For your convenience, I am reposting the top line of your blog here so that a prospective employer won't miss it:

I am a recent graduate of the Software Engineering program at the University of Ottawa and I am looking for a full-time job beginning in January 2004. If you are hiring, please take a look at my resume.

... and I'm enjoying my unemployment by writing free software. Isn't that funny?

BTW, that free software is here: http://www.audioman.org

Ryan, young programmer, stop advocating free software!

http://developers.slashdot.org/developers/04/03/01/1141250.shtml

Exactly what I have been saying all along.

From the letter:

"Yes, I know the argument. Software is supposed to be free and the money is made out of supporting it. Look around you. Read some industry magazines. Who exactly is making money out of "free"? IBM does, HP does and the large consulting companies do. They rake in the big bucks. But do they make the money on open-source software? No, they make that money on outsourcing deals, running data centers and selling hardware. That's not the side of the IT business that is at all concerned about creating software that you want to be in. That is the side of the IT business that runs software."

"The whole thing about "free software" is a lie. It's a dream created and made popular by people who have a keen interest in having cheap software so that they can drive down their own cost and profit more or by people who can easily demand it, because they make their money out of speaking at conferences or write books about how nice it is to have free software. At the bottom of the food chain are people like you, who are easily fooled by the "let's make the world a better place" rhetoric and who are so enthusiastic about technology that writing open-source - or any source for that matter - is the absolutely best imaginable way to spend their time. It doesn't matter whether you love what you are doing and consider this the hobby you want to spend 110% of your time on: It's exploitation by companies who are not at all interested in creating stuff. They want to use your stuff for free. That's why they trick you into doing it."

voila...

Nuff said - except for saying that enough has been said!

Yep, I agree. We've done this discussion enough for the year. Everyone knows everyone else's opinion. It was fun, now let's move on.

As an economics student, I have to say after reading all this stuff about how programmers are so confused and out of touch with reality that it's not even funny anymore... it's sad.

You folks have out-coded yourselves out of jobs! And people are wondering why there's 10% unemployment (and climbing fast!) among compsci, softeng and hardeng students.... yeah, ponder that one for a while. You don't have to be a genius to answer it.

Message you're all collectively sending to the business community is: "My work has no value so I'm giving it away. You can use it for free." And guess what, they do and they don't need you and they save money.

I notice the job link on the top... why would someone pay you if you're doing the work already for free?! You've sad that you write free software... someone else will use it and why should anyone pay you for anything?! Sure, people will give you a few bucks to develop a feature they need but that's like giving a beggar a few coins to fill up his stomach. Maybe you too should add a PayPal donate link on top so people can give you a few bucks every now and then. Not sure what that does to your self-worth and pride, though.

Have you ever seen a doctor or a lawyer work for free? Sure, they donate a few hours to special cases and work pro-bono but they sure as hell are not giving away their knowledge for free. That would make them irrelevant, you see and they wouldn't be raking in big bucks.

But hey, you have your ideologies and I don't, right? Happy unemployment!

PS: And I haven't even touched on offshoring issue! It's like from worse to hell. When you are competing with $100 a week jobs and the product is same, guess who's gonna win?! And they're winning, BIG TIME! But hey, you have your ideologies.... I'm sure you'll find a girl willing to live in a shack somewhere while you give your work away.

Mike Bell:

Sure, we did all the work for free. All ya gotta do is compiling it, installing it and running the platform on your own.

What, you can't get it to compile? Your system runs at half speed 'cos you don't know DMA from your elbow and you're still running the framebuffer drivers your system came with? can't input Greek? four thousand image files in the wrong format?

We gave it all away for free -- sure you know how to run it! it's all on Google... just go look.

Idiot.

kaiidth,

Just a second there... aren't you confusing a job of a support technician with a job of a programmer?!

SO let me get this straight... you want to code, right? How will you code when all the code is free and has no value? Oh, but wait, you want to take a job supporting this piece of software. Guess how much that pays... yep, peanuts.

As a capitalist, power to you comrade! It will be cheaper for the company I end up running to hire a support monkey than to pay cash for a coder. I'll be making money because I'm SAVING money on all the software packages and programmers and all I need to do is hire some kid for a few bucks to "support" it for me.

I hope "glory" and "pride" pay your bills.

Mike

PS: using these ad hominem attacks makes you look even stupider. Attack me with counter-arguments!

Ok. Your big words are confusing me. I'm NOT an economist [I actually failed 2nd year Macro-43%], but let me try to grasp this.

If you were a brick layer, and you wanted to get more jobs, laying bricks, would you go to a trade show? YES, you would. Do you get paid to go? NO, you don't. Do you pay the costs of creating your displays? YES, you do. So why would you do it? EXPOSURE.

Do other brick layers blame you for the downfall of the industry? NO. They respect [and envy] you for taking the leap to take a financial risk, and make yourself known. They don't get jealous, they make plans for the NEXT trade show, to steal your business. BUSINESS man. EXPOSURE.

I would ASSUME [a dangerous word, I know] that you software geeks do SOME work for free, for this very reason. Work is about being PAID, othwerwise, it's volunteering.

Geeks are smart. They don't do ANYTHING without purpose. They write free software, to test/improve their own abilities, and the abilities of their peers. They do it to PUSH the envelope. More importantly, they do it to make a name for themselves.

If Joe Big Wallet isn't going to pay me to write software that will help me get recognized, what's wrong with doing it myself? If unemployment is SO high, then how can you knock continuous improvement?

Geeks are called geeks for a reason. They are smart. They know what they are doing. You'll see.

J-Lo, you're confused. You're mistaking a demo with a full feature product. Let me fix your analogies since they're clearly ill-conceived.

"If you were a brick layer, and you wanted to get more jobs, laying bricks, would you go to a trade show? YES, you would. Do you get paid to go? NO, you don't. Do you pay the costs of creating your displays? YES, you do. So why would you do it? EXPOSURE."

You're not building a demo wall, you're building a whole skyscraper, for free. A skyscraper who no one owns and everyone can get rooms in. How exactly is that helpful to the bricklayer?

And you're completely fooling yourself if you think that anyone will hire you for creating this little demo wall. Large companies will just hire support staff and let you patch the "walls" yourself.

"Do other brick layers blame you for the downfall of the industry? NO. They respect [and envy] you for taking the leap to take a financial risk, and make yourself known. They don't get jealous, they make plans for the NEXT trade show, to steal your business. BUSINESS man. EXPOSURE."

As I said, comrade, all the power to you! Capitalist in me wants to get stuff for free. NO more fees to microsoft, no more fees to apple... I can just use stuff for free and hire a really cheap support person. I will not, however, hire a programmer. They have absolutely no use to me. If not the original programmer, then someone else will continue working on this free project. All I know is that it'll get done and I won't have to expense anything.

"Geeks are smart. They don't do ANYTHING without purpose. They write free software, to test/improve their own abilities, and the abilities of their peers. They do it to PUSH the envelope. More importantly, they do it to make a name for themselves."

Being smart is a very broad term. Maybe you should rephrase that to mean being a good at math or coding. But, something's seriously lacking when it comes to basic economics.

"If Joe Big Wallet isn't going to pay me to write software that will help me get recognized, what's wrong with doing it myself? If unemployment is SO high, then how can you knock continuous improvement?"

That's the crux of the whole problem! This is what all these people have been trying to get into your heads! Unless you do not place any value into work you do, DO NOT EXPECT TO BE PAID FOR IT! How to reverse the trend is trivial once you read the preceding sentence. Why don't you ask Stallman how you will pay for your car and mortgage? What's his take on this? Is the solution in online begging through tips? Is it "support" (whatever that is)? Is it pixie dust?

Free source programmers are placing no value on their coding but shifting the value to support. Hey, fine by me. Support people are a lot cheaper and don't have to be as highly educated.

"Geeks are called geeks for a reason. They are smart. They know what they are doing. You'll see."

Is this why software industry is in a deep shitter and why the unemployment among them is so high? Is this why $100 a week Indians and Chinese are taking over your jobs?

Programmers are nothing more than coal miners of 21st century. Do some research on how coalminers ended up and learn from it.

Again. I present a challenge to anyone who can tell me how a GPL programmer is suppose to make money? I know all about RedHat and Ximian (Novell) etc...what I'm interested is an *INDIVIDUAL* programmer who doesn't work for these organizations that employ only the top 1% of free software community.

I don't know if I'll check this page again but my email is listed so email me with your answers. Remove nospam.

Cheers,
Mike

PS: Show me some free software millionaires. All I see are thousandaires.

Mike, like I said in my reply blog post, free software can't take over every market because it's just not fast enough. Free software is constantly playing catch up with the real thing. The market gets in danger when it stagnates and allows the free stuff to be a "good enough" replacement. Programmers will be in demand because the market will need them. Outsourcing has its problems too, just check out the comments on Joel Spolsky's message boards. Communication overhead gets worse and they don't necessarily do a good job. People are dreaming there too.

http://discuss.fogcreek.com/newyork/default.asp?cmd=show&ixPost=2160&ixReplies=17

I don't think anyone will argue with you when you say that programming free software probably won't give you a paycheck. So what? Let them play catch up while the commercial marketplace stays two steps ahead. The market can make money and people can get their freedom too.

Like I said before, it's going to happen anyway. Programmers and companies have to learn to adapt around it. Saying to programmers "oh, you guys are so stupid! can't you see you're canibalizing your own jobs??" isn't going to do much. People still want the *freedom* that free code provides. Companies just have to stay ahead of free software instead of complaining that now they actually have to PROGRESS in order to sell a product. Good, maybe us consumers will get better products in the end for it.