On Thu, Jan 03, 2008 at 09:44:00AM -0700, Jack J. Woehr wrote:
I see it as reality. I'm sure that lots of organizations which are
impacted by what the open source (and free-source) communites do (i.e.
what decisions they make) will hire people from those communities to do
two things:
If they're hoping to be interoperable with future open projects, yet
they want the solution faster than may happen if the community were left
alone, they may hire someone to work on it. Imagine if, before OpenSSH
had been developed, a large networking company needed something like
what OpenSSH became and wanted it to be open so that their product would
interoperate. They may hire someone who was working on it in their
spare time. This kind of hiring directly benefits them but also the
wider community.
There's also the subversion class of hiring where, if they can't
infiltrate the community with one of their own, they would try to "turn"
a member of the community.
So, I suppose, as always, when one is inclined to take the advice of
someone on a major decision, it is prudent to look at their motivation
and their background; who they are working for.
Above-the-board hiring practices are fair and mutually beneficial.
Subversive practices are best documented and publisised.
