It always struck me as a cultural failure that tech workers didn’t expect as a minimum that their employers dedicate support either in money or employee hours to the OSS they relied on.
Such an obvious cultural norm with obvious wins all around. Even law firms market their pro bono donations.
Whenever I’ve brought it up with tech workers they’re surprised and stare into the distance. Goes to show how much eusocial DNA is in the industry.
@maegul @socketwench The problem is that requires compromising OSS values by making it not open-source to some degree where corporate use is concerned. Companies won't adopt the expectation of contributing without some sort of cost for failing to do so (thank you Milton Friedman... NOT!).
Eh, it’s a cultural norm, same as giving tech workers break out rooms with, kombucha, ping pong tables and bean bags.
Like I said, law firms in some places adopted it, in gōd part because their employees were happier to work somewhere that did it than one that didn’t.
These things are possible. In tech, an obvious incentive on both sides of the employment is that employees get to know their tech stack better. More skills/reputation for the employees, even the employer, and an investment in the tech stack for the company.
Dunno. Doesn’t seem hard.
@maegul @socketwench Except for Friedman: "The only priority of a company is to maximize shareholder value.". Most tech company execs follow Friedman at his most toxic. Contributing support to OSS takes money that could go to shareholders, therefore it's forbidden.
They'll fork an OSS project and maintain it privately, with all the costs that entails, rather than see a penny go to supporting it. Yes, IMO they're insane. Sociopathic is the usual diagnosis.