[full disclosure: I'm currently unemployed]
Volunteerism can quickly become a contributor to the "race to the
bottom" in capitalist systems.
* If a massive corporation like Nike crowd-sources a new design for a
shoe, they get an awful lot of work out of people for free rather
than paying wages for actual employees. The people who do the
design might be fine with spending their time that way, but there
might be plenty of other shoe designers (??) who can't afford to
work for free.
* There have been plenty of moments in libraries where, when
taxes/funding needs to be raised, those being asked for the money
say "Why can't we just operate the library on volunteers and fire
all the paid staff?".
* There are currently two strikes going on at York University and
University of Toronto by teaching assistants and contract teaching
staff who are trying to draw attention to the "adjunctification" of
post-secondary education.
Saying that doing SWC sessions at Monsanto gives instructors a chance to
market themselves for a potential job is dangerously close to the "Do it
for free, because exposure!" flavour of exploitation. See also: unpaid
internships
I realize I'm not making a precise point for/against anything here, but
I wanted to reinforce the idea that, while volunteering is often a
positive thing, it can also have negative effects. Don't feel guilty,
but do keep it in mind. I don't necessarily think it's part of SWC's
mission to advocate for paying teachers better, but we also don't want
to unknowingly devalue the work of our colleagues looking to be paid for
this kind of teaching.
Michael Selik <mailto:[email protected]>
March 6, 2015 at 6:49 PM
The major question for open-source is how to avoid making a wealth
transfer from one set of engineers (the creators of open-source) to
another, non-intersecting set (the freeloaders of open-source). For
software, there's enough of an intersection between users and creators
that the creators appear to gain more in productivity (and thus wages)
than they lose to other economic forces. It's hard to know.
As I understand it, the existence of Software Carpentry as a
non-profit, mostly-volunteer organization stems from the inadequate
public funding allocated to scientific research, exacerbated by the
awkward structure of higher education and unfortunate circumstances of
graduate students. I'd be frustrated if Software Carpentry shifted
from trying to alleviate this pain to instead exploiting one group
(mostly academics) for the benefit of another (industry scientists and
their employers).
The morality of volunteering for corporations is comparable to the
intersection between the creators and users of open-source training.
How many volunteers will benefit economically? How many scientists
will face lower wages because some of their peers choose to volunteer?
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Erik Bray <mailto:[email protected]>
March 6, 2015 at 11:33 AM
On Wed, Mar 4, 2015 at 2:35 PM, Greg Wilson
<[email protected]> wrote:
2. Other people have said that corporations should be charged market rates.
I'm all in favor of bringing in more money (after all, that's what pays my
salary) but what about Harvard? They're sitting on a $29 billion endowment
- should we charge them what we charge the Fortune 500? How about small
companies: do we ask a start-up less than we ask Monsanto? We've already
started down this road by not charging admin fees for workshops in less
affluent countries; should the subcommittee that the executive is putting
together to regularize fee waivers look at charging market rates for
companies, affluent institutions, or some other group?
Late to this discussion, so sorry if I'm just rehashing/adding to the
noise. But I would like to second this. Individual instructors are
of course free to do whatever they feel like, but I would not feel
comfortable if SWC were making distinctions about who to send
instructors to based on some institutions' abilities to pay or not pay
as the case may be (admin fees are another matter, but I don't have
strong opinions on that). I don't generally care what the institution
is--if there are scientists who need to improve their computing skills
I want to help them, so that they can do better science.
3. I take Stephen's point about having a lot more companies knock on our
door if word gets out that we can provide high-quality training at low cost,
but I actually think that's a good thing. Many of our instructors are
considering careers outside academia, and I'd be pleased if we could help
them make connections.
Yes! This^^^
Best,
Erik
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Greg Wilson <mailto:[email protected]>
March 4, 2015 at 3:35 PM
Hi everyone,
A couple of people have mailed me about this directly as well, so
here's my thinking:
1. Some people have objected because they dislike Monsanto's business
practices and/or GMOs in general. However, we have instructors who
won't teach at the US national labs because of their involvement in
the nuclear weapons program, others who won't teach at
Catholic-affiliated institutions because of their record of covering
up child abuse, and others still who think that we should have gotten
off GitHub last year because of their treatment of Julie Ann Horvath.
I have (very strong) personal feelings about some of these issues, but
everyone slices them differently, and I respect everyone's right to
choose what they do or don't volunteer for.
2. Other people have said that corporations should be charged market
rates. I'm all in favor of bringing in more money (after all, that's
what pays my salary) but what about Harvard? They're sitting on a $29
billion endowment - should we charge them what we charge the Fortune
500? How about small companies: do we ask a start-up less than we ask
Monsanto? We've already started down this road by not charging admin
fees for workshops in less affluent countries; should the subcommittee
that the executive is putting together to regularize fee waivers look
at charging market rates for companies, affluent institutions, or some
other group?
3. I take Stephen's point about having a lot more companies knock on
our door if word gets out that we can provide high-quality training at
low cost, but I actually think that's a good thing. Many of our
instructors are considering careers outside academia, and I'd be
pleased if we could help them make connections.
This one's likely to generate a long thread, but it's an important
topic - I look forward to hearing more about what you think.
Thanks,
Greg
On 2015-03-04 1:12 PM, Daniel Chen wrote:
--
Dr. Greg Wilson | [email protected]
Software Carpentry | http://software-carpentry.org
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Daniel Chen <mailto:[email protected]>
March 4, 2015 at 2:12 PM
I agree, a discussion is definitely warranted.
Iterating off of Jason's e-mail: many services offer academic and
corporate pricing tiers. This could be something we do?
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Turner, Stephen D. (sdt5z) <mailto:[email protected]>
March 4, 2015 at 2:05 PM
I'll second the apprehension about providing free labor to
corporations who can very easily pay for it. And I wouldn't blow this
off as a one-off thing, a "let's just do it this time and figure it
out later if it becomes a problem" -kind of thing. When word gets out
that we're providing training worth big money for free to any
corporation who asks for it, I'd imagine we'll have lots more
Monsantos knocking at our door (and not just global multibillion
dollar corps). I'd suggest some serious discussion amongst the
steering committee and everyone else on this list about what a policy
should look like.
Stephen
-----------------------------------------
Stephen D. Turner, Ph.D.
Bioinformatics Core Director
University of Virginia School of Medicine
bioinformatics.virginia.edu <http://bioinformatics.virginia.edu>
On Mar 4, 2015, at 12:25 PM, Jason Moore <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
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--
Ruth Collings, MLIS
ruthcollings.ca <http://ruthcollings.ca>
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