[giantg2]

I remember joining my company right out of college. In the interview we started talking about open source since I had some open source Android apps. I asked if the company contributed back to the projects it used. The answer was no, but that they were planning to. Over a decade later... they finally created a policy to allow commits to open source projects. It's been used maybe 3 times in it's first year or so. Nobody has the time and the management culture doesnt want to waste budget on it.

[MrGilbert]

> Nobody has the time

I'd erase that part entirely, as it is not true, from my point of view. My day, as has every other person's day, has exactly 24 hours. As an employee, part of that time is dedicated to my employer. In return, I receive financial compensation. It's up to them to decide how they want to spend the resources they acquired. So yes, each and every company could, in theory, contribute back to Open Source.

But as there is no price tag attached to Open Source, there is also no incentive. In a highly capitalized world, where share holder value is more worth than anything else, there are only a few companies that do the right call and act responsible.

[watwut]

> In a highly capitalized world, where share holder value is more worth than anything else, there are only a few companies that do the right call and act responsible.

It is not just that. In a well functioning theoretical free market, no one is going to have time either. The margins are supposed to end up being tight and the competition is supposed to weed out economic inefficiency. Voluntary pro-social behavior is a competitive disadvantage and an economic inefficiency. So, by design, the companies end up not "having time for that".

You need a world that allows for inefficiency and rewards pro-social behavior. That is not the world where we are living in currently.

[Ajedi32]

Working an honest job is pro-social behavior, and it is rewarded. So is quitting your job to work on a side project that ends up being valuable enough for others to pay for. It's just that giving code away for free operates outside that reward structure.

[watwut]

First, in your breakdown, there is literally no space for unoaid volunteer work wich is topic of the thread.

Second, working job is about earning money not about helping others.

[Ajedi32]

Regardless of why you do it, working an honest job does help others. Money is the reward you get for that behavior.

My point is if you explicitly choose to work for free you're opting out of that reward structure. It seems odd to do that and then turn around and complain that "the world where we are living in" isn't rewarding you for your work.

[FuriouslyAdrift]

Basically... Japan

[giantg2]

If your finite time at work is filled with business work, then there is no time left to do the open-source work. Seems true to me from an IC and delivery perspective. Company staffing and resource allocation could create the time to do it, but they don't.

[rkagerer]

That's such a self-harmful policy. I have a small business and I've been really supportive to both open source and small, paid-for commercial libraries and building blocks that I rely on. Also advocated this successfully at clients I've consulted with. We do a lot of technical vetting before adopting any particular dependency (vs. building out our own) and it just makes sense that we strive to foster the continued existence and excellence of our tools. Considering the incredible value companies get from open source, I have trouble understanding why they wouldn't throw some cash or idle cycles their way. Seemed to work out for the likes of Google while they were undergoing rapid growth.

[bonoboTP]

That's fine. There's no requirement to "contribute back". Respect the license terms and don't go demanding anything unless you have a support contract and don't expect that you can get a support contract. It's fine to just use something as long as you also don't harass the maintainer as if they owed you something.

[cap11235]

The annoying part is that often without a corporate policy for contributing, you are doing the work anyway because you need XYZ from the software, just that it lives in a private fork that will never get upstreamed as a result of policy.

[tedggh]

Most developers don’t work for software companies. So when you are not shipping software as a product you and your department are usually a liability. This is important to understand because it helps you frame your approach to upper management as a developer or c-suite as a director of engineering when it comes to talk about budgets. In my experience, most non tech corporations will be ok with allocating budget for open source projects, they already do it in other types of non profit domains. But you need to make a case that goes beyond the ethical reasons or personal motivations.