I think you're off the mark, because you're always "working for someone else". Details change, but ultimately there's no difference between "mak[ing] something that is useful" and working for others. Sometimes the terms are great, and sometimes they're awful.
The implicit assumption is that "working for an established organization" must imply "working with miserably low levels of autonomy". I'm not sure that I agree.
If we negotiate better terms, we get more autonomy and more compensation. This will also give more people the financial means to start their own companies and get that level of autonomy.
The problem is that the exchange rate between capital/establishment and talent/effort is very unfavorable in comparison to what it could be.
| The implicit assumption is that "working for an established organization" must imply "working with miserably low levels of autonomy". I'm not sure that I agree.
And it is not only about autonomy. It sucks to work for somebody stupid, in general somebody that doesn't understand the nature of software development, probability, statistics, etc.
Lawyers don't unionise - they have professional ethics bodies.
The difference is that when the law is code, and code law, we shall have a professional ethics body too. When programmers can do real damage and affect real lives they naturally gravitate to professional considered advice
Look at JPL or NASA, or a medical devices company.
The level of testing and reliability there is astounding - but so is the cost. And one day the engineers will find a way of capturing all that cost.
The problem with unionization is that it works well when the work is a commodity, and software engineering isn't. The 10x (and 100x, and -25x) programmer phenomenon is real, but individual performance is nearly impossible to measure on a quarterly basis.
We need some traits of old-style professionalism: autonomy and the right of self-investment. A profession is a set of ethical rights and obligations that supersede managerial authority. That's what we need. http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/11/18/programmers-d...
One one of the reasons for the lack of push back from the unions over the modernization of the UK's telco infrastructure was that the people building system X etc where Union members.
and the BMA and AMA do quite well for there members.
The implicit assumption is that "working for an established organization" must imply "working with miserably low levels of autonomy". I'm not sure that I agree.
If we negotiate better terms, we get more autonomy and more compensation. This will also give more people the financial means to start their own companies and get that level of autonomy.
The problem is that the exchange rate between capital/establishment and talent/effort is very unfavorable in comparison to what it could be.