What about when people are employed to work on a project?
It's not a semantic game, contractors are hired this way all the time. Programming skills like most crafts can be applied equally to paid and unpaid work. When you get hired for a programming job, presumably the main concern is whether you can program, which has nothing to do with whether or not you were previously employed to do it (that has more to do with your cashflow situation).
What about when people are employed to work on a project?
Then they are employed. Working on a project without an employer is not employment. Working on contract for an employer is generally referred to as "self-employment" although, technically, if you're operating under your own business, you're an employee of your own business. I really don't understand why HN is so upset by this distinction. Everyone here is perfectly happy to distinguish between "project" and "start-up" but not, apparently, "project" and "employment".
It's not a semantic game, contractors are hired this way all the time. Programming skills like most crafts can be applied equally to paid and unpaid work. When you get hired for a programming job, presumably the main concern is whether you can program, which has nothing to do with whether or not you were previously employed to do it (that has more to do with your cashflow situation).