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Open-Source Community Service?

Posted by Cliff on from the damn-that's-a-good-question dept.

Anonymous Coward writes "My friend and i were wondering if open source programming would count for community service hours, if, hypothetically speaking, the courts ever assigned me any. Should they count?"

1 of 6 comments (clear)

  1. Probably not... by whydna · · Score: 3

    Speaking as somebody who has been assigned community service (don't ask, it was for a traffic ticket... ), I personally doubt it. The general procedure is this:
    1) you get assigned X number of community service hours (in my case 12).
    2) you go to a specified governement facility where you wait in line a long fscking time
    3) the boring, bored person behind the desk shows you a list of available "jobs" and you agree on one. They call the people in charge and say that you're coming in at a certain date and time.
    4) you get a little form that has to be signed.
    5) you work
    6) they sign the form
    7) lather, rinse, and repeat 5&6 until you have done X number of hours.

    The problems with this are:
    - open source programming can rarely (if ever) be signed off by an "authoritative" body. Sure, the project leader could say that you did X number of hours, but why would the county/state/etc trust him/her??
    - open source programming isn't on their list of things that count (although THIS could be something to look into... setting up a program in your area for law-breaking programmers to work for you)
    - Usually, the tasks that have to be done are for other government agencies (i.e. I washed fire engines)... perhaps non-profits count too.
    - I don't think there are that many /good/ programmers that get assigned community service to make it worth-while.
    - The government wants community service to suck... remember, it's a punishment (although others will argue that it's an apology). Programming is something that most programmers enjoy (duh). So making them write little bits of code really isn't going to make them not want to commit a crime again.

    I just don't think it would work. Perhaps you could count it for a scholarship, they're probably a bit more flexible.

    Interesting idea though...