Project FOSS properly - was [Re: request for speaker for our FOSS festival Mukti 2010]

[Aanjhan R]

On Fri, Jan 8, 2010 at 5:55 AM, sankarshan <foss.mailinglists(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
> > When I left college last year, there were 2 competing trends that
> my batch
> > had infused. One was free software, where Shreyank and I had made some
> > inroads, and the second was TopCoder or similar online programming judges
> > where Swapnil Sonawane and Rajat achieved milestones. As it turns out,
> > Swapnil and Rajat ended up getting jobs on campus that paid the best (upto 3
> > times what Shreyank or I get!!).
>
>  I might not be comprehending this properly. Why would participating in
>  online coding contests be a deterrent to contributing to Free and Open
>  Source Software ? Although, considering the part within parenthesis,
>  if that is how it is projected, will obviously skew the participation
>  in a way that nothing can counter. 
On this note, I would like to add something. Not related to the topic
but related to the thing in brackets of Debayan's email. I agree money
is very important but as 'i-feel-philosophical-today-susmit' points ot
its a way you lead your life also matters. I wouldn't have quit my
well paying corporate job to take up research. I would be easily
getting 8L per annum now plus some overseas travel. yummy! Now I am a
student and intend to go for a PhD which most 'MBAs' term it
'live-like-a-beggar' for 4 years. But well, I know I am developing the
roots like a banyan tree to soar great heights.

And its all about how you project. I think you have forgotten the
'3-emails' sent by SM to dgplug list. I bring it up again.

http://www.tuxmaniac.com/blog/2008/11/03/foss-education-career-skill-deve...

Regards,
Aanjhan

[Debarshi Ray]

>  I agree money
>  is very important but as 'i-feel-philosophical-today-susmit' points ot
>  its a way you lead your life also matters. 
If people realized this then the number of engineers (or poultry
chicken) being churned out by India would go down by 80% and life
would be so much more beautiful in so many different ways.

Obviously life is not ideal, people do not realize this (maybe they
never will), etc. etc..

Cheers,
Debarshi
-- 
One reason that life is complex is that it has a real part and an
imaginary part.
    -- Andrew Koenig

[Debayan Banerjee]

2010/1/8 Aanjhan R <aanjhan(a)gmail.com&gt;

>  And its all about how you project. I think you have forgotten the
>  '3-emails' sent by SM to dgplug list. I bring it up again.
>
>
>
> http://www.tuxmaniac.com/blog/2008/11/03/foss-education-career-skill-deve...
>  
The 3 emails were good. However over time I found a few paradoxes.
Since I left college 7 months back i have been in 2 companies. Both the
companies hired me for my FOSS involvement. 4 other friends of mine are in
the present company today because of their FOSS involvement.
If I go give a talk at some college I will end up saying the opposite. FOSS
does get you a job. Does it get everyone a job? Depends on how you define
the term contributor.
If the contribution is in code your chances of landing a job hence will
obviously be higher than of you are into l10n.
To be able to truly analyse whether FOSS gets you a job or not, you need to
ask yourself how many of your FOSS contributor (in code) friends are jobless
for a long time. Are you sure they did not talk about their FOSS project in
the interview? Atleast all the contributor friends I have did talk about
their projects.
However I do agree that this is not a selling point (ermm) for free
software. This point wont affect people who are into the programming contest
culture. The top companies hire people who do well in programming contests.
Google for example specifically advises potential employees to practice on
TopCoder on their recruiting page.
However to say that it wont get you a job has the potential threat of
frightening off the odd contributor at a very early stage.
How then, should an engineering college student be talked to? 1) Tell your
story . Thats all. Then its upto him.



-- 
Regards,
Debayan Banerjee