[mwcampbell]

This post makes some good points. But I think there's another extreme we need to be careful to avoid. In a world full of workers who are emotionally and morally disengaged, just doing what they're told for a paycheck, there's plenty of room for exploitation of a different kind.

Perhaps the best model for software development is a small company with a few cofounders who are passionate about what they're working on, who charge a fair price for their software, and who work smarter in every possible way (yes, including making full use of open source) to minimize the amount of hiring they have to do. When they do hire, they treat their employees fairly and don't expect too much of them.

But then when I'm presented with, say, a security questionnaire, I wonder if developing software that meets today's standards is inevitably the sole domain of big companies. (I suspect many other developers feel the same way about my own pet cause, accessibility.)

[kodah]

> In a world full of workers who are emotionally and morally disengaged, just doing what they're told for a paycheck

I don't this is true of software. I live on the West Coast and SWEs are by far some of the most vocal and aggressive voices in a crowd. They seem highly engaged and constantly channeling emotion for what they want. That said, it's a recent trend. When I came into software the attitudes were much more laid back. I'd prefer a return to this.