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Discussion on: Formidable Labs to Start Paying for OSS Contributions

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elmuerte profile image
Michiel Hendriks • Edited

Your people also need to rest outside of work hours. Creating an incentive to reduce "off time" is not good. Why not give a hard dedicated to a percentage of work-time to OSS so that there can't be a customer demand interfering?

But any experiment/initiative to boost OSS is a good one

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nickytonline profile image
Nick Taylor

Definitely agree about experimenting/initiative to boost OSS. And for sure you need to rest. I think it's more if you do decide to work on OSS, why not get paid by your company?

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elmuerte profile image
Michiel Hendriks

It is nice to do something you like, and also get paid for it. But this is holding a carrot in front of people. Knowing when to stop is not something every developer masters. They think they are doing ok contributing 2x8 hours to OSS during the weekend. They won't be tired because they had enough sleep. But they do burn their creative juices, their inspiration, and their drive. This will happen unnoticed until you burn through it. When this happens the fun will disappear. People will get demotivated. This is bad for people, and bad for business.

There are companies/managers who look after this, and send developers on "mandatory" vacation to refuel when it has been too long ago.

You can't really stop people from working all weekend. But you shouldn't incentivize this too much. For example, you could limit the payout to 10 hours a week. And a lower maximum when it was a stressful week.

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elmuerte profile image
Michiel Hendriks • Edited

It's not mentioned in the linked article, but they did set a limit

It's set at 30 hours a month. This is not for budget reasons, only to discourage excess working off-hours. This adds up to about a workday per week, which is what we feel is reasonable.

Source: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19818469

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Nick Taylor

In terms of dangling a carrot, people need to exercise self-discipline but as you mention, not everyone masters that. Self-discipline in general can be tough.

Glad to see they cap it at 30 hours though.