Matt Loney's Blog
What it says on the box
Friday 19 October 2007, 11:42 AM
Is it easier to hire open source developers?
Chatting to Steve Raby, UK country manager for open source ECM vendor Nuxeo yesterday, an interesting point was raised around the issue of motivation of open source developers versus developers on proprietary poducts, and hiring them.
Namely: what are the benefits of hiring open source developers, and what are the benefits of developing open source software if you're looking to get hired.
Naturaly Steve, who hails from JBoss, will have a biased view of such matters - after all it is his job to sell the idea of open source software to enterprises.
But his thesis made sense and is based on his experience so I shall repeat it here.
Before I do, a note about Nuxeo. Nuxeo develops the open source, eponymous enterprise content management system. It makes money by selling services on the back of the product, which of course is free for anyone to download, and in the manner pioneered by JBoss it seeks to control development of the project by employing the core developers.
And now to the thesis, in two nutshells:
1) It is much easier to hire the right developers in the open source workd than in the proprietary world, because in the open source world everybody knows who has done what - they have their name on the code or will be otherwise associated with it. That is a much more intimate association than the proprietary software world.
2) Many open source developers do their work as an adjunct to their day jobs. When it gets to the point where the company can say there's enough momentum to hire the developer, they are incredibly motivitated - much mor so than someone 'going for a job'.
This obviously ties into the notion, held by some, that people will produce better quality work if they're doing it for the love, rather than for the money. Some don't buy that - Steve Ballmer for instance. So, would you rather learn to love something that you're paid to do, or be paid to do something you love?
PreviousComments on this post
As a developer, one thing that is important to me is that people see my work. In my mind I'm an artisan and my code is my craft. I want people to use the end product but I also want them to see my code and appreciate how well designed it is. I want to talk to people about what I did and why and to hear their opinions and if possible learn from their feedback. I want to be a master of my craft and I want people to recognize the fact.
Writing proprietary code means that very few people are going to experience my work and even fewer are going to appreciate it. In a closed setting you are usually surrounded by junior programmers that aren't skilled enough yet to see the beauty of a nice algorithm. There are very few peers to discuss your work with. Worse, often it's required that you let these junior programmers fiddle with your code so that over time it becomes buggier and less elegant and eventually is just a mess. All dictated by some pointy headed boss that doesn't understand the benefits of clean code.
As a developer, one thing that is important to me is how much I get paid. In my mind I'm an artisan and my code is my craft. I want people to use the end product and pay me for it, either directly or indirectly via the employer. Getting paid for work that I have done is the ultimate accolade for my work, since it means that someone else thinks it is worth parting with their money for, which is the most valuable thing to them. I have to pay for my house, my food, in fact I have to pay for everything I need to live except perhaps the air that I breath. I could only consider giving my work away for free if other people are going to give me their work for free: the builder give me a free house, the shop give me free food, and so on. I hate pointy headed bosses, because they are leeching off the product of my labours and extracting money from me. Getting paid the most money possible for my work is the most important thing to me.
Recently I came across one comment by an ardent Linux proponent saying approximately (don't remember exact wording) that "It is a violation of my rights -- like 1st amendment right -- when software vendors oblige me to purchase a software. Software must be free" (from Texas). I use Linux as my major OS, but when it comes to authoring software products (I authored several commercial Windows products myself), I'm 100% in the Windows world. Why? When I see such posts denying an intellectual property rights I see
them as an expression of a common commie demeanor denying private property (communism was all about denying private property by the way). In practice, I see that Linux development is centered around some University grants when middleman from University (not usually a programmer) hire programmers. This is a centralized state model killing free enterprise. At least in Windows world a developer can be hired by manager who likes programming, not grants. Resume: use Linux for security reasons, don't sell yourself as Linux developer if you want to avoid substantial risks.
So we seem to have two for the motion, and one against. I've heard people say similar things to what you've heard, armadillo, but I'd be surprised if most - or even many - sane people really think there should be no intellectual property rights around software. Even Richard Stallman, who is perhaps the most fanatical proponent of free software and who argues vehemently against some forms of intellectual property law, thinks there is a case for it in specific circumstances (and I know he'd hate me for lumping copyright, patents, trade secret and trade mark laws under that single IP umbrella, but there you go).
I'd suggest there is a world of difference between those who intelligently and coherently argue for open source - or free software - concepts, and communists.
I'd also suggest that there is a growing number of companies hiring developers to work on open source projects with no notion of a grant in sight, but with every pressure coming to bear that any commercial organisation feels.
