
Fossjobs: A website for free and open-source software jobs - rendx
https://www.fossjobs.net/
======
laumars
The first link I clicked on (the UK section[1]) was listed entire with jobs
dated _2015_. Even assuming some of those companies still have openings,
seeing results that old immediately discourages me from investigating further
on your resource. So it might be worth hiding expired positions from a UX
perspective.

[1] [https://www.fossjobs.net/jobs-in/United-
Kingdom/](https://www.fossjobs.net/jobs-in/United-Kingdom/)

edit: The 2nd link I click on had jobs ranging from 2014 to 2012. I respect
the effort you're putting into this curated list but displaying jobs _that_
old is a little silly.

~~~
smhenderson
Indeed. I clicked the US link and the newest post is from August 2016. And
that's the only one from 2016. The next newest is from August 2015 and they
quickly get much older than that as you move down the list.

I guess the one benefit is seeing a list of potential employers of FOSS
developers even if it means researching current possibilities elsewhere...

~~~
phkahler
As I write your post is 7 hours old. I saw 4 posted in the US for 2017 so
perhaps being on HN is getting them some attention. But yes, there were things
from 2012.

~~~
smhenderson
That's great! As mentioned my initial take away was at least it was a good
place to start researching companies that actually have FOSS positions
available whose focus is on contributions and not just using/understanding
FOSS.

After my comment I read more and it looks like they want more contributions
and, I agree, being on HN probably helped!

------
oever
The market for FOSS programmers will grow in Europe. A report has just been
published that says “open source is important for the future of the European
software industry.” [1]

In the UK, Government Digital Service already has a strict policy that
software it writes should be open.

Being able to write FOSS in your day job is a wonderful boon . Especially in
government it will help offset the lower salaries of the public sector.

[1] [https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/ec-study-
rec...](https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/ec-study-recommends-
policies-emphasise-open-source)

~~~
jon-wood
I wonder how much of an incentive writing open source at somewhere like GDS
actually is. While its certainly nice to develop in the open how much of what
you write is actually useful in future jobs?

~~~
wiz21c
If I could work on GPL'ed software, I'd do it just for the sake of the
political argument (yes, I'm that far :-) )

~~~
fithisux
Me too. (yes me too)

------
tannhaeuser
Congrats, there seem to be interesting offerings and employers on
fossjobs.net. What are the criteria to be listed on fossjobs.net? Right now,
I'm also seeing some admin/devops jobs that are only related to F/OSS insofar
as eg. Linux is being used, but won't contribute to anything distributable
under F/OSS licenses.

~~~
mo
(Hi! This is Moritz, who currently maintains the fossjobs site)

It's hard to define clear criteria.

We do want to avoid jobs where people just "use" FOSS. The focus is definitely
paid positions where you /contribute/ to FOSS in some way. Besides obvious
developer positions, that might be administrative or sysop jobs at FOSS
projects/orgs or other non-profit environments, more than sysop jobs at random
web startups.

~~~
r3bl
Since you're currently maintaining the site, you might want to consider
splitting "Serbia and Montenegro" into two separate countries, since they've
been independent from each other for over a decade now.

~~~
mo
Done. Thanks!

------
bigato
It would be interesting to have an option to pay for desired new features in
existing projects. You could call it "bid for code" or something: people who
need a certain feature in an open-source project would commit to paying some
amount of money for it. Other people interested in the same feature could also
join. A bit similar to a kickstarter, but for feature requests. Developers
would choose what to work on, depending on how much money is being offered.

Is there something like this out there already? This could be a feature in
this site or a completely new site if someone wants to take on this idea.
Github should offer this option!

~~~
severine
Do you mean something like Bountysource?
[https://www.bountysource.com/](https://www.bountysource.com/)

~~~
bigato
Oh, that's nice, thank you. And it looks like they already have some
integration with github:
[http://blog.bountysource.com/post/48954271533/improved-
githu...](http://blog.bountysource.com/post/48954271533/improved-github-
integration-automatically-update)

~~~
rasjani
Codemill also has github integration but it's not very actively used.

------
sinaa
Great idea!

The following text could be improved though (looks as if it is suggesting to
recommend a fake job to a friend):

"Is this job ad fake? Report it! or Recommend to a friend"

~~~
mpeg
It weeds out the competition.

------
navs
Wow this is great! I've grown tired of the typical agency world of billable
hours and conversions. Looking forward to seeing more jobs posted across the
gamut of IT.

Also happy to see this working without javascript or unnecessary marketing
tags. It's refreshing.

------
jwildeboer
I guess the Red Hat job openings are not FOSS enough?

;-) (disclaimer: I work at Red Hat, happy to hook site maintainer up with our
team to coordinate)

~~~
davexunit
Is it possible to work at Red Hat without using any proprietary software, let
alone write any?

~~~
user5994461
It's not possible to work ANYWHERE without using proprietary software, running
on patended hardware, coming partially from China.

~~~
davexunit
Hardware and patents are both unrelated to my question.

------
rendx
[https://www.twitter.com/fossjobs_net](https://www.twitter.com/fossjobs_net)

[https://www.facebook.com/fossjobs.net/](https://www.facebook.com/fossjobs.net/)

------
Perceptes
What a great resource! I used weworkremotely.com to find my current job. A
combination of the two would be perfect for me, but I see that many of the
jobs are already remote. I'm also pleased to see the term "Programmer" used
instead of "Software Engineer." I always identify myself as the former.

~~~
Cthulhu_
I identify as the latter; "programmer" narrows your job title down to someone
that writes code, while the latter opens up the full scala involved in
software development. Most time is spent not on writing code, but talking
about it - this is even more true in a lot of OS projects I've seen, where
there can be very long mailing list discussions about changing small pieces of
code. And besides that, there's also things like server administration,
datacenter automation, data modelling, analytics configuration and statistics
processing, knowledge sharing / transfer (blogs, conferences if that's your
thing), etc.

------
specialist
I worked on a FOSS project. Part of the Kuali consortia, making software for
higher education.

I took the job to learn how these kinds of projects work. Specifically, the
governance model. Well, _it didn 't_.

I wish I understood why.

Writing about open sourcing Solaris, I think it was btilly who said that
others had the _right_ to fork, but not the _power_.

That describes Kuali perfectly. We consortia members couldn't do anything to
help ourselves improve things, like simple bug fixes, without it being a major
production. Very disempowering, pretty much the opposite of why I wanted to
work on FOSS.

We need academic style comparative analysis of FOSS governance models, funding
models, project methodologies, etc. Learn from our mistakes, help people in
the future.

~~~
jldugger
I figure any percieved inertia in Kuali is a reflection of it's constituents.
If all consortia members' IT dept are on an annual upgrade cycle over summer
break, there's little incentive to push out daily bug fixes.

Plus, I'm guessing Indiana University has outsized influence on the shape of
the project, since they founded it.

> We need academic style comparative analysis of FOSS governance models,
> funding models, project methodologies, etc. Learn from our mistakes, help
> people in the future.

I have a book here on my desk: "The business and Economics of Linux and Open
Source" by Martin Fink. It's from 2002, and could use an update clearly.

------
josteink
A site like this would be nice, but it would need a steady team of volunteers
to source job listings.

I suspect most job openings and offers are launched on country-specific
websites and systems, many which probably (even intentionally) are locked in
and lack a public API.

Right now, checking Norway, there are zero listing. That may be true (I
wouldn't know), but from that alone I'm guessing this site does not know how
to source jobs from the "typical" Norwegian employment sites.

So who are going to bother to volunteer for a site which lands everyone else a
job but themselves? It seems like a hard thing to get right.

~~~
mo
Well, what about me? I _am_ volunteering, and a couple of others CC
@fossjobs.net on Twitter whenever they come across a job offer.

Yes, you are right, this site depends on volunteers. So what? Wikipedia does
as well. Why would anyone contribute their knowledge to something that does
not help them? Well, maybe it will one day.

We don't have to start a debate about why anyone would volunteer anything, but
I find your reasoning pretty self-centered. Also, you're arguing as if this
was a mere proposal for a job site that lists FOSS jobs. No, it's not. Is is
an actual site that lists FOSS jobs, and it works.

And don't forget about FOSS companies/NGOs who are looking for talent. Some of
them actually like to post their job listings at our site, and do so with a
very self-centered desire: To fill a position, potentially with less noise
than using one of the other platforms. Why would FOSS developers want to look
at all the depressing proprietary jobs on other platforms? :)

------
em3rgent0rdr
Fortunately the site does use FOSS software itself:
[https://www.fossjobs.net/about/](https://www.fossjobs.net/about/)

------
mryan
Some of the jobs listed on the site date from 2013 - it seems as though some
housekeeping is required.

~~~
mo
No. Of course it makes little sense to apply to old jobs, but one of the goals
here is to demonstrate that there _are_ actually paid jobs in FOSS. We keep
old job listings around on purpose, also because it helps to find interesting
organizations which you can then get in touch with.

~~~
DocTomoe
On the other hand, if the number of jobs in _recent time_ has to be padded
with job openings in ancient history, is there really a substainable number of
paid jobs in FOSS?

~~~
mo
How does this matter? What do you mean by "sustainable"? One job is a job. Two
jobs is two jobs.

~~~
jldugger
Sustainable as in "I can make a career of this" or "if this particular project
wanes, I can always hop over to one of the many other projects."

If you pad your listings, people will assume you need to because there
_aren't_ many such jobs. Moreso over time as the ratio of filled listings to
active recruitment grows -- if all visitors ever see are jobs that no longer
accept applications, they will not come away with a positive outlook on the
field.

~~~
mo
Again: We am not "padding" anything. The site exists since 2012, and we keep
old job listings around, as an archive and to help find interesting potential
employers that may have jobs apart of what is listed. There's an open ticket
about "fading them out" a little to make it even more obvious. There's plenty
of recent jobs listed, so your point about "only ever seeing jobs that no
longer accept applications" is moot. Also, subscribe to the RSS feed (or
Twitter/Facebook), and "all you will ever see will be fresh, open positions".

It's like arguing that a news site should delete yesterday's news instead of
keeping an archive, because "you're only interested in today".

As for your "sustainability" and "career building", I disagree there too, but
that's for a different conversation.

~~~
jarofgreen
> There's an open ticket about "fading them out" a little to make it even more
> obvious.

As someone who recently was job hunting and come across another site with this
problem: absolutely do this. You get the bonus of instantly showing the user
which jobs are current, so they don't notice only after wasting time and then
jump to the assumption the site is dead. You show users that you take the up-
to-dateness of the data seriously. And lastly you get to keep the archive
around, which I agree with you is a good thing to do.

> There's plenty of recent jobs listed, so your point about "only ever seeing
> jobs that no longer accept applications" is moot.

Not for me there's not. I'm in the UK and it's all 2 years old.

(Good idea tho, hope it continues well!)

~~~
mo
Plenty of recent jobs are open to remote workers, which includes UK.

------
djmashko2
Nice, just posted a job! Hope they verify my email soon :]

------
brilliantcode
What I'm trying to do with
[http://letsopensource.com](http://letsopensource.com) is similar except offer
structured incentives for developers that contribute to FOSS.

------
joe563323
Bug: seraching for partime jobs take to [https://www.fossjobs.net/page-
unavailable/](https://www.fossjobs.net/page-unavailable/). ie.
[https://www.fossjobs.net/jobs-in//parttime/](https://www.fossjobs.net/jobs-
in//parttime/) takes to [https://www.fossjobs.net/page-
unavailable/](https://www.fossjobs.net/page-unavailable/)

~~~
jancborchardt
Might be best to report it at
[https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/issues](https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/issues)
:)

~~~
mo
That's probably
[https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/issues/9](https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/issues/9)
:)

------
aylons
You mentioned open hardware in an answer to another comment, but I see no
obvious category for a hardware developer in the menu! "Programmer" or
"designer" do not quite fit the bill.

~~~
mo
What category would you suggest to add? If it's about actual development, I
think "Programmer" will do just fine. I am a bit reluctant to add a new
category specifically for this.

~~~
aylons
I'd suggest "Hardware".

It is niche, but without it, it really does not send any signals that Open
Hardware jobs are welcome. A hardware designer definitely is not a
"Programmer".

(Edited for clarity)

------
mattt416
Added to [https://github.com/wfhio/awesome-job-
boards](https://github.com/wfhio/awesome-job-boards) !

------
dandelion_lover
There is also
[https://www.fsf.org/resources/jobs](https://www.fsf.org/resources/jobs)

~~~
mo
... which can be a great resource to find jobs appropriate also for
fossjobs.net.

but: "usual price $250/30 days"

------
passivepinetree
At the bottom of each job offer, the site asks "Is this job fake?" and then
offers "Report it!" or "Recommend to a friend" options.

I certainly hope people aren't recommending fake jobs to their friends! That's
a funny UX issue.

------
bjelkeman-again
Thanks, we will be trying that out for our openings in the developer team.

------
gghh
The markup syntax to post jobs is referred as "textile" (which I don't know --
is it a flavor of markdown?) and the help page for it points to
[http://www.textism.com/tools/textile/](http://www.textism.com/tools/textile/)
which in turns redirect to the quite unrelated page
[http://www.booked.net/textism.html](http://www.booked.net/textism.html)

Would you please fix the dead link? Great job board otherwise, I was about to
post a job (I work at SUSE, almost everything we do is FOSS).

~~~
minitech
That’s not an unrelated page; it describes Textile’s syntax in a column on the
right and lets you try it interactively.

(No, it’s not a flavour of Markdown.)

------
rando832
See also:
[https://www.fsf.org/resources/jobs](https://www.fsf.org/resources/jobs)

------
sunilkumarc
When they say 'full time' in the job description, how many hours do they
expect us to spend time on those projects?

~~~
mo
If you find a job that looks interesting, it's always a good idea to get in
touch and find out the details and how much it is up for negotiations. Quite
often there's details in the description, and if not, I would expect full time
to mean something around 40 hours per week. It helps to look at the cultural
background and where the organization is based. Especially benefits (vacation
days, sick days, health insurance) vary quite much between different
countries.

------
joe4353444
Wow, this is the coolest idea. I am going to find and collect all the
resources to get prepared for a remote work Foss job.

------
mindw0rk
Where did you get your initial feed of job offers? I can see offers that are 4
years old

~~~
mo
It's simple, and you can help: I am adding jobs that I come across or that
people submit. It's a collaborative action. Job listings from 2012 were added
in 2012. It's not a new site. Of course we don't add old expired jobs.

------
mxuribe
This is such a great concept for a job-seeking site; kudos!

------
fred_is_fred
(from a job posting I saw)

"So where do you work?"

"Uhhh. Cockroach Labs"

------
Outpox
I'll be using this for my next job, thanks!

------
yogeshdeveloper
Will FOSS jobs will post job openings in India?

~~~
mo
Hi!

A lot of the jobs on fossjobs.net are remote work. In fact, you can directly
see the job's location on the job listing. It's definitely worthwhile reaching
out to the project to ask.

And of course we would list openings in India, as we would list foss jobs in
any place. If you hear of any, please let us know! The easiest way to do that
is to cc @fossjobs_net on Twitter.

~~~
joe563323
Thankyou, Thankyou so so much. Now i can work overtime without feeling bad
about spending my time making some bad people rich.

------
jlebrech
would any of those be useful for someone who's relocated to somewhere with a
lower cost of living?

------
MaxKK
Just posted an ad. Great page!

------
foxtail
the link support under JOB CATEGORIES is too broad

------
lsmod
Removed.

~~~
mo
Patches welcome. This is a hobby side project, and it does its job. (pun
intended)

~~~
mattt416
Help us hack on Tramcar
([https://github.com/wfhio/tramcar](https://github.com/wfhio/tramcar)). It's
still very early days, but we'd love to see others starting use and contribute
to this software! :)

