The Unemployed Working on OSS Projects

Roger_Explosion writes "In Australia the unemployed have to fulfill a 'mutual obligation' requirement in order to receive welfare payments. What this means is that recipients of welfare payments have to be involved in some sort of activity that improves their chances of finding employment. Until now this has included various types of community service and training and education programs. Recently an organisation called CommunityCode has been established to allow recipients to fulfill this requirement by contributing to OSS projects."

Comments

Sounds like a great idea

[Thornkin]

It sure beats community service. I've long maintained that the way to learn to code is by coding. As someone who does hiring into programming positions, I know I would look highly at someone who spent his downtime working on OSS projects.

This is heaps good

[log2.0]

If I were to be unemployed, this is exactly what I would do! Imagine having all this spare time (since you have no job) to work on any OSS project you want.

Having said that, the dole (what we call welfare here) is pretty low. I think its about 100USD a week? (for all those US people ou there)

I think that it's great as an option

[mph_az]

however, I think that if you make it mandatory (no idea if tfa says either way) then I think this could create some very serious damage to any open source unlucky enough to get coerced 'help'.

also, bear in mind that before you drool over the prospect of conscripts to do the grunt work in X.org or kde that any program worthwhile would probably allow them to choose which projects to help out in; and if they all decide that the best way to spend their time is to develop and perfect a tcl front end to cdrecord, that's their choice.

Frankly, I'd prefer that OSS help remain completely voluntary. Getting half-hearted help is worse than getting no help at all.

Re:I think that it's great as an option

[awful]

It wouldn't be mandatory - the way "mutual obligation" is supposed to work is that Centrelink is supposed to try and find you a position that matches your interests and skills. Of course if you have no skills or interests you run the risk of being put to work picking up litter by the side of the road.

In my brother's case, he was interested in audio-engineering. Centrelink placed him as a volunteer producer in a community radio station, and from there he got a job at a mastering studio.

So in the case of coding for OSS projects - it would be voluntary. And even if someone did provide half-hearted help (i.e. bad code) there's no obligation on the part of the project to accept the code.

Maybe I can help

[mister_tim]

I work in the Government Department that manages that Mutual Obligation policy and the main programmes around it. But I'm just an average public servant with an interest in IT - not a programmer or IT professional.

Since they're ask for help from people who are experienced in dealing with our Department, maybe this is a way I can properly contribute to an OSS project for the first time.

Unemployed coders in Australia???

[crusty_architect]

I would be surprised to see many takers for this scheme here. The IT job market is on the way up in Australia, we actually have a coding skills shortage. If you are thinking of getting involved, please look for a job instead.

Re:Unemployed coders in Australia???

[kieronb]

On the other hand, this could be a great way to get people other than coders involved in OSS.

For example, all those projects where ther's little to no documentation because everyone involved is coding, not documenting? I'm sure there are lots of unemployed writers around.

Or projects that need to market themselves better, maybe need a sleeker looking interface or website or logo or whatever? Tap into the starving artist workforce...

Re:Unemployed coders in Australia???

[Tannii]

Where is this shortage?! I don't see it and I've looked.

As a single mum who may end up having to full fill some of this mutual obligation stuff if Little Johnny has his way, this sounds like a dream come true. Upping my coding skills, contributing to the community and actually having hope that this will help you get a job .... Wait a minute! This can't be right, since when has any of these things been involved in mutual obligation for people on government payments? Mutual obligation tasks are menial, pointless and soul destroying. I expect that this program will be barred from being classed as such very soon.

Good idea but...

[DeathAndTaxes]

I think it's brilliant, but I don't think it'd be too long before some software consortium/lobby group/group of "concerned citizens" pulls out the whole "don't use government resources to promote the anti-competitive forces of OSS" argument. I'd bet you can expect to see legislation drafted within a year.

Re:fine code

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet they'll just write a bunch of slack ware.

Re:REDS!

[MIcroswipe]

Maybe the Aussie companies will keep more programmers employed since everyone you lay off will go out and code for your oss competitor.

Re:Bloody OSS Bludgers

[Pyr05x]

Don't mod this flamebait, because its not.

"Bloody dole bludgers" is an Aussie slang phrase describing people on welfare ('the dole' here down under... not sure why we call it that) with no intention of trying to find a job.

And I agree... Bludgers is one of the coolest words ever :)

Re:Bloody OSS Bludgers

[!the!bad!fish!]

... not sure why we call it that

Because that is what the word means.

Seems like a plan

[jonno317]

It seems that the comments thus far have been centered around the idea that the unemployed are being forced to work on OSS. I think it is more the idea that working on OSS is an acceptable form of community service and the like. I don't think that the arguments against the idea because of the lack of volunteering hold much water because of this. Those who choose to work on OSS to fulfill their community service responsibilities would be just as much volunteers as the rest of the OSS community. It's no different from an OSS person putting their development onto their resume. It's just using the volunteer work on the software for dual purpose.

Sysadmin and systems for the poor

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to do something like this, in Australia. I did my "mutual obligation" (slave labour for dole payments) at Computer Bank Victoria.

The goal of the project was to provide cheap (free) hardware and software to underprivledged people in Australia. We used Debian for single installs, and the KDE wm.

It was a fantastic experience - I learnt all about the insides of computers and how to put them together, com ports, (seemingly) thousands of types of cards (video, audio, nics) and how to configure them, etc etc - all common knowledge ot people here, but you need to start somewhere...

We started a project to give thin clients away to poorer groups (libraries/community groups/refugee action collectives or whatever) which we built from the ground up using common knowledge and the wonderful xserver. I think they have since expanded the project, but now use Mandrake/driva.

A lot of the forced vollies didn't want to be there, but for those of us that did, it was great - I spent my first month testing printers, mice, speakers and doing the last check on systems going out the door...

There are plenty of these things around, and it sure beat weeding public gardens....

It helps to keep your sanity

[PenguinBoyDave]

When I was unemployed, working on OSS projects gave me a purpose. After spending hours a day for nine months and slipping into depression, OSS gave me a new purpose, and a hope. I was keeping my skills sharp. I was contributing to the community. I had a reason to get up in the morning. OSS kept me sane when I thought I was going to go nuts.