Myth of Linux Hobby Coders Exposed

Eh-Wire writes "Stuart Cohen, CEO of the Open Source Development Labs, does a short piece on the myth of renegade hackers coding in their parent's basements to create the Linux OS. He suggests this hasn't been the case for many years and goes on to claim that of the top 25 core developers, more than 90% of them are fully employed with some of the largest technology companies in the world. Stuart goes on to explode the myth of renegade programmers by saying, 'Sure, it represents a new way to create software, but the actual process looks a lot like how enterprise software has been made for decades.' A short but interesting read."

Comments

Selected Instances

[Anonymous Coward]

This 'new finding' was fabricated by choosing the Top 25 Linux Developers (because 25 is the magic number that fits the results they want.)

Truth is, there are hundreds of major, active kernel developers.

Re:how is OSS protected? specifically!

[Cecil]

They probably did the same thing myself, my friend, and most of the open source coders I know did:

Refuse to sign it.

Just politely explain that that particular clause doesn't work for you, as you do a lot of programming at home for projects unrelated to their business and you want to continue to do so as you feel it helps to hone your programming skills. They will likely agree to strike out the clause. Yes, if you're just starting a new job and the job market is bad, it takes some cajones to do this. But realistically the chances are extremely low they'll simply say, "Oh, okay. Goodbye." and, presuming that they do say that, and you respond by offering to sign the damn waiver, the chances are even lower that they would continue to refuse to employ you. And at that point you can be very sure that they were just planning on using you as a carpet anyway, if the fact that you showed a bit of backbone scares them so much. Realistically, all most companies want is an employee who knows their stuff and works hard.

As a bonus, when you do this, you will likely be remembered as someone who stands up for themselves a bit more. As a result, you're more likely to get better raises and bonuses, simply due to the fact that the bosses don't really want to get into arguments or make a big deal about things most of the time (after all, their time is so valuable *cough*) so they'll give you a little more than most of the other people, since they'll think of you as someone who's more likely to argue about it.

That's been my experience anyway.