But this is also why I introduced my only vaguely related example of the large search engine company who wanted me to work for free to help them organize 30-40 school events for Hour of Code -- a big undertaking. They just said no to my request and did not do the events, and implied I was the reason why those kids wouldn't benefit from their hour or two at each school. No "'business opportunity'".
As context I do A TON of free work already in schools around computer science education. Was I being unreasonable to ask to be paid for this work? They sure thought I was, even though the people in their CSR group who'd have been the PMs of my work sure as heck get paid. The company chose just not to do the events at all (w/ a market cap of both of $500b) - the kids lost out too.
It's actually not so that the request for free work is a negotiation technique - it's an actual expectation of more and more people in the tech community who will get angry when you won't work for free (and they'll convey that anger from the desk of their $250k/year job).
I at least am seeing this dynamic play out all over the tech world. Work in a big tech company, nominally as a software engineer but really as someone who makes a lot of PowerPoints and watches (and "likes") a lot of Ted Talks, and the ecosystem seems to be ok with you pulling down $250K (and from that comfortable seat demanding quicker response times from volunteers in the tech community of various sorts).
Work for yourself selling your time as a contractor in the "gig economy" and you've become the maintainer and/or a significant contributor to a couple OSS projects that are related to the services you sell: you're a "sell out" to the ideals of open sources for wanting to be paid for that time. Again, I exaggerate this duality, but it's starting to become a real problem, I think, for the industry.
> you're a "sell out" to the ideals of open sources for wanting to be paid for that time
Who the hell unironically uses the word "sellout" anymore? Especially in this context?
I really don't think this is, like, a common opinion or anything. I haven't ever encountered anyone criticizing people for getting paid to work on open source software. Many projects I like (RPCS3, mGBA, libretro/RetroArch, GhostBSD, Redox OS, Godot Engine, Matrix.org) are funded on Patreon. In large projects such as FreeBSD, many commits are sponsored by either various companies or the project's Foundation. And specifically contractors contributing to projects related to their services, as you mentioned? That's how a ton of javascript libraries are developed :D And everyone is mostly just thankful that these projects exist.
What the hell are those "ideals of open source" anyway?
But this is also why I introduced my only vaguely related example of the large search engine company who wanted me to work for free to help them organize 30-40 school events for Hour of Code -- a big undertaking. They just said no to my request and did not do the events, and implied I was the reason why those kids wouldn't benefit from their hour or two at each school. No "'business opportunity'".
As context I do A TON of free work already in schools around computer science education. Was I being unreasonable to ask to be paid for this work? They sure thought I was, even though the people in their CSR group who'd have been the PMs of my work sure as heck get paid. The company chose just not to do the events at all (w/ a market cap of both of $500b) - the kids lost out too.
It's actually not so that the request for free work is a negotiation technique - it's an actual expectation of more and more people in the tech community who will get angry when you won't work for free (and they'll convey that anger from the desk of their $250k/year job).
I at least am seeing this dynamic play out all over the tech world. Work in a big tech company, nominally as a software engineer but really as someone who makes a lot of PowerPoints and watches (and "likes") a lot of Ted Talks, and the ecosystem seems to be ok with you pulling down $250K (and from that comfortable seat demanding quicker response times from volunteers in the tech community of various sorts).
Work for yourself selling your time as a contractor in the "gig economy" and you've become the maintainer and/or a significant contributor to a couple OSS projects that are related to the services you sell: you're a "sell out" to the ideals of open sources for wanting to be paid for that time. Again, I exaggerate this duality, but it's starting to become a real problem, I think, for the industry.