/jobs https://www.fsf.org/resources/jobs which I guess is priced too high ($250) to get many listings, or people don't know about it.

69 points by mo 14y ago

First I'd like to say I love the idea since I'm a huge FOSS guy. Also I think there is and will become an ever increasing demand for this niche. I'm assumng this is a show HN (could be wrong), so if its critiques you'd like I'd say the #1 problem is the design and visual layout, the generic bootstrap is nice for quickly throwing ideas together but for an actual project where you want traction for me its kind of too unprofessional looking. Otherwise, great job though, I think from an idea and functionality perspective this is awesome, and I would be interested in helping out if you would like it :)

readme 14y ago
Meh. This site looks better than 99.9% of sites on the web. Craigslist looks like garbage, yet that is where most people post jobs now. Something tells me design isn't really make or break here, as long as it's usable
- corysama 14y ago
  Craigslist is often called out as an form of "worse is better" in that having a crappy, 90s site design helps to keep regular Joes from being too intimidated to participate. It's OK to post your boring, crappy whatever because nothing there is "impressive" and everyone's having a fine time.
Joeboy 14y ago
> for me its kind of too unprofessional looking For me, I don't care. I want to be able to see the info easily and I want the pages to load / render quickly. I suspect this is a common sentiment among the site's target audience.
mtgx 14y ago
> for me its kind of too unprofessional looking That's the case with most open source projects, unfortunately, unless they are led by a big company.
tobiasu 14y ago
I'm one of the targets for this site, and I think it looks just fine. Works without JS, offers RSS feeds to drop into rss2email. It's pretty nice for the first version, IMO.
cloverich 14y ago
> generic bootstrap is nice for quickly throwing ideas together but for an actual project where you want traction for me its kind of too unprofessional looking. Unprofessional because it doesn't have a unique design? Cause its clean, well put together, and has better usability than 90% of the other sites out there. How is that unprofessional???
- joshontheweb 14y ago
  yes, because it doesn't have a unique design. It signals a lack of time spent and attention to detail. Not that I don't like the idea.
  - mo 14y ago
    It's a volunteer project all driven by myself. You are right, I did not spend too much time on it - even the source code is mostly not mine. But I think it serves its purpose, and it was more important for me to actually have a platform for FOSS jobs than spend hours coding one.
- jfaucett 14y ago
  all good and valid points. As I said this is just my opinion, but I think having a unique design is important for distinguishing yourself from the crowd and does help boost the user base, it doesn't have to be beautifull, and of course it depends on the context and your goals. Maybe in this case, it doesn't matter at all if the design is the same as many other sites. Also though, unprofessional was maybe the wrong word, I guess more apt would be "project looking" or something related because I'm so accustomed to seeing github projects that use bootstrap to have a project page in no time.
pnathan 14y ago
design kvetching always strikes me as shallow. Just because something looks like others, it's not a problem.
mo 14y ago
Sure, I can use all help I can get! The source is on Github, feel free to improve it. Or, if you don't like it at all (it's PHP, and not the cleanest code), drop it and write a replacement. Contact me via email and we can chat about it. You can also find me as "gamambel" on IRC, eg. irc.oftc.net in #tor. This goes for anyone reading these lines :)

mickeyben 14y ago

I think you should add a breadcrumb: when I click on any element on the left navigation list I'm kinda lost. Otherwise, great idea and great execution!

mo 14y ago
Thanks for the suggestion. https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/issues/4 https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/issues/4 Maybe someone else wants to pick this up and implement it?

p4bl0 14y ago

We have had such a platform in France for a few years already at http://fr.lolix.org/ http://fr.lolix.org/ :-).

earroway 14y ago

Great idea. Good luck. Have bookmarked it for future use.

padraigm 14y ago

"Is this job ad fake? Report it! or Recommend to a friend" Why would I want to recommend a fake job to a friend? ;)

kephra 14y ago

Great idea, but only two jobs so far. Lets hope they get more offers.

Vivtek 14y ago
And one of those doesn't appear to be open-source - it's a job working with what appears to be a closed-source static analysis tool for identifying all the open-source code in an enterprise project so that you can guard against the vulnerabilities introduced by open source. Call me a purist, but guarding against open source doesn't sound like an open source job.
desaintmartin 14y ago
It seems they take a bit of time to validate offers. Let's wait. ;)

pjmlp 14y ago

Nice idea. Waiting for possible offers in Europe.

tyena 14y ago

Neat idea! Looking forward to your progress. Have you considered open hardware gigs as well? Currently, I work for http://gun.io http://gun.io - we're trying to encourage FOSS community growth as well (FOSS/non profit postings are free), but trying to also include other code-related jobs

Evbn 14y ago
https://www.google.com/search?q=gun.io+github+spam+whitespace https://www.google.com/search?q=gun.io+github+spam+whitespac... gun.io, the outfit that spammed github repos with bogus pull requests with ads attached.
- Mizza 14y ago
  Oh, lighten up. It was totally open source and many people, including jenkins-ci, have taken my idea and improved upon it, which was exactly my intention with the project: to apply the automatic curation principles of Wikipedia and apply them to F/OSS as a whole.
mo 14y ago
YES, open hardware goes as well! I actually thought of a alternative name to "FOSSjobs" to include Open Hardware, but could not imagine a better name. I have updated the short description on the website to reflect that.

ChristianMarks 14y ago

At the tremendous risk of being downvoted, if the site were to list the FOSS jobs that don't pay, the number of listings would be enormous.

xentronium 14y ago
If you don't get paid, it's not a job.
- guyzmo 14y ago
  That's what I keep telling my boss!

skbohra123 14y ago

http://fossjobs.in/ http://fossjobs.in/ this has been active for at least a couple of years now.

mo 14y ago
It doesn't actually list jobs FOR open source (companies), but - like many others - jobs USING open source.

cmalpeli 14y ago

Awesome work! I recently launched a niche job board platform and would be happy to give you a free account/site to allow you to focus on growing audience rather than features. I'd love to be able to support your efforts. Check it out at http://www.jobboard.io http://www.jobboard.io

rhc2104 14y ago

Cool. In addition to being a job board, perhaps you could scrape the feeds of FOSS companies. Mozilla- http://hire.jobvite.com/CompanyJobs/Xml.aspx?c=qpX9Vfwa http://hire.jobvite.com/CompanyJobs/Xml.aspx?c=qpX9Vfwa Khan Academy- http://hire.jobvite.com/CompanyJobs/Xml.aspx?k=JobListing&c=qd69Vfw7 http://hire.jobvite.com/CompanyJobs/Xml.aspx?k=JobListing&#3... Canonical- https://ch.tbe.taleo.net/CH03/ats/servlet/Rss?org=CANONICAL&cws=1&WebPage=SRCHR&WebVersion=0&_rss_version=2 https://ch.tbe.taleo.net/CH03/ats/servlet/Rss?org=CANONICAL&...

mlinksva 14y ago
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings Also, https://www.fsf.org/resources/jobs https://www.fsf.org/resources/jobs which I guess is priced too high ($250) to get many listings, or people don't know about it.