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by luma 3874 days ago
Why would anybody be against competent coders wanting to donate time to public use? I get that other people were hoping to be paid for this, but would you end all volunteer programs on account of them interfering with paid labor?
4 comments
ac2u 3874 days ago
No I wouldn't. But volunteer work is usually commissioned without a price incentive in mind rather than an auction style format.
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anm89 3874 days ago
No one is. If you want to donate your time there are a million non profits that will gladfully take the donation.

There is no reason this process has to devalue everyone else's work on a paid job.

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fineman 3874 days ago
Then get another job. We don't owe you your line of work.

If you literally can't compete with volunteers maybe you should see what they says about your niche and then find a new one.

Once when replacing a server (and fixing the wiring, etc, etc) I also replaced a router and dual-homed the company's site as a freebie because it made my job easier (the new router had diagnostics, managed-switch features, etc). It was a line-item I could have billed for separately, or it was a new level of service.

By the "save the work for the guy feeding the starving children" philosophy we should nickel-and-dime our clients instead of providing our true value. I don't like that.

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fineman 3874 days ago
btw, I'm a supporter of unlimited (ie, not limited - I would try to encourage you to not need it though) welfare to let society say "tough" things such as "Oh well, I guess we don't need many buggy whips."

And as to why I didn't charge anyways - the change actually made my other work faster.

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Kalium 3874 days ago
There are lots of non-profits that will gladly take the donation. Very, very few have made it as easy to donate as 18F has.

Perhaps the lesson here is that non-profits need to make it as easy and clearly-defined as 18F has in order to receive more donations.

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s73v3r 3874 days ago
Volunteer programs? No, not at all. But this is NOT a volunteer program. It is supposed to be a way to better bid out government work, which I will point out is very much not charity.
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username223 3874 days ago
> Why would anybody be against competent coders wanting to donate time to public use?

Ayn frowns upon altruism, and lots of coders (heart) Ayn.

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