My gut answer is “yes!!!” or “revolution” but I want to hear what y’all think. For those unware, some creative professions such as film writers get paid a small portion of all revenue generated by their work after it’s been produced, which is called a “residual,” and it’s part of their current fight with hollywood not properly paying those residuals due to the streaming loophole.
Since most programs that are profitable are based on the work of long gone developers (basically capital that gets worked on by machine labour), I think this might be a great demand for an eventual software development union.
What do y’all think?
I feel IP is not the way to go, ever.
Strengthening the concept of IP by creating passive income for individuals does not build a better world.
Is there a way from a software union perspective to ask for more work in gpl/foss based components, maybe?
That would be another way to go about it, but I can’t see how we could either force the corporations to open their source, or use that to better compensate workers. I probably could’ve gone through it more in-depth in the post, but I thought of this idea specifically to help out contractor-type workers who usually don’t have basic guaranteed rights like paid time off, but who would not want to lose some of the benefits of contractor-type work by joining the union.
I see now from all the comments how it can have a lot of counter-productive side effects, and I definitely think that FOSS should always be at the heart of every software union (and also internal training, for that matter), but I can’t think of a way to use it to solve this specific problem (which I forgot to include in the original post lol).
Ive been thinking a bit about it, but there’s no obvious solution. We’re reasonably well treated by the capital.
Anything we ask is likely to lower our financial returns in the short term, in my opinion, since free-software can’t tap into “free-market” money as easily, for it’s intrinsic scaling/copyleft characteristics.
Specifically, we could ask that union members have to dedicate (say) 5% of their hours to free software initiatives. We’d not be releasing proprietary code, but it would be contributing to the ecosystem.
Still, I think something we miss as software developers is the willingness to find our own customers, to use FOSS to compete seriously with middleman giants, like uber and booking.
I’m finding activity pub and lemmy a really interesting case for free, decentralised competition, and a possible solution to scam, by giving providers a chance to build their reputation. There’s also opencollective.com’s business model, where anyone making money with their platform has to pay them.
How that ties back down with unions, I’m not sure, but I feel those discussions could move forward hand in hand.
Labor should only get remunerated for the time spent in producing the thing. Someone making nuts and bolts doesn’t get paid residuals, so I don’t see why someone producing software, which is a commodity like any other, should either. And those residuals would have to come out of the pockets of those actually creating value.
a commodity like any other
I think this is where I may be a bit misguided. I have been thinking of software both as a commodity and as effectively industrial capital. In that sense, a lot of the “value” generated by corporations like google comes by using automatic labour of hardware on software (both of which are the corporation’s sole property) for which nobody in the company actually gets paid, specially if the developers no longer work there. There are always people working in maintenance and administration, but in my experience those are a very small number of workers compared to those who produce the software before being “relocated” or laid off.
But then it gets really confusing and contradictory for me, and I admit I don’t know much about the labour theory of value in the first place. I just really feel that this is why corporations really like to pretend like software development is cool, but then do their best to promote their programmers to managerial positions or just fire and rehire a lot, because the subsequent labour force is paid at kWh rather than rent prices.
This sounds like a great way to be forced to take responsibility for code you wrote decades later either legally or socially if there is a bug or future development. Feels slightly concerning to say the least
No.
Please, elaborate. I really want to hear your thoughts too, not just your conclusion.
Propietary software stops progress and enforces the unjust relations of productions that keep people enslaved. It is as simple as that.
No.
Working as a software developer, creating software is a team effort. The developer doesn’t necessarily come up with the requirements. The business is the driver of what the software becomes. You would have to account for the product team as well. What percentage would go to whom?
How would you quantify usage? Number of API requests? Number of downloads? What if the app is only run locally. Are you going to phone home every time the data parser is fired up and charge users on a per row of data processed basis?
What about features being disabled or removed? Refactored by another dev? Now you are talking about algorithms to monitor source control to track who receives residuals. Sounds like a mess.
Sounds like an entire governing body would need to be in charge of how to track residuals. More bureaucracy is bad.
Someone else mentioned responsibility for code after you have left a company. I think one of the most relieving things about getting a new job is the mess of systems you leave behind (only to walk into a new mess).
I’ve signed a contract with every employer I have worked for that states what I work on is their IP. Employees should go in knowing that.
Another issue is fair pay. Ideally everyone would be payed fairly for their work. In the U.S., software engineers are known for being compensated well, so I don’t think that is an issue.
To tie this back to the current situation with writers, a precedent has been set in that industry, where residuals are expected. I do believe there is creativity in software development, but the extent of that is on a person to person basis. Many people write convoluted code their entire careers, which simply gets the job done. Often times creating more work than they realize when it comes time to extend.
This concept also seems to go against those most vociferous pioneers of the industry who advocate for free and open source software? Torvalds, Stallman, Jimmy Wales etc…
The business is the driver of what the software becomes.
More bureaucracy is bad.
If other people work at developing the software, however they do, they should also get residuals too under this scheme. Which is why I wrote “(and every other IP-producting labour).” And the metric for it is actually pretty simple: “How much money did the company make from the software that lists these developers in its credits,” much like how it works for writers, actors and other film workers. Nobody will be charged more for it, specially since tech companies already make boatloads of money from digital (zombie) labour with their IP anyways.
And in my experience, software development is also one very overworked profession with lots of companies with ridiculously high employee turnover rates. You mentioning the US is particularly troublesome because many of their states have “right to work laws” meaning people can be laid off without any proper compensation, and their corporations also offshore a lot of their development work to lower income countries, which complicates their “median salary” statistics.
Thankfully, I don’t live there, but the idea here is specifically to counteract the allure of gig economy outsourced freelancing with stable income from well done jobs. Now, all those questions of how things should be done once it’s decided is for the union to decide, but we already have examples of similar issues having been worked out by the WGA. We shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.
P.S.: I don’t know about the other 2, but I’m pretty sure Stallman’s take is along the lines of “don’t you ever work for a company that produces non-FOSS software!” so I don’t know how you think he’d be particularly opposed to this one vs the current state of the industry.
You make some fair points. Especially wrt OSS.
As far as software development being overworked, I cannot relate. The company I work for has opened up a shop outside of the U.S. for software development. I interface with them daily. They are paid very well relative to their peers.
There are also other forms of compensation in the industry including stock grants and bonuses based on performance and success of products.
I and the people in my local industry are fairly compensated, so I would not be moved to unionize.
It seems like you are pro union, and the conditions where you live are different.
I’ve always lived in right to work states. I intentionally live below my means, and create my own security cushion. I don’t know anyone in my industry who isn’t paid enough to do the same.
Wether that should change is a question that seems beyond the scope of “should tech workers be paid residuals”.
