On Thu, 27 Jun 2019, Eric S. Raymond wrote:
I think many of us assume that doing the sort of work you're referring to
will definitely result in the regular receipt of many prestigious,
high-paying job offers.
When that happens, it's actually a problem.
Let's suppose that someone were to judge I've been doing high-quality
work on security-hardened NTP. I get a job offer as a result. Is it
going to be to work on NTP? Nope, you can't monetize NTP, so my employer
will want me to work on something else that generates a profit.
Boom. We lose.
This may have been an anomaly made possible by early .com $, but I'm
pretty sure at one point, companies like VA Research / VA Linux employed
developers who in various cases worked part or full time on the Linux
kernel and other Open Source projects "as their job".
That you've developed/maintained software that's in every Android device,
but haven't been paid by anyone for that may be the biggest flaw with Open
Source / Free Software. Presumably, if you chose to stop doing that work
and nobody volunteered to step into your place, Google (and others) would
be forced to fork the code and pay developers to maintain their own
versions.
Free software was meant to give users control of / access to the
code...not create a parasitic ecosystem where some people code because
they enjoy doing it and others profit from their work by packaging and
selling it or things based on it.
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Jon Lewis, MCP :) | I route
| therefore you are
_________ http://www.lewis.org/~jlewis/pgp for PGP public key_________
