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Hiring Open Source Developers for Closed Source Work?
With two new positions being created, I'd normally call up a few recruiters and go through hundreds of resumes. After a hundred phone calls and a dozen interviews, I might find one guy in five hundred who's sharp, motivated and genuinely interested in games.
Hiring from a pool of open/free developers guarantees that I've found someone motivated, which is the toughest thing to quantify up front. I'd like to believe I'm giving something back to the community by starting my search here as well. The problem is that, as a game company, the majority of our code is closed source. Would that put developers off? Do most free software developers aspire to create free software exclusively?"
The reasoning here makes some amount of sense, and targetting a specific group for hiring purposes is nothing new. Would this idea work well, or are there other problems, both philosophical and ethical, that could cause problems?
Speaking for myself, the big issues are (a) being up front about what is expected, and (b) not prohibit me from doing Open Source work separately. If you want to sweeten the deal (if you have a candidate you really want to woe) you can allow them to spend some amount of work time on Open Source projects. Finally, a useful thing is to institute an Open Source policy for noncore techology software -- at every software company I know of, there is tons of software written for various reasona that have very little to do with the actual products being developed. Such software (usually tools) you may want to be able to consider if they can be Open Sourced.
The problem is that, as a game company, the majority of our code is closed source. Would that put developers off? Do most free software developers aspire to create free software exclusively?
That implies that free software developers are either working for open-source companies (not likely, not many of them left that are profitable), doing non-computer jobs (again, not likely, if they know enough to program) or just plain unemployed. Somehow, none of those three make sense - I refuse to believe that everybody involved in the development of Linux works for companies like RedHat or Pizza Hut. Just my opinion, though.
What's your damage, Heather?
I'm a professional programmer myself. I try to contribute to open source myself. So most of the software I write in my own time, I give away.
But when I'm hired to do a job, I'm getting paid for my time. Anything I write during that time, is my employers: he paid for it. Heck, most of the times it's the employers ideas and wishes that I express in code, thus it's partially his on that ground too.
That said, I always try to encourage my employers to open up the source. I've never succeeded in that, tho.
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the pun is mightier than the sword
I'm a manager at a closed-source development shop. A few months ago (you know, then the economy was good and companies were hiring), I came close to hiring a fairly prolific open-source developer.
Now, this person (who will remain nameless and is not whoever you're thinking of and is not particularly famous) initially seemed like a godsend. I had seen and admired his code for some time. I was very willing to even set aside some portion of the allocated time purely to work on "Blue Sky R&D", ie, any open source stuff he desired, to be released under any license desired. The deal was, of course, the rest of the time, when coding for The Company, that's all proprietary.
Now, I'm a software manager, which means I myself have been a prima-donna pain in the butt (in my younger days) and am very used to working with (and indeed, admiring the skills of) other prima-donna, largely ego-driven people. Since I count myself in this category, it's just a statement of fact, not a complaint.
Well, even with that background, I could not belive how downright stroppy this particular open-source coder was.
Some choice quotes: "your people will all be less talented than me. I don't want to have to spend all my time teaching them" (he never met the team).
"Since you'll own my code and tell me what to do, monetary compensation is the only reason I'll be there, so I need a very large salary". That really pissed me off. I happen to love programming, and I do believe in the project I'm working on. I also really appreciate getting paid.
What's the freaking condradiction here, people? With so many job openings, you pick the paid position for which you enjoy the work. Duh!
Anyway, needless to say, given the attitude and the unreasonable demands, I eventually gave up this individual. It's not fair of me, but the experience left me wary of possibly hiring other primarily Open-Source developers. Have any other people got good experiences to share? Maybe that will make me see things with a less jaundiced eye.
P.S. For what it's worth, I use *and contribute* to open source software. So should you.
Part of the Second American Revolution!
yeah, those open source bastards! turn your back and they'll have installed Linux over Windows 2000 and hooked the secretaries computers together into a beowulf cluster! bastards!
I'm Brian, the guy who submitted this article.
Your point is well-taken. But no matter where I go looking for resumes, I'll get more resumes than I can ever respond to. I can get literally dozens of resumes weekly from any recruiter I contact. Game programming is an attractive field.
What I see in common with free software hobbyists is the motivation to write code. Philosophical points aside, if I can hire from a pool of people more likely to be motivated to write code, I'm ahead.
Among free software developers at large, I'm expecting that I'll find people with more different perspectives on coding. People dealing with mostly Microsoft products usually only have a handful of fixed solutions in mind. Technical creativity and breadth of perspective are invaluable when trying to do as much as possible with as few system resources as possible.
By all means, DO IT!
I work at LithTech. I work, probably technically illegally, on OpenSource/Free Software at home. I have contributed to various game projects in minor ways. One thing that other Free/OpenSource game programmers say to me is, "You work at a game company?! How Cool! That's a dream job." Not once have I heard, "Die Fascist Proprietary Software Developer!" Almost all of them want to be game developers, or wish they were.
I also teach free classes on programming (Seattle/Kirkland,WA). I have some exceptional students. One understands C very well, and regularly reads FreeBSD Kernel source. My students are all looking for jobs in programming; I encourage them to write OpenSource code. That way, their code and work is visible, rather than hidden. It's not just games companies that should be looking for coders in the Open/Free communities.
Open/Free software and Proprietary houses have a symbiotic relationship. I believe that it has always been that way. By all means, please, look into the very eager, very motivated, Free Software programmers pool. They want to work professionally on games. Hey! You can look at what their code is actually like before you even talk with them..! It's a win-win.
Interpersonal skills count for a heck of a lot in professional programming. In many projects / companies / situations, the ability to play nicely with the other kids and communicate well can end up being much more important than the ability to code fast or well.
While there is likely some correlation between programming skill and open-source participation, I doubt that somebody doing great open-source work will tell you much about what kind of human being they are, and what it's like to work with them. Since open-source projects usually happen over the net, in a very decentralized, distributed, and impersonal fashion, they really require a very different set of social skills than the tight-knight topsy-turvy hum of an office.
In an open source project, you can choose a bug to fix or an idea to implement, do the work at your leisure, and send the diffs off to the project with only the most minimal communication -- "Hi. Here's some code. I wrote it. Try it. You can use it. Bye.".
In a business setting, all your work is subject to a set of priorities and desires which are not your own. Even the best ideas can die if there's not consensus behind them, and even the brightest people can end up contributing little of value if they're alienated from the others they work with. The ratio of social interaction to coding in a programming job is generally somewhere between 4:1 and 9:1, I'd say.
So the moral of Plugh's story?
For managers: the open source world is a great place to fish for technical talent, but offers no protection from difficult personalities. There are plenty of decent and non-egomaniacal people in the open source world, so don't let one stinker sour you to the whole thing.
For developers: it's not enough to be fantastically good with the computer. If you can't interact respectfully and productively with others, even people who are not as smart as you or whom you disagree with, reality will catch up with you.
There are those Open Source developers, like Richard Stallman, who would be insulted at the idea. You want to stay away from the crowd who thinks that all software should be free. On the other hand there are people like me who write software in their spare time, release what they do under the FreeBSD license, and just don't care what happens to it, as long as someone uses it (oh wait, no one uses my software anymore, even me!) In any case poeple like Linus, who developed their software not out of a need to have free software, but out of a desire to create software, and released it under an open source license because of a desire to share their personal work with the world are the people you are looking for. I often write closed source solutions.
In any case, we all need to eat, if your putting food on the table, someone's bound to eat it. Good luck
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Darthtuttle
Thought Architect
Darthtuttle
Thought Architect