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Vendor Pays OSS Developers for Enterprise Support
Anonymous Coward writes "eWeek is reporting that a company called OpenLogic is paying qualified experts in the open-source community to provide enterprise support for projects they are intimately familiar with. OpenLogic calls its new initiative its Expert Community program."
the article is incorrect. they DO NOT PAY.
QUOTE :
OpenLogic is looking for the best and brightest open source developers to join the OpenLogic Expert Community. As a thank you for their time, Open Logic Expert Community members can earn points redeemable for rewards in the OpenLogic Rewards program. Learn more about the OpenLogic Expert Community and the OpenLogic Rewards program.
Add this model to the list of rebuttals to the "you can't make money on open-source" meme.
From the OpenLogic Community FAQ:
From their website:
In other words, no, you're not going to get paid for helping. You will receive 10 Bazooka Joe comics for each Apache installation, and 5 Chuck E. Cheese tickets per debugged line of code.
Public use of any portable music system is a virtually guaranteed indicator of sociopathic tendencies. -- Zoso
I'd imagine there is some sort of exchange rate between OpenLogic Rewards points and US dollars, something that could easily be figured out by posting some for sale on Ebay.
Would it be worth it? Probably not. But they are being 'paid' in the form of goods.
The press release says in fact:and:And (slightly offtopic, but put more elequontly & humorously then the usual 'blah blah, oss has noone to sue'):You sir, are a shill from one of the proprietary companies, trembling in their boots about new business models.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
This article goes on to say that even though the developers ARE NOT BEING PAID , when the suport was outsourced offshore , then it ended up being cheaper TO PAY the offshore developers THAN TO NOT PAY the American developers.
The reason for this is the "time cost" of having to "talk" to American developers, whereas for offshore support, nothing you say is understood, so you bypass the "communication" or "talking" aspect of things.
U send me ur non paying outsourced job plz.
Look a bit further through their website. You'll also find the FAQ which states that these "points" can be redeemed for cash. 100+ points/incident, 1 point = $1. So if you want the cash, that's $100/incident.
Yes, sir!
Once Chuck E. Cheese starts stocking computer parts, I'll be debugging like crazy.
>help solve issues and win an Xbox 360.
Wow. So they charge big bucks an hour, and we get a shiny xbox!
What idiot accepted this article?
Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
from the summary and comments, it's obvious that there is a business case for open source: open source pays and doesn't pay, possibly giving points which could be redeemable for cash, to american or offshore programmers. or not.
I had another sig before, but this one is better
NERDS working for free. Awesome. It's a great idea!
Next thing you know MicroShaft will "pay" its own "expert community" to debug Windows Vista with old XBOX games.
"No one will really be free until nerd persecution ends."
3. Compensation. Unless otherwise covered in a separate written Addendum to this Agreement, your compensation for completing an assignment will be listed on the Committed Community website when you apply for the assignment. Compensation is subject to change by OpenLogic and any changes shall be effective when posted to the Committed Community website or provided to you via email. You are responsible for any and all taxes due on any compensation received from OpenLogic.
Wow, why didn't anyone think of this before? A compensation program that is subject to change at will... I only need to usually make my house payment anyway.
http://www.coderoshi.com/
Employer: Wahoo Docks Division: Information Technology Job Title: Software Programmer Description: This position will work with our existing IT professional to supplement the development of our in-house developed MIS system, develop new software to be used with our operations, and to monitor, expand and build on our existing Web Sites. In short, we need additional support with our software as we are continually developing new products and require faster lead times on changes. General aptitude with a variety of software packages, general intellect and personality fit with existing staff are the most imnportant criteria we will use to identify candidate. Software we currently use includes MS Access, C++, MySQL, VBA, CAD, Basic, HTML, PHP, among others. We work hard at our firm and have a good sense of excellence at what we do - we expect the candidate to be accretive to the overall group. We provide a very work hard/play hard atmosphere and are looking for someone who is enthused by this atmosphere. Location: Atlanta Position Type: Full Time Desired Major(s): All Liberal Arts/Computer Science, All Business/Computer Information Systems Desired Class Level(s): Senior, 1st Year alumni, Alumni Work Authorization: US Citizen, Permanent Resident Salary Range: $30,000 - $40,000
That fucking job should be paying at least $75k. Disagree? Fucking applying! And don't cry to me when you're at the office for 80+ hours a week!
You will get paid! For any issue you resolve successfully, you will get paid. We track how much you'll get paid in points. You can trade in the points for cash or for things like XBoxes. (This is in addition to the XBoxes being given to the first members to join on successfully resolving their first issue.) The reason we added the point system was because some people would rather have prizes like XBoxes than cash. (I was told by SEVERAL people that they'd rather get things like XBoxes because if they got cash their wives would never let them by XBoxes.) But you can trade in your points directly for dollars. Or you can save them up for XBoxes. Or you can donate them to open source software organizations.
... where jobs will be posted in open forums/sites, and people will take them on and get paid, be it contract jobs, be it support for open source software - a truly open world we are going towards ?
Read radical news here
I used to get $120K for that work.
You get paid "points" which can be redeemed for "cash and prizes" ...
... but I don't expect to make a living there"
Another posted put it best "like tickets at an arcade
This is a great way to get enterprise support...if your idea of "enterprise support" is a couple of high-schoolers with a couple months of Linux experience on their two-box networks telling you what to do. (Plus, "I migrated EDS from Cleveland to San Antonio and all I got was this lousy XBox?")
I wonder if OpenLogic takes coupons and IOUs as payment in lieu of cash? (Don't laugh too hard; many class-action suits end with the plantiffs getting coupons.)
Legal Agreement:Please review the OpenLogic Expert Community Agreement If you are accepted to the OpenLogic Expert Community, you will be asked to read and accept the agreement.
'Assignments may be bugs, errors, problems or other issues associated with open source projects. OpenLogic will post assignments on the Committed Community website located at www.________.com '
(their underscores, not mine)
'If you develop any source code or other material as part of any assignment, you agree that you will provide a copy of the source code or other materials to OpenLogic.You also agree to assign to OpenLogic joint ownership in any and all worldwide copyrights, moral rights and other proprietary and intellectual property rights you have in the source code or other materials'
http://milkshake.dexy.org
In addition, as an introductory offer, if you are one of the first 75 people to join the OpenLogic Expert Community, you will receive an Xbox 360 once you resolve your first issue.
Which part of their market research made them think I'd want a Microsoft TOY as a reward for my expertise?
the drugs wore off, more-than-needed computer skills graduated from college, outsourcing started to work, and...
so what was your point? You and the parent post are longing for the "good ol' days"?!
So when I'm doing a phat Typo3 Project Kaspar Skarhoj is the best choice for advice?
Yes.
If I wanna do some Real Time 3D thing I need Ton Roosendaal and the Blender Crew?
Right.
Do I need this company?
No.
To me it just looks like some shop trying to feed of the OSS community. This might be attrative for someone who's good at coding but can't market himself. But from what I can tell all those people at project leads are doing perfectly well in doing business all by themselves.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Look at the scammy behaviour prompted by google's adsense money or yahoo and overtures' click bounties and "alliances" promoting spyware spammers and ad farms and search engine abuse. I even just got a spam of a monster.com job offer; apparently due to some kind of reward which is motivating people to spam their job postings around. "work at home" scams and reward systems like this seem to be the modern corporate way of doing things in unethical ways while maintaining plausible deniability.
I suppose stuff like this has always happened in the real world and I was just isolated from it in the open source world where most folks fix bugs and help each other and explain things for free. I just wish we could keep the real world out for a couple more decades. :)
what are stocks then? Electronic promises of maybe this might be an IOU with zero guarantees that it is worth more than the paper it isn't even printed on anymore.
sounds like scrip to me! In fact, stocks sound worse! At least scrip was closer to a legit IOU, a promissary. Company goes bankrupt, a ha! thinks you, at least I'll get "my share" as a "stockholder" because "I wonzors part of de company and stuff" when they auction off the furniture and company ragmobiles! WRONG! The creditors come first, ahead of you, and 99% of companies out there don't have enough honest tangible assets to cover their debts with creditors, let alone what some pumped up hyperinflated bingo card "stock" is worth. *Especially* "new economy" IP based companies.
The "bet the farm" method based on intangibles is a pretty risky business to be in, especially today when so many people think they are "worth" being "rich" because of being able to duplicate some grade B or C quality intangible product. The rest of the planet is noticing that intangibles that can be easily reproduced for ultra cheap are at best really only worth about 2% of what people think they are 'worth'.
Piracy prices are a LOT closer to an honest market reality point than the artificial prices they pull out of their butts for intangible products.
When it is posible to clone your product for one penny, you better start to think about what that product really is worth. If they could clone cars for a dollar, would you still feel justified paying 20 grand for a cheap one?
And software? For real, let us hear some honest defense of making word processors even bigger and adding more features? Any takers? Paying a song or watching a video, are we 'there" yet? Can you add sums in many interesting ways, display them on a graph or table?
Outside of a very few small (and usually scientific based) niche areas, usually using clusters, where exactly does software needa whole lot more features? What I see is some code clean up is needed the most now. What else do you really need in a browser that you can't get now, more eyecandy and 3-d spinning desktops? and after that dubious effort?
Just a word to the wise for those in the "IP" business in year 2006 (notice it is not 1986 or even 96 any more). There are 6 billion people in the world. Within ten years there will be MILLIONS AND MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of coders all over the planet, *most* of them in the few bucks a day nations, and that will be considered "well paid". The world will be AWASH in code then, simply a TSUNAMI of extra code.
Really think prices are going to stay high then, or even at a medium level?
People need to really think what they might imagine the economy will be then and what hanging around typing is going to be worth. There is going to be a LOT of competition for the hanging around in the climate controlled office typing type jobs, given the alternatives. Are you REALLY going to be "worth" the same cost as ten other people someplace else for the same money?
You are still IN the go-go huge bucks phase of this IP business, BUT, it is not going to last that long now, the planet has already passed critical mass with this job to take it from leet into "ho, hum, another job" phase and that trend is accelerating.
"I wish you all had one neck, and my hands were around it." -- Carl Panzram
"Utinam populus Romanus unam cervicem haberet!" (I wish the Roman people had one throat) -- Caligula