[fecak]

>One nice thing about being transparent and consistent with salaries is that you can have an objective conversation with someone about the reasons that they're making less, versus having to rely on vague, irrelevant, or harmful explanations...

Those objective conversations are a great benefit to salary transparency in theory, and I can't imagine you can open up your numbers without being at least somewhat prepared for those conversations to take place. I would be curious if companies that provide salary transparency wouldn't be scurrying to make some salary adjustments in the days before the data becomes public.

The issue lies in the fact that developer contribution is more than just commits and LOC stats, and it's tough to measure objectively. You're likely to get into some rather vague explanations, even if they aren't as nefarious as negotiating ability or salary history.

It's a step in the right direction, though until we have clear and widely accepted methods of measuring contribution we'll still have disagreements on individual employee value.