[nickjj]

I like the idea, but I'm concerned about the $20 / hour.

Since this is done on the employees' own time (after hours), isn't this basically saying, "hey, go help make our app's dependencies better in an overtime scenario but we're going to pay you $20 / hour instead of 1x to 2x your usual salary"?

I know at the bottom it clears that up but I dunno, it just feels weird to me. It seems like a concealed way to mainly benefit the company and potentially exploit the good will of its employees.

[jb3689]

They do say they pay for personal hack projects too, so I read it more as "hey, go do whatever OS projects you feel like/do some skill building and we'll pay you $20/hr". That makes sense to me - the company benefits if you bring more skills and knowledge to the workplace

[drusepth]

It would be terrifying to get paid to work on personal projects outside of work hours without thoroughly reading through your contract and the terms of this payment (and probably getting a second eye to do the same). The last thing you want is for a personal project to surprisingly become your employer's property because they paid you for it.

[habnds]

agreed, additionally, there's an interesting behavioral phenomenon where people are perfectly willing to help strangers on the street when asked for free, but the willingness rate drops dramatically when someone offers them a small amount of money because it reframes the conversation. Once people see open source as a way to make money, it becomes a very different thought process.

[smusumeche]

A lot of us in this industry are very fortunate to have high salaries. At the risk of sounding crass, $20/hour is not much money to me. So this is really just a show of support. I'm going to donate the money anyway. (disclaimer: I work at Formidable)

[Aeolun]

It sounds like just enough to be nice, and not nearly enough to move the needle, to me.

I guess that’s why I think it’s great.

If it was a smaller token amount, it would feel sad.

If it was more, it would feel exploitative (like a number of people in this thread already said).

[nickjj]

Yep, that exact feeling is one of the things that provoked me to write the comment.

Then there's also the social aspect of it all. If you're working with a team of 10 people and 8 of them are contributing to projects that help the company because you're all on the same mission of "rainbows and unicorns are amazing, our company is the best" then there's a tremendous amount of social pressure to keep up with everyone else because otherwise everyone thinks you're not on the same page and you get outcast. Once that happens for a while, that's when you get burnt out and resent everyone you work with.

[DoctorOetker]

>Once people see open source as a way to make money, it becomes a very different thought process.

I think it's less about a different thought process, but about a set of potential legal implications or ramifications.

[habnds]

yeah actually it's a good point about possible legal issues, but that's separate from what I meant in my comment. It's been shown empirically that a stranger is more likely to help if asked for a favor than if offered a small amount of money.

[Boygirl]

Disclaimer- formidable employee and open source maintainer

Formidable does pay folks their full engineering salaries to make targeted contributions to open source during work hours. We can't afford to do a ton of this, so it mostly happens when folks are between projects. The extra $20/hour is extra. It's meant to be fun and encouraging. It's basically the "buy me a beer" license, but Formidable actually buys us a beer.

[peterwwillis]

It also devalues open source work, while at the same time taking away the potential for others to get paid a salary for it. From an economics standpoint, this is bad for developers in the long run, but good for Formidable.

[exogen]

Before (the status quo): $0.

Now: $20/hour.

If that's devaluing something, I would like to devalue my worth by several orders of magnitude please. :)

[meheleventyone]

The problems more related to a fear of anchoring the price.

Before: This costs nothing but I’m avoiding paying for the engineering time that is $$$.

After: $20 an hour is the going rate for developing this sort of software.

[exogen]

There's a big difference in paying for something because you need it done and paying for something you don't even necessarily want but someone did anyway. If you're thinking about "what did this software cost?" and engineering time, then it sounds like the software is already a business need and is being considered from a business perspective.

If I'm furnishing my new empty home and don't have a couch, I'm going to shell out approx. $2,000 for a couch because I need one.

If my house is completely furnished and someone shows up at the door with a couch, I'd either turn them away completely or possibly offer them a small amount after evaluating whether I can even accept it.

IMO claiming that rewarding people for doing any random OSS work they'd do anyway devalues software development in general is concern-trolling.

[smusumeche]

Disclaimer: I work at Formidable. I have never used my Sauce time on anything related to Formidable open source or clients.

[jevakallio]

I agree this could be the case, except that there is no pressure to work on anything work-related. You can literally contribute to any OSS project, whether it's your own video game side hustle, a learning project in a language we don't use, or, if the mood strikes, also one of our projects' dependencies.

[ptah]

yes, it is a very powerful con