On Saturday 17. December 2016 20.48.24 Charles Cossé wrote:
I'm all about free software, and paying to develop free software is a step in the right direction, but still ... the likelihood that the software would even benefit another elevator manufacturer seems unrealistic ...
This is where we come full circle in a discussion that has largely been tangential to what the original message was about. First of all, the freedoms associated with Free Software go far beyond whether only the producers get benefits from such transparency: to focus only on that would be a classic "open source" argument.
Where this returns to the original message is in precisely the matter of whether people can make a decent living and do so ethically. The second point made in that message may seem like a totally separate thing from the experience of the software developer working on Uber's infrastructure. Here's a quote contrasting the benefits of a driver and a developer at Uber:
"Keep in mind that you don’t get fringe benefits as an independent contractor. No paid sick leave or vacation days, no subsidized health insurance or free coffee or snacks in the company cafeteria. No employer matching contributions to your 401(k) savings plan. No educational assistance, group term life insurance, health savings accounts and so forth.
Things would be different if you worked for Uber Technologies. You would receive a 401(k) plan, gym reimbursement, nine paid company holidays, full medical/dental/visions package and an unlimited vacation policy. You might even get snacks in Uber’s lunchroom."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/get-there/wp/2015/02/20/the-hidden-costs... of-being-an-uber-driver/
Just as Uber and other companies do very nicely out of the "gig economy" by encouraging people to work without normal employment protections and rights, emphasising the "flexible" aspects of working as a contractor and the supposedly greater rewards available, those doing the work appear to end up working for less, paying for necessities out of their own pocket (like healthcare and insurance), or maybe even doing without those things completely. And people working for Uber's competitors experience an erosion of their own working conditions as Uber unfairly competes and forces those competitors to reduce their own expenses.
Now, software development for Uber might be done on a regular employment contract, meaning that people in those jobs have escaped the "gig economy" (for now), but elsewhere the drive for deregulation and exploitation still applies. When you note that "paying to develop free software is a step in the right direction", it indicates that people still expect Free Software developers to work for less than others or even for nothing, all because some people made a thing out of "open source" being more economically "efficient", and thus introducing a rather similar phenomenon of leaning on the workers to be cheaper at producing stuff so that businesses can be more profitable.
So it turns out that those of us wanting to write Free Software and get paid for it actually have more in common with the average Uber driver than one might first have thought. Carsten's objections are both valid ones after all.
Paul