Apple Gifts Top WebKit Contributors with MacBooks

soundofthemoon writes "Just nine months ago, Apple started the WebKit Open Source Project. In that time, contributors have added some significant improvements to WebKit (and thus Apple's Safari browser). Today Apple gave their open source contributors a big thank-you, including rewarding the top contributors with some nifty goodies: 'As a thank you, we are giving MacBook Pro computers to twelve of our top contributors. We've also invited five of them to attend Apple's Worldwide Developer's Conference 2006 on Apple's dime.' Looks like donating your time isn't a thankless job anymore."

Comments

Obvious

[Bombula]

Shoot me for stating the obvious, but this sets a good example for other companies to follow, not just in tech but across all industries.

Re:Obvious

[tibike77]

Well, it's not like this is unheard of, but not in THIS specific form :)
Can you say "X-Prize" or "DARPA Grand Challenge" ?
How about "PayPal donate link on Sourceforge" ?
Or, even cuter, "shareware" ? :D

It's on a different level (of commitment), yet it's (basically) the same thing: you work for something you care about, expect no (financial and/or direct) reward, yet, if you do it right, you end up with something.

So, yeah, always a good idea to keep hopes up for those who work for free and/or as a hobby... it's way cheaper (and on a much grander scale) as paying a lot of employees ;)

Re:Obvious

[LootenPlunder]

theres a big difference between substituting prized for salary for contracted employees and giving rewards to people who work voluntarily. if a person is donating their time to an open source project, they obviosly dont need pay as a motivation. they really couldnt start paying a salary to everyone who works on open source projects that end up benefitting them. this adds a precedint of giving something to people in a field that usually offers little or no monatary benefit. theres no comparison to regular employment.

Re:Obvious

[asliarun]

This is different. Agreed, internal competition can actually damage morale in a company. However, what Apple has done is reward open source contribution for individuals who didn't expect the reward in the first place. This is a good thing, as it encourages open-source hackers by giving them recognition as well as by giving them an unexpected reward. Everybody likes to get recognized and rewarded, especially for something that they take intellectual pride in. Hats off to the people who take the time off from their regular work and participate in such projects, simply because they want other people to benefit and learn from their skills and contributions. They thoroughly deserve such rewards.

Back to your example, where your company screwed up was in the fact that they confused incentive/recognition with unhealthy internal competition. It takes a very good people manager to instil a culture of competitiveness while making sure that it doesn't get degenerated into a political dog-eat-dog culture. The first encourages employees to benchmark themselves against their (better) peers and helps them pull up their socks when they feel they're sliding. The key here is that the manager should balance out the weaker employees' efforts with the company's goals, and make sure that they too are recognized and rewarded, along with the star performers. The second, OTOH, makes the weaker contributors feel a sense of futility, which makes them resort to cheating or give up the race. In my experience, i've met very very few people managers who can pull off this balancing act with success.

You have a valid point that all contributors should be rewarded and duly recognized. However, the key contributors also need to be rewarded more than the others, for that is the essence of meritocracy.

Re:Obvious

[weileong]

no it's completely different. they posted the X-prize first in order to stimulate entrants etc.; here, Apple is rewarding the people who contributed *with no expectation of personal gain* (well, beyond things like satisfaction and if they use the code themselves), which is more true to the spirit of the GPL, as a complete surprise. this is much more of a real reward, and not some mercenary kind of thing.

Re:Obvious

[16K Ram Pack]

It seemed to me that the X-Prize, whilst giving some compensation was only a fraction of the amounts spent. I think the money helped to create publicity and make it look worthwhile.

Re:Obvious

[mblase]

I believe if Apple really wanted to do something, they should compensate every person who did good work for them. That would be fair.

No, that would be employment.

Re:Obvious

[Bombula]

I certainly agree with you that what you call 'contest' style compensation is ineffective at best, and immoral and unethical at worst. Take it to the most macroscopic scale: the labor market worldwide. Workers in Bangladesh and the Phillipines are in 'contest' (ie: free-market competition) with workers in the US and Europe, and like you said, it's a brilliant scheme for the corporations who get to pay the lowest possible wages to those who have the highest productivity (productivity here meaning 10-year-old kids working 16 hour days in sweatshops).

Within our own countries, labor laws and unions product workers from such abuses - and I'm guessing you could have easily taken your case to a union with the possibility that you employer's practices were downright unlawful. But international law makes no such concessions, instead favoring the holy grail of 'free trade' and 'free markets', including of course the totally unregulated labor market.

What Apple is doing is quite different. They are showing genuinely generous appreciation for what is an entirely voluntary effort, and they are certainly under no obligation to do so. Comparing the two situations is comparing apples to oranges (pun fully intended).

Re:Obvious

[necro2607]

Except.. these developers were NOT told "the more 'effort' you spend the more likely you are to get a sweet new Mac laptop"... In fact, they weren't promised any reward of any sort. In this way Apple's reward has gone to what are very likely to be totally deserving contributors, as opposed to cheaters etc. since none of the developers knew beforehand that Apple was going to give such stuff to the top 12 contributors. :)

Re:Obvious

[eMartin]

I think his point was that if *anyone* could "work" for Apple and get compensated, what would be the point of applying for a job there at all?

Employers choose who gets to work for them. They don't just leave their doors open so anybody can walk in, do some work, and walk out with money.

Re:Obvious

[jcr]

Here's a summary of your argument: "It's better to have a terrible job than no job at all; therefore, these people are lucky; and just look at them - they are proud to work for our great, rich companies."

That's not his argument, that's your straw man. Nevertheless, the reason why people move from subsistence farming to factory jobs, is because the jobs are in fact better than what they leave behind. It's the same reason why my grandparents left their farms to work in factories, and why the first wave of industrial workers in Great Britain did so in the 1800's. If people were being forced to work in the factories, you'd have a point, but that practice is mostly confined to the Socialist Workers' Paradises of China and North Korea.

Collective bargaining power - what we call unions - are what got rid of child labor and sweatshops in western countries.

Nope.

Capital investment, raising the marginal productivity of labor, is what made it possible to abandon child labor in the industrialized cities. Meanwhile, kids on the farms were still putting in a full day's work.

You've been brainwashed.

Project much, professor?

-jcr

KHTML?

[pherthyl]

I hope some of the KHTML developers were among those getting rewarded. That's where the code originally came from after all.

Re:KHTML?

[Anonymous Coward]

P.S. Story about Apple's WebKit v. kHTML. the problem: http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/28/121 5227 - and the solution http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/06/04/144021 3

The problem with kHTML vs WebKit was the Apple zealots who praised how much Apple contributed to kHTML when in fact Apple didn't do that at all. The kHTML developers didn't care if Apple contributed, but they did care that the zealots where shouting (And we all know how high the Apple zealots shout) about the wonderfull relationship beetween Apple and kHTML. There where no relationship, Apple forked kHTML a year before anouncing it, the kHTML developers was not informed about that.

When the kHTML developers enlighted us about the fact that Apple didn't contributed to kHTML (This was when safari passed Acid2) the zealots again as always missintepreted it as if the kHTML developers where jealous about Apples fork of the program. The fact is that all they said is that Apple shouldn't have credits for kHTML because they don't work on the program!

Apple realised they actully benifitted from having some status in the open source world and gave the kHTML developers the tools they needed to bring Apples patches back into the kHTML tree. This had nothing to do with "Apple promised to come-up with solution to the Acid2 problem". Apple realised they had an image problem. Their users (the zealots) where outright lying to the OSS comunity, and they couldn't be stopped because when the zealots have made up their minds on something they don't change it when some "OSS hippies" tells them they are wrong. Apple did exactly what the zealots had been shouting about, and began a relationship with kHTML. Now the zealots could go on with the tales without lying and Apple probably benefitted from loosening the grip a little on WebKit.

Basically all you wrote is just pure bullshit, and has little to no resemblance with what actully happened. But as the zealot you are you again change the truth to fit your twisted world.

Re:That's what they'd like you to think

[Kjella]

Perhaps I'm just a little too cynical here, but this sounds like a great way to get free labor using an open source project.

Well, for one the result is an open source project. Not something Apple can just lock up. Secondly, if you're in this for the money you're seriously not thinking straight. They're giving these to their top developers. It's a trinket for what they've contributed, it's not anything like a lottery where you can "win" and get a decent wage. Apple is simply seeing a way to make people that are already interested in doing an open-source project be a little more motivated. It's a win-win situation for both. That's not a crime or anything.

Verbing nouns: Gah.

[minginqunt]

Off-topic, I know. So mod me. But...

Gah! "Gifting"? Wtf? Gift is a fucking NOUN. What's wrong with "Apple gives MacBooks to top WebKit contributors"?

It seems that the disease of corporate-speak has infected even the minds of Slashdot contributors who (a) should know better and (b) probably think they're immune.

Action this at once.

Re:Verbing nouns: Gah.

[Mikey-San]

According to the "American Heritage Dictionary", but not according to the Oxford English Dictionary. Tsk.

Frankly, I speak English, and this half-arsed corporatisation of American colloquia needs to stop. It's not attractive, and it makes British ears very unhappy.

I speak English, too.

http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/gift

gift

noun 1 a thing given willingly to someone without payment; a present. 2 a natural ability or talent. 3 informal a very easy task or unmissable opportunity.

verb 1 give as a gift, especially formally. 2 (gift with) endow (someone) with (an ability or talent). 3 gifted having exceptional talent or ability.

Hey, look at that. Looks like Oxford says you need a refresher course.

Re:Verbing nouns: Gah.

[SurgeonGeneral]

Definitions are interesting, however it is the etymology of the word that will explain to the parent why his anger at the use of "gift" as a verb is a mistake.

Gift is a word that is originally derived from the ancient German word geban - which, incidently, is a verb. The word grew to be a noun, but kept its verb meaning as well.

The word gift has been used for a long time now as a verb in legal proceedings. When a person bequeths objects to people in a will, it generally is referred to as gifting. That meaning of the word has recently raised its head in major media where it seems to be a "new" use of the word, when actually it is only new to you.

Re:That's what they'd like you to think

[mister_tim]

I was waiting for someone to say this. Basically, that argument just shows that with the Open Source model you can't please everyone.

If a company doesn't open source, plenty of open source advocates say they should and will complain about closed environment, etc etc
If they do open source, then you get arguments like this - either that they are taking advantage of free labour, or using cheap labour.

If you accept the open source model, then things like this are the outcome. In this case, it is very nice of Apple that they rewarded some of the top contributors, which they were certainly not obliged to do.

Re:That's what they'd like you to think

[mblase]

Perhaps I'm just a little too cynical here, but this sounds like a great way to get free labor using an open source project.

Considering that the whole point of using an open source project is to get software using free labor -- yeah, you're being pretty cynical.

Apple didn't have to give anybody anything in exchange for their contributions. Nobody ever expected or asked them to. This isn't an incentive to get other people to be in the "top twelve" next year; it's a "thank you" to the people who have already worked hard.

Re:That's what they'd like you to think

[16K Ram Pack]

If you are doing OSS for direct financial reward, you'll be disappointed.

There are some complex reasons for doing it (like getting others using your code can give you feedback, bug finding, or because you are charitable, or to raise your profile).

Re:That's what they'd like you to think

[Goth Biker Babe]

One thing everyone seems to have missed is that with the move over to Intel they would probably like 'their' top Open Source developers to have appropriate hardware to develop on.

Job?

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like donating your time isn't a thankless job anymore.

You know - there is a fine line between receiving gifts from your mate and being a whore.

A nice, unnecessary PR gesture

[Burz]

So who else thinks that Apple is about to do something really uncool in the eyes of the FOSS community?

KHTML

[Doros]

So, uh, how many of the KHTML devs got MacBooks?

Nice move Apple

[HangingChad]

Nicely done. Like the styling of their hardware, it was classy. I think one lesson that every tech company should learn from Apple is that style is important. Even in development I've noticed an application can look great but not be that terrific from a technical perspective and still be received better than a technically gifted app with plain looks.

Re:That's what they'd like you to think

[cowscows]

I don't think you're giving the people working on these projects enough credit. Anyone with the skills to contribute meaningfully to this project should be able to get a job that pays well enough that they could buy a laptop on their own. And I'm sure they all know that.

You see, one of the cool things (although sometimes a weakness) with open source development is that the people doing it are very often doing it for fun. It's a hobby for them, and even without the MacBook, if they weren't getting some sort of a feeling of accomplishment or something, they would've stopped doing it. Apple isn't taking advantage of people any more than the habitat for humanity takes advantage of their volunteers. While writing code is different than building homes for impoverished people, there are a lot of parallels.

In both cases, someone willingly donates their labor, for their own reasons. And in both cases, a lot of people benefit. With Habitat for humanity, the volunteers get the satisfaction of having helped with something bigger than themselves, and often gain knowledge about construction. A family without the means to buy their own house gets a decent home and their quality of life significantly improves. And society in general has one less homeless person to try and support (or if you don't believe that others should be forced to help those lazy bums, there's one less homeless person sitting around in your neighborhood).

With open source webkit, the volunteers get the satisfaction of having helped with something bigger than themselves, they've likely gained some new knowledge pertaining to computers and programming, they've potentially gained some name recognition for their effort and talents, and some of them have even gotten new laptop computers. Apple benefits by having a better piece of software included in their operating system. The rest of the world benefits because they have that exact same better piece of software that they're free to use with their own programs. Oh, and coincidentally, the fact that this particular piece of software pertains to web browsing, it stimulates more competition in the browser market, so the world gets even more better browsers.

But yeah, there are two points. The people donating their labor to this project before must have been getting some sort of happiness/satisfaction/reward for it, or they would've stopped. I've yet to hear of any sweatshops in asia where kids are forced to write code for pennies by their cruel taskmasters who keep any free laptops sent in reward. And secondly, Apple is not the only one benefiting from this. They aren't using laptops to pay people to write code for Apple, they're rewarding people who write code available to anyone. That's approaching philanthropy.

Uh, it never was.

[toby]

Looks like donating your time isn't a thankless job anymore.

How do you think we got this far, if it ever were? This verges on the 'you can't trust programmers who aren't paid' FUD.

Re:Apple GIFTS...???

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Verbing weirds language.

Actually, gift is also a verb and has been one longer than it has been a noun. I find it very strange the number of people who made this same comment. I mean, who bothers to comment on a minor grammar issue, especially one where you don't even bother to make sure you are correct? Just because someone uses a word in a way you don't recall having seen it does not mean it is proper to assume they are incorrect in their usage. You are obviously in front of a computer. How hard is it too look up something in the dictionary if you think it is wrong? For me it is three clicks and much faster than posting a comment on Slashdot.

Re:Safari for Windows?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

This is slightly off-topic, but while Apple's feeling generous with regards to WebKit- do you think they'd consider releasing some form of Safari for Windows?

I doubt it, for a number of reasons. First, they have already released the core, all that is really required is the GUI bits. Apple does not really have a lot of expertise for building GUIs for Windows so it is not a casual project for them.

Second, who would use it? I mean, sure Web developers might use it for testing and maybe some users would like it and choose it instead of Firefox or Opera. Most of the users would probably be mac users forced onto Windows at work. That means they are probably not really cutting into IE's market share at all. The people willing to download an alternative OS have done so and Safari is unlikely to attract many clueless people away from IE since they have already failed to move to Firefox. The end result is quite simply more fragmentation of the non-IE Windows Web browser market, which may actually be detrimental to the adoption alternative software.

Basically, I don't think it is a wise investment of time and effort for them in the current climate. If IE were to drop significantly in market share, then it might make more sense.

OK, I know there are some apple haters out there..

[DynamoJoe]

Apple can't even say thanks without getting blasted? How cynical is that? 'Boo hoo hoo, apple didn't do x' or 'apple could easily have done this since they're a supermegacorp and those're eeeeevil'.

Jesus. Get over it. If you never get "gifted" in life, maybe the problem is you.

Re:It's Tax Time Again

[TomMorrisey]

"Apple is evil because they gave someone a large, valuable gift that they're going to have to pay taxes on." Why don't you take five minutes away from your anti-Apple crusade to go string up Alex Trebek... think of ALL THE TAXES people have been forced to pay because of winning on Jeopardy! How ridiculous.