Rick at al,
much been said on this topic and the positive side is that although
we all have our own views of things, we can actually work together.
One thing that Rick said that caught my attention is that some of us
have projects that could use more help, that sometimes, that nice
project just need a pair of extra hands. We don't always have the
means to pay the market value of the coding hours needed, others
would also be keen on donating time if there was even the tinyiest
money amount in it (people might code a routine for 10 USD in 10
minutes but not do it for free). I am now changing this topic so that
we might discuss alternative ways to make projects reach the real world.
What do people here think of bounties? Bounties are for example
integral parts os Haiku OS, Amiga OS and Morph OS development. Some
may say that those are toy hobby operating system, but hey, there are
users and coders there and the bountie system creates a kind of micro
economy system that enables them to move forward. MorphOS network
stack was done by bountie. The way bounties usually works is, some
one set a "fund" for a given bounty saying what is the task and who
will be eligible to collect such bounty and what are the terms. Then
people who need or like that bounty pour money on it. When someone
complete the bounty, it receives the money. Most used system for the
money transfers is PayPal. For example in Amiga OS there's the
AmiZilla bounty which will be given to the first one to build a
firefox stable version for that OS (or KHTML based), the bounty is
now with 3 thousand USD. We know that bounties might not be the
market price, but someone might just be needing the money.
It's like bugzilla, but with some money, when it is completed, the
winner receives it. Some people here might be wanting a SOAP library
but they cannot write themselves and cannot hire a full time coder to
build it, but they might gather a group, each pour couple bucks and
they say that the first SOAP transcript based lib will win the bounty
and that the code will be released to all in a BSD license. The whole
community benefits, the group that needed it is benefited by actually
having it available and the coder that received the bucks will also
be happy.
As Rick said, this can drive the pay of the programmer down since
there will always be someone willing to do it for a lower price but
this might also be the only way to achieve some projects since not
every coder out there can work for free. For example, you're an
inventive user or someone that is not very network or xml savvy but
you just want to use Amazon S3 from your project, you cannot build it
yourself as fast as you'd want but you decided that such tool is
worth don't know maybe $45, you might share those needs with other
users and that amount could get higher... it would take less than a
day for an experienced coder to implement the Amazon S3 service, he
could end up winning your $45 for a couple hours work, this is
probably not his prime sallary rate but how is that for a saturday
morning work... If you live in Brazil where $45 == $100 of my money,
then this even more attractive.
What would be other options besides bounty. I am just trying to move
this topic onto a different conversation...
Cheers
andre
On Jul 15, 2006, at 10:47 PM, Rick Harrison wrote:
On Jul 15, 2006, at 12:44 PM, Andre Garzia wrote:
Rick,
it is not about flames, many times here, I was replying to some
one pointing them on some very different direction than the one
their we're going and yet, we can always be nice. Be honest is one
thing, but you can always write your email in a more polite way.
You don't call other peoples projects and ideas joke on public
lists just because you fell that they are a joke. Or if you want
to call it that way, you send it as a private email.
Andre,
I was not referring to you or your comments personally at all.
Sometimes being nice and politically correct all the time fails to
make the point.
What caught my attention was that someone was asking for the Moon
and the Stars,
and offering to pay very little in return for those qualifications.
I said nothing about their idea, or project being a joke. I was
discussing their
extraordinarily high expectations of the quality of candidate they
were looking to get
for the little money they were willing to pay.
It is also a bit of a long shot to ask for all of those
qualifications, lack of pay, and
also to have an interest in Hindu ideology. An extremely tall
order for most people.
I didn't send it as a private email because there are a few on this
list who could use
a reminder about how much one should expect in the way of
qualifications when
paying for programming services. You could have responded to me
privately as well.
I know you have my email address. Any future responses you can
please direct to me
offline.
I am working for the Kauai Hindu Monastery, I am sure many on this
list would not have accepted the same contract I did accept but I
am having the best moment of my life working with them. Its a very
inspiring thing to see your work actually helping people out
there, not only making money but actually making people live
better. I am not saying that you were wrong but that there are
multiple ways of looking into something, no one holds all the
truth in their hands.
It's nice of you to donate your work to a cause you believe in, if
you like working for little or no pay that is your business.
However, if you are charging below market rates, remember that you
are potentially dragging down the rest of us
who still need to eat and keep a roof over our heads. Places like
Froogle, eBay, and eLance are actually dragging down
profit margins worldwide. As a friend of mine put it, "eBay is a
place where buyers are looking for stupid sellers, and sellers
are looking for stupid buyers". The whole world economy is based
on ignorance of prices and the true value of products or services.
Now that everyone in the world can go to Froogle to find the best
price for any item, it drags everyone else trying to sell that
same item down to that lowest price, the result is that profit
margins are disappearing. When profit margins get too low it
for a product it is no longer worth making or selling that product.
Here is another example, there is a friend of mine who already has
a full-time job working for a company. Since he is doing this
his other business on the side, he wants to help people out from
the good of his heart and charges only 1/5th the market price
per hour for the same job. He isn't concerned at all for himself
because he has his other job keeping him afloat, but he is
damaging all the similar businesses in this area. His unfair
competition is putting them out of business! He isn't considering
the damage he is doing to his own local economy by charging prices
way below market value. (But I digress.)
I never claimed to hold all the truth in my hands. Of course you
don't qualify for that either, so that statement is a wash.
I am sure you're talking honest and that many will think just like
you and that is not wrong but someone on this list might want to
enter such project not all for the money but for something else
too and then a very nice game might emerge, I'd give all my help
to see such project fruit.
Like I said, if you want to just give your talent away for free
that is your business. I actually have several very heavy projects of
great value that could use your free time and efforts which would
make you feel just fantastic because you'd be helping out the
world!
I've seen more than one small-no-budget-for-you project rise and
get the big bucks, this happened because the people who worked on
it were passionate about it and then reward came. Remember it's a
game about Hindu concepts, Hinduism has a very huge following and
it also may appeals to other crowds such as new age people or if
the game is fun enough, to gamers in general. Knowing the works of
the monks in Kauai, their magazines and books and how far they can
reach, knowing that computers and games are very popular in asia
and in america (where you have many many Hindus), I am sure such
project could soar.
I've seen a lot of shareware and small no budget projects go
completely to waste, and never earn any money to speak of. The big
bucks ones
are usually the rare exceptions. I was not referring to the
subject matter of their game at all in my comments, just candidate
expectations and pay.
Perhaps I've just seen too many examples of programmers who took a
lot of abuse from managers that they never should have in the past
and that
has colored my view of the programming world. I've met more people
in my line of work who think that programmers should just give them
hours and hours of blood, sweat, and tears without ever
compensating them properly. There are also a lot of managers that
have never programmed one line of code, but yet believe that code
should just magically appear in front of them after 2 minutes of
programming time has elapsed. They suffer from the "Is it done
yet?" syndrome. I've met others who think that because you work
with computers, it means that you must therefore know everything
there is to know about all computers, and all software programs
that exist in the entire world.
I really believe in the hard work that programmers do with
Revolution and other computer languages. I also believe strongly
that they should be
adequately compensated for their efforts with at least fair market
value pay for their respective areas of the world. Programming
authors who have written
20 games know all about Versiontracker, Tucows, and other
distribution points for their software. They are probably so
successful at that level
that it would be highly unlikely for them to want to work on a game
which promises little pay for their efforts.
Oh, and just to state some of my other beliefs a little more
clearly, Music is not free just because one can download it and
duplicate it.
Likewise software is not free just because one can download it and
duplicate it. These things are only free if the author or creator
of the work states specifically that the work is free. Otherwise,
you must pay for these creations.
Don't mistake them for amateurs, they were coding and doing
computer projects and dtp since a very long time. They may be
naive about game markets, but if they trully want to make this
game, I am sure it will reach far.
I was trying to get them to pull back on their extra high
expectations. Anyone who has 20 games out on the market with all
of the rest of the
qualifications listed will not work for them for peanuts. I was
not trying to discourage them on their project.
PS: ... the side effect of working with Monks who are also a
publishing house is that you learn much, not only talking to them
but reading them, nothing beats walking besides Sivakatirswami
listening him explaining what is karma!
Cheers
Andre
Please contact me off list for any further comments.
Thanks,
Rick
On Jul 14, 2006, at 7:47 PM, Rick Harrison wrote:
Sorry, I couldn't sound nicer about this. I'm sure I'll get
flamed for just trying to be honest.
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