Anyway, the actual job in on the island of Curacao which is part of the
Netherland Antilles
in the Carribean. Therefore, we are obviously interested in people who wanna relocate for a while
(preferably a year or more). The client has a generous relocation package and the work
environment is very nice (plus we take days off for snorkeling/sailing/etc...).
-- Ben Scherrey
Just a thought...
In the age of the internet, I wonder how relevant "relocation" propositions have become. If you want to access the best talent available out there (I mean worldwide), you leverage this new work paradigm (which after all brought us the Linux kernel, apache, etc.). So, in the age of the Internet, physical distance "is" irrelevant, hence relocation becomes (almost) irrelevant. If I were you guys, I'd find an arrangement to somehow hire the services of the best (Robert Dunn, whoever). Robert would get some deserved compensation for the excellent work he does already, and you'd get what you want UI-wise, plus indirectly support open-source. A win-win-win situation.
On a more serious note, my religious beliefs strictly prohibits me to work during gorgeous sunny days, when I could be sailing the Caribbean seas, frying under the warm sun, whatever. Working under such conditions is such a total sin, and so very cruel...
Vio
In the age of the internet, I wonder how relevant "relocation"
propositions have become.
It isn't particularly relevant for doing the actual work, but it
is very important for communicating about the work. There are
significant cultural differences across the world, and even amongst
different age ranges within the same culture.
For example some have more emphasis on the societal hierarchy,
some expect certain levels of deference due to age or position,
others have expectations on how you challenge people, or
the effects of saying "no" or other negative things.
The communication side is especially important amongst
strangers, which is the situation at the begining of it all.
Think of how making statements like these can be taken
differently:
I have a better design
That is a silly idea
I found a bug in your code
That isn't possible to implement
Here is a better way
Using the example of Linux and Linus, two things are notable.
Firstly he was actually shipping something - there was something
that already worked. Secondly he evaluated things on purely
technical merit, and there was nothing that could be said that
would hurt his feelings etc. (And people said a lot of stuff
in the early days of Linux). That all adds up to something
that is pretty unique.
Leaving aside the method and cultural issues behind communication,
there are also issues about how much is needed. If there is already
exact documentation and specifications, then that is fine. But
more often there are not, and it is way easier to show people
stuff. The whiteboards, water cooler chats, and seeing things
on each others screens account for a lot of the physical communication
that happens.
There are a lot of things pertaining to software development that might be hard in i-village approach. Security, privacy, non disclosure, that kind of things... These require physical presence, require that the person be under the incidence of some law, contracts, etc.
The only way this can work is for the company willing to pay to separate the development in "closed source" and "open source" then have the local developers focus on the close source part and the i-village developers focus on the open source part. This is a win-win-win situation because the company gets the job done, gets paid, and the open source community gets a faster progress due to its main developers working full time on their projects.
In my perfect world all software is written in a high level, cross-platform toolkit like wxpython with the toolkit providing very high level widgets like "TextField widget with autocomplete based on built-in contexts, appearance based on global skins and spellcheck" or "Navigator widget (think GNOME)"
Now if a company would pay developers to evolve wxpython in such a toolkit... i-village idea might be feasible. Robin said "my dream is to find a way to work full-time on developing, supporting and writing about wxPython and still be able to pay the mortgage and put food on the table" I might add that this is a dream I share, I too would like to see Robin working full time on wxpython BUT the key is to get a guy like this: http://www.markshuttleworth.com/bounty.html
to share the dream
···
On Sun, 30 May 2004 12:35:37 -0400, Vio <vmilitaru@sympatico.ca> wrote:
> Anyway, the actual job in on the island of Curacao which is part of the
Netherland Antilles
in the Carribean. Therefore, we are obviously interested in people who wanna relocate for a while
(preferably a year or more). The client has a generous relocation package and the work
environment is very nice (plus we take days off for snorkeling/sailing/etc...).
-- Ben Scherrey
Just a thought...
In the age of the internet, I wonder how relevant "relocation" propositions have become. If you want to access the best talent available out there (I mean worldwide), you leverage this new work paradigm (which after all brought us the Linux kernel, apache, etc.). So, in the age of the Internet, physical distance "is" irrelevant, hence relocation becomes (almost) irrelevant. If I were you guys, I'd find an arrangement to somehow hire the services of the best (Robert Dunn, whoever). Robert would get some deserved compensation for the excellent work he does already, and you'd get what you want UI-wise, plus indirectly support open-source. A win-win-win situation.
Now if a company would pay developers to evolve wxpython in such a toolkit... i-village idea might be feasible. Robin said "my dream is to find a way to work full-time on developing, supporting and writing about wxPython and still be able to pay the mortgage and put food on the table" I might add that this is a dream I share, I too would like to see Robin working full time on wxpython BUT the key is to get a guy like this: http://www.markshuttleworth.com/bounty.html
to share the dream
I should really update that web page. For the past 17 months or so my dream has come true as I've been paid by the Open Source Applications Foundation (the 'Chandler' folks, see http://www.osafoundation.org) to work full time on wxPython as well as to support them in whatever ways are needed. It's been really great and I hope it can continue for a long time. But I suppose all good things must come to an end so if any of you can convince Mark or Bill or whomever to be "waiting in the wings" that would be wonderful. (Or you can just send me a winning lottery ticket and then we can save OSAF some money. <wink!>)
···
--
Robin Dunn
Software Craftsman http://wxPython.org Java give you jitters? Relax with wxPython!
