
Segment Open Fellowship - fouadmatin
https://segment.com/blog/segment-open-fellowship-2017/
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cperciva
I think it's great that Segment is doing this, but I wonder: Is this the best
way to pay people to work on open source software?

I very rarely see high quality open source software produced by people who are
unemployed, and I don't know how many people would want to give up a well-
paying job for a three-month stint as an open source fellow. Taking a leave of
absence from your job to do this? Maybe, but three months seems like the worst
possible duration -- long enough that you have to hand everything off to
someone else, but short enough that the transition time is burdensome. This
might work well for independent consultants, but that's about it as far as I
can see.

It seems to me that a better approach might be some sort of part-time
arrangement, allowing developers to stay at their existing employers on
reduced hours -- almost like an open source software version of the flexible
arrangements many companies make for new parents. The open source community
would benefit by having a developer who has hours dedicated to the project;
the employer would benefit by (a) keeping their employee and (b) probably
making use of the software in question; and Segment would benefit by spending
less per developer funded.

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fouadmatin
Hey Colin! That's something we went back & forth on for a while. We're not
convinced this model is the _right_ one but seems to be the most effective
duration for us to run this experiment.

The primary concern is how expectations are communicated so that all parties
(fellow, employer & Segment) are all on the same page about what work is
getting done, when. Definitely not saying this isn't solvable problem but for
our first fellowship, we wanted to focus on running the program & supporting a
handful of fellows. I'd love any suggestions you/others have around different
formats for the program we could try, feel free to comment here or send me an
email fouad@segment.com!

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fouadmatin
Hey there! Fouad here, from Segment. We're really excited to share the
fellowship with everyone and hear about people's projects.

If you have any questions/ideas, please feel free to leave a comment here &
I'll be around to respond :)

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_nvs
We rely heavily on open-source software at Pavlov and contributing back to the
community is core to our DNA.

I’m really excited to see similar efforts by companies like Segment, Stripe,
and OpenAI that are devloping a strong brand around engineering culture / OSS.

~~~
sebleon
Totally - I think we all stand on the shoulders of giants, easy to take for
granted all the hard work put into OSS. I love the conscious effort to give
back!

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koolba
> Today we’re proud to announce the Segment Open Fellowship. The Fellowship is
> a three month long program supporting three to five open-source developers
> with $8k per month to focus full-time on their project, no other strings
> attached.

For $1K more this could be reworded to sound even bigger. Make it $25K (3 x
$8K + 1) and eliminate the time period. Depending on the tax ramifications a
frugal developer could stretch that out for well beyond 3-months[1].

That aside it's great to see more companies doing this. Kudos Segment!

[1]: _Though the on-site piece should probably have a time limit. Can 't have
stragglers hanging around forever..._

~~~
fouadmatin
Oh cool idea koolba -- Yeah, part of the goal of not having an "onsite
restriction" is to defer to fellows on how their funds could be best spent
(and where). Will keep this in mind for the future!

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sargun
Segment is an awesome company, and it's great to see them being a benevolent
actor in the community. I can certainly see them becoming another Stripe in
the sense of technical excellent.

In some ways they're somewhat similar. They're all very smart, young founders
that have taken an idea that's traditionally owned either by large, non-
cooperative organizations or require in-house development and put it behind an
API.

I'm looking forward to seeing them grow.

