Driven-Monkey

In my opinion…. no. But I have come across these posts ( #1 and #2 ) by someone who clearly believes they are.

Before I begin my rant concerning these views I will admit that I myself have applied for a GSoC scholarship this year, to work on my MPLS implementation for FreeBSD. If I do not get accepted into the program, I will still be working on the project for my dissertation, but I can honestly say that my results will not be as good if this happens. Also, I may have a skewed vision of what is evil, as I have recently applied for a position in a graduate program for an oil, gas and power company, which is an industry everyone feels is evil.

Google is a business, and as such they do have the goal of making money. I can fairly confidently say that any company in the world is concerned with this (of course their are exceptions to the rule, and please feel free to name a few). Nothing is done in the business world without some benefit to the business. McDonald’s sponsors the children’s hospital in Auckland, NZ. It costs them huge sums of money every year, but by doing so they are able to portray themselves as a more caring company to consumers. I have worked in retail, for many different companies, for the past 8 years and I know first hand that when a store has specials they will in fact sell stock at a price below what they paid for it, to try and get customers to become repeat customers, or to get them in the door to buy add on products. I personally have undergone numerous selling programs to try and increase my ability to get customers to purchase the products we want them to buy. In this way every company in the world is evil, and it is the way it always will be.

Yes, Google may sell our information. They may allow people to find out things about me that I really dont want them to know. On the other hand this may be completely wrong, and a totally unfounded accusation. However, even though I use Google Reader to subscribe to my blogs, and have Google adds on my website, I have received more spam from advertising my email on this website (it was a rookie mistake, I now receive 300+ Viagra/porn emails a day) and have had more phone calls from companies wishing me to attend home owners conferences and holiday retreat offers from having my cellphone put into the local phone book, that I have ever received that has been due to Google giving out my details.

This post is already longer than I planned, so now I will get down to direct criticism of some of the points made in the previously mentioned posts/comments.

Firstly, the money issue. Frankly, the argument that student do not require the money is a very naive statement. I personally am in my fifth year of university. My parents, while not poor, do not have a large amount of cash to throw at my education. In New Zealand, education is not free. Students are required to take out huge loans to pay for their education (my degree has cost me approximately 12,000-15,000 a year) The reason this is so high is because NZ students are also required to borrow money off the government if their parents earn over $77,663.36 limit (as of 2008). The amount of money you are able to borrow is $150 a week. Currently my rent alone costs $120 a week, and with food, power, internet and gas bills, my weekly costs rise to $180 a week. The average income for NZ was $69,368 for two people (please note this is based on all people who were working in New Zealand, including those aged between 15-19 who for obvious reasons would earn less than a parent in the 40-50 age bracket) so it is not hard to imagine just how easy it is to reach that bracket with two full time working parents. Since half way through my first year of university I have worked part time while studying. I currently work 25-35 hours a week on top of my studies, which take up approximately 50-60 hours of my time every week, if my dissertation paper is included. If I was to be paid by Google to work on my MPLS implementation, then I would be able to work less hours, and concentrate on the project more. I realise that this is a lot to write on one comment, and yes it does sting that it is made to seem like I am only doing this for the money, but the New Zealand Student Load scheme is a topic I feel very strongly about, so I may have gotten a little carried away with it.

Google may get influence with the code that is produced, but how? I have looked at the GSoC FAQ very closely, and no where have I seen anything saying that they own the project (in fact it says the exact opposite) or that they are able to tell me what to put into the program. The reason Mozzila and other organisations have deals with Google, and integrate things like the Google searchbar into their program, is simply because Google is the best at what they do.

I would like to know what the poster actually does for a living. It would be nice to know what sort of person is able to have such an unrealistic view of life and commerce. To say that people should work on F/OSS without any sort of monetary support is just ignorant, regardless of the source, money is one of those evils in life you can not get away with, especially if you are your standard programmer who loves technology like we all do. I will admit that I have a hard time agreeing with some peoples ideas on F/OSS. I personally feel it is a nice idea, and has come up with some really nice stuff, but some of the fanatics about it seem to have very naive views of the world, or at least in my viewpoint they do.

Lastly, since when is being the hardest working considered the ‘worst type of best’? That implies that only the smartest people are worth while, even if they do not work hard at what they do. On one of my first lectures at university a lecturer of mine told us – “A B student with an A attitude is always more desirable than an A student with a B attitude”.