Vendor Pays OSS Developers for Enterprise Support

Anonymous Coward writes "eWeek is reporting that a company called OpenLogic is paying qualified experts in the open-source community to provide enterprise support for projects they are intimately familiar with. OpenLogic calls its new initiative its Expert Community program."

Re:Are you sure?

[AuMatar]

They get paid in points which, supposedly, can be cashed in for cash and prizes. So can tickets I win at the local skee-ball arcade, but I don't expect to make a living there either. I couldn't find a public list of how much various items cost in points, what the turn around time for cashing in points is, or even what items are available (other than the Xbox 360). Also, it looks like they get a fixed amount of points by severity, rather than based on the difficulty of the problem. This means the more difficult problems will be actively avoided, as the pay/hr is not worth it. I'd be seriously concerned about all of that if I was considering signing up. Of course, I rather doubt I have committer access on any of the projects they're looking for anyway.

On a side note- anyone else find it amusing that the big reward they're pimping out is an MS product?

Opensource payment for developers

[Anonymous Coward]

This article goes on to say that even though the developers ARE NOT BEING PAID , when the suport was outsourced offshore , then it ended up being cheaper TO PAY the offshore developers THAN TO NOT PAY the American developers.

The reason for this is the "time cost" of having to "talk" to American developers, whereas for offshore support, nothing you say is understood, so you bypass the "communication" or "talking" aspect of things.

U send me ur non paying outsourced job plz.

Legal Agreement

[ArikTheRed]

3. Compensation. Unless otherwise covered in a separate written Addendum to this Agreement, your compensation for completing an assignment will be listed on the Committed Community website when you apply for the assignment. Compensation is subject to change by OpenLogic and any changes shall be effective when posted to the Committed Community website or provided to you via email. You are responsible for any and all taxes due on any compensation received from OpenLogic.

Wow, why didn't anyone think of this before? A compensation program that is subject to change at will... I only need to usually make my house payment anyway.

Don't beleive me?

[dietrollemdefender]

From my fucking school "career" board"

Employer: Wahoo Docks Division: Information Technology Job Title: Software Programmer Description: This position will work with our existing IT professional to supplement the development of our in-house developed MIS system, develop new software to be used with our operations, and to monitor, expand and build on our existing Web Sites. In short, we need additional support with our software as we are continually developing new products and require faster lead times on changes. General aptitude with a variety of software packages, general intellect and personality fit with existing staff are the most imnportant criteria we will use to identify candidate. Software we currently use includes MS Access, C++, MySQL, VBA, CAD, Basic, HTML, PHP, among others. We work hard at our firm and have a good sense of excellence at what we do - we expect the candidate to be accretive to the overall group. We provide a very work hard/play hard atmosphere and are looking for someone who is enthused by this atmosphere. Location: Atlanta Position Type: Full Time Desired Major(s): All Liberal Arts/Computer Science, All Business/Computer Information Systems Desired Class Level(s): Senior, 1st Year alumni, Alumni Work Authorization: US Citizen, Permanent Resident Salary Range: $30,000 - $40,000

That fucking job should be paying at least $75k. Disagree? Fucking applying! And don't cry to me when you're at the office for 80+ hours a week!

Re:Rebutting the myths

[spun]

Also does it not rebutt the myth that if you have the code you can easily maintain and improve it yourself?

It proves the truth that if you have access to the code you can easily maintain and improve it yourself by paying someone to do it for you. Or did you think that simply having the code automatically makes everyone a programmer? Or (more likely) are you deliberately misinterpreting this "myth" to make some snarky straw-man point? In any case, your comment made me laugh my ass off and now I need to "rebutt" myself.

Re:Rebutting the myths

[NineNine]

1. Stock price has little to nothing to do with the profitability of a company.

2. The question was about OSS and making money, which is still argely unproven. Whether or not OSS provides better advancement in software in general is a point that can be argued, but whether or not it can make money can't be argued at this point: By and large, OSS does NOT make money.

XBox 360 - no thanks.

[david.gilbert]

I got an email from OpenLogic last month, inviting me to join the program. I binned it when I read:

In addition, as an introductory offer, if you are one of the first 75 people to join the OpenLogic Expert Community, you will receive an Xbox 360 once you resolve your first issue.

Which part of their market research made them think I'd want a Microsoft TOY as a reward for my expertise?