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How many of these homework assignments become actual code that companies use? If you ran a business and your programmers were all busy but you wanted some new widget, what is preventing you from posting a job and tricking 100+ programmers into bootstrap your project for free?

A friend recently spent a week building a chat server with a very specific telnet/ssh interface as a "code test" for a video game company. I helped him test it and it was really solid. He walked the interviewer through the setup and how everything worked and then never heard back from them. I suspect that they simply used his code in their next project. What's stopping them from handing over his code to the next round of applicants with the assignment of adding all the features they need? They could post a high salary and offer great benefits, but never actually hire anyone.

We, as developers, simply can't be giving away free work. We're all aware of how opportunistic business folks can be. I refuse to do "homework assignments" (unpaid work) and so should you.