6 ms·

Young programmers: please don't buy into this mindset. It's one of the many ways to find yourself exploited in this industry. Contributing to Open Source is a

Young programmers: please don't buy into this mindset. It's one of the many ways to find yourself exploited in this industry. Contributing to Open Source is a good thing, but only do it if you're getting some benefit from it. Does spending your time writing code for other people give you some business advantage? Help establish your reputation? Pay you cash money? Tickle your creativity and make you happy? Cool, then go for it. But think twice before spending your time patching somebody else's thing for free. Chances are they are getting one of those tangible benefits from it, and if you're not, well, what does that make you? Notice that many of those big, altruistic Open Source projects that made the world a better place also made the world a better place for their corporate sponsors in very specific and well thought out ways [1]. There's not that much real charity to be found, even though it would make a better story if there were. Notice further that all those upsides listed above can also be had from developing your own for-profit, possibly closed source software products or working for somebody else doing so. If whatever you're doing isn't getting you further ahead than that, it's your duty to yourself to fix that. [1] http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/StrategyLetterV.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/StrategyLetterV.html

acabal 13y ago
That's a pretty negative perspective. Not everything has to be about money and getting ahead. I think there's a lot to be said for contributing back to the community for the greater good, without a profit motive. That doesn't mean you have to patch someone else's profitable code for free, but creating your own stuff to give away to the world, or contributing to a project whose philosophy or utility you like regardless of their corporate sponsor, is a very good thing to do. I'd suggest the opposite of parent comment's advice to young programmers. Don't buy in to the mindset of "how does this benefit me, me, me." If you find yourself in a position where you're happy with your burgeoning career--i.e., having a roof over your head, and not worrying about your next meal--contributing your talent to F/OSS, regardless of who "benefits", is one of the best ways you can apply your specialized domain knowledge to improving the general good. Basically what the article says.
- jiggy2011 13y ago
  In that case project selection is important. Unpaid work towards a project who's main effect will be to reduce licensing costs for fortune 500 companies is very different to working on something to (say) improve educational outcomes for low income children.
  - cpursley 13y ago
    This is a very narrow perspective. Hacking on open source does increase the education improvement for low income children. Example: Poor kids in Africa now have android phones and have access to open source education materials made possible via open source web technologies.
    - jiggy2011 13y ago
      Android is developed mainly by paid engineers, not people giving their time as "civic duty".
      - cpursley 13y ago
        What is Android based on? Linux.
        pmh 13y ago
        Linux kernel development is also primarily[1] done by paid engineers [1] http://www.linuxfoundation.org/news-media/announcements/2012/04/linux-foundation-releases-annual-linux-development-report http://www.linuxfoundation.org/news-media/announcements/2012...
        pjmlp 13y ago
        Linux wouldn't be where it is today without the work of full time engineers paid to work on it.
- Dewie 13y ago
  > That's a pretty negative perspective. Not everything has to be about money and getting ahead. Nor was every possible motivation given about money/getting ahead - intrinsic motivation (happiness) was mentioned, too.
fc2 13y ago
Life is more than just climbing the food chain and making money. Also open source projects are not "somebody else's", they belong to everyone. When you contribute to open source all of mankind is benefited.
platzhirsch 13y ago
I think it is very questionable to compare charity with open source, but raising the question whether certain open source contributions will give you a business advantage is the worst I have read so far. To my mind, this kind of moral concept is still embodied by too many people in our societies. It is also the kind that promotes greed in its very nature. Too often do I see people measuring out their decisions by simply doing a cost accounting as if they could die next week. There is also a big gap between giving things for seemingly free away and becoming exploiting in the industry. Saying no to something if it is not appropriate is something every human being has to learn, I do not see any connection here to open source activities.
malandrew 13y ago
The reason software developers today have so much power and flexibility can be directly attributed to open-source. Open-source tools are good enough now that 1-4 engineers who are friends can get together and build something amazing and profitable while standing of the shoulders of giants via open-source software. If most things were not open source, we'd be paying a lot more to be able to do our work and we'd have a lot fewer references and examples to study and learn from as we try to invent something of value. Without open-source, many of us would be spending months to years longer to bring a product to market.
lifeisstillgood 13y ago
Young and old programmers - please do buy into this mindset, but do not blindly or randomly contribute to any OSS project out there. As your civic duty, contribute to a project that has civic value. For preference contribute to the services governments are legally obliged to provide. Think about say Electorarl Roll Management services. There are over 2000 services local UK governments have to supply - choose one, http://oss4gov.org/lgsl http://oss4gov.org/lgsl then find a local councillor who cares and start delivering. That's going to make value. Not IPO value, maybe not even gonna get paid value - but it makes government services better. Remember the story about the airline check-in clerk who was looking up flights in the free public iPhone app because the official airline system was slow and confusing. Now imagine there are hundreds of thousands of government employees just like her in front of appallingly bad software. There is plenty to keep you busy. Edit: fat fingered a draft post Edit: it's no harder to get open source software into go ernment than into private sector organisations - it's just that no-one with the skills to buikd has the itches government needs scratching
belorn 13y ago
Young citizen: please don't buy into this mindset of contributing back to society. It's one of the many ways to find yourself exploited today. Contributing back to the community is a good thing, but only do it if you're getting some benefit from it. Does spending your money and time for other people give you some business advantage? Help establish your reputation? Pay you back in return? Tickle your morality and make you happy? Cool, then go for it. But think twice before contributing your time or money for somebody else for free. Chances are they are getting one of those tangible benefits from it, and if you're not, well, what does that make you? (the above is satire, with purpose of criticism)
- Dewie 13y ago
  > Young citizen: please don't buy into this mindset of contributing back to society. It's one of the many ways to find yourself exploited today. Contributing back to the community is a good thing, but only do it if you're getting some benefit from it. Does spending your money and time for other people give you some business advantage? Help establish your reputation? Pay you back in return? Tickle your morality and make you happy? Cool, then go for it. But think twice before contributing your time or money for somebody else for free. Chances are they are getting one of those tangible benefits from it, and if you're not, well, what does that make you? Yep, pretty much agree. > (the above is satire, with purpose of criticism) Oh...
ak217 13y ago
When you develop software on top of an open-source stack, you stand on the shoulders of giants. If you make a modification to an open-source package and profit from it, you have a moral obligation to eventually contribute this code back to the community.
aclevernickname 13y ago
Disgusting. This is the first post on HN that actually offended me. I bet this is how the Homebrew Computer Club felt after reading Bill Gates' Open Letter to Hobbyists [1] back in '75. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists

acabal 13y ago

That's a pretty negative perspective. Not everything has to be about money and getting ahead. I think there's a lot to be said for contributing back to the community for the greater good, without a profit motive. That doesn't mean you have to patch someone else's profitable code for free, but creating your own stuff to give away to the world, or contributing to a project whose philosophy or utility you like regardless of their corporate sponsor, is a very good thing to do. I'd suggest the opposite of parent comment's advice to young programmers. Don't buy in to the mindset of "how does this benefit me, me, me." If you find yourself in a position where you're happy with your burgeoning career--i.e., having a roof over your head, and not worrying about your next meal--contributing your talent to F/OSS, regardless of who "benefits", is one of the best ways you can apply your specialized domain knowledge to improving the general good. Basically what the article says.

jiggy2011 13y ago
In that case project selection is important. Unpaid work towards a project who's main effect will be to reduce licensing costs for fortune 500 companies is very different to working on something to (say) improve educational outcomes for low income children.
- cpursley 13y ago
  This is a very narrow perspective. Hacking on open source does increase the education improvement for low income children. Example: Poor kids in Africa now have android phones and have access to open source education materials made possible via open source web technologies.
  - jiggy2011 13y ago
    Android is developed mainly by paid engineers, not people giving their time as "civic duty".
    - cpursley 13y ago
      What is Android based on? Linux.
      - pmh 13y ago
        Linux kernel development is also primarily[1] done by paid engineers [1] http://www.linuxfoundation.org/news-media/announcements/2012/04/linux-foundation-releases-annual-linux-development-report http://www.linuxfoundation.org/news-media/announcements/2012...
      - pjmlp 13y ago
        Linux wouldn't be where it is today without the work of full time engineers paid to work on it.
Dewie 13y ago
> That's a pretty negative perspective. Not everything has to be about money and getting ahead. Nor was every possible motivation given about money/getting ahead - intrinsic motivation (happiness) was mentioned, too.

fc2 13y ago

Life is more than just climbing the food chain and making money. Also open source projects are not "somebody else's", they belong to everyone. When you contribute to open source all of mankind is benefited.

platzhirsch 13y ago

I think it is very questionable to compare charity with open source, but raising the question whether certain open source contributions will give you a business advantage is the worst I have read so far. To my mind, this kind of moral concept is still embodied by too many people in our societies. It is also the kind that promotes greed in its very nature. Too often do I see people measuring out their decisions by simply doing a cost accounting as if they could die next week. There is also a big gap between giving things for seemingly free away and becoming exploiting in the industry. Saying no to something if it is not appropriate is something every human being has to learn, I do not see any connection here to open source activities.

malandrew 13y ago

The reason software developers today have so much power and flexibility can be directly attributed to open-source. Open-source tools are good enough now that 1-4 engineers who are friends can get together and build something amazing and profitable while standing of the shoulders of giants via open-source software. If most things were not open source, we'd be paying a lot more to be able to do our work and we'd have a lot fewer references and examples to study and learn from as we try to invent something of value. Without open-source, many of us would be spending months to years longer to bring a product to market.

lifeisstillgood 13y ago

Young and old programmers - please do buy into this mindset, but do not blindly or randomly contribute to any OSS project out there. As your civic duty, contribute to a project that has civic value. For preference contribute to the services governments are legally obliged to provide. Think about say Electorarl Roll Management services. There are over 2000 services local UK governments have to supply - choose one, http://oss4gov.org/lgsl http://oss4gov.org/lgsl then find a local councillor who cares and start delivering. That's going to make value. Not IPO value, maybe not even gonna get paid value - but it makes government services better. Remember the story about the airline check-in clerk who was looking up flights in the free public iPhone app because the official airline system was slow and confusing. Now imagine there are hundreds of thousands of government employees just like her in front of appallingly bad software. There is plenty to keep you busy. Edit: fat fingered a draft post Edit: it's no harder to get open source software into go ernment than into private sector organisations - it's just that no-one with the skills to buikd has the itches government needs scratching

belorn 13y ago

Young citizen: please don't buy into this mindset of contributing back to society. It's one of the many ways to find yourself exploited today. Contributing back to the community is a good thing, but only do it if you're getting some benefit from it. Does spending your money and time for other people give you some business advantage? Help establish your reputation? Pay you back in return? Tickle your morality and make you happy? Cool, then go for it. But think twice before contributing your time or money for somebody else for free. Chances are they are getting one of those tangible benefits from it, and if you're not, well, what does that make you? (the above is satire, with purpose of criticism)

Dewie 13y ago
> Young citizen: please don't buy into this mindset of contributing back to society. It's one of the many ways to find yourself exploited today. Contributing back to the community is a good thing, but only do it if you're getting some benefit from it. Does spending your money and time for other people give you some business advantage? Help establish your reputation? Pay you back in return? Tickle your morality and make you happy? Cool, then go for it. But think twice before contributing your time or money for somebody else for free. Chances are they are getting one of those tangible benefits from it, and if you're not, well, what does that make you? Yep, pretty much agree. > (the above is satire, with purpose of criticism) Oh...

ak217 13y ago

When you develop software on top of an open-source stack, you stand on the shoulders of giants. If you make a modification to an open-source package and profit from it, you have a moral obligation to eventually contribute this code back to the community.

aclevernickname 13y ago

Disgusting. This is the first post on HN that actually offended me. I bet this is how the Homebrew Computer Club felt after reading Bill Gates' Open Letter to Hobbyists [1] back in '75. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists