Re: Are devs who work on or use open source happier in their employment?

Well, I know I personally feel this way!  I've worked on closed source
search engines a good while, and now Lucene/Solr for a good while, and
I know which one makes me happier ;)

And I suspect that's a good strategy by this client of yours..

I know once I finally have to move away from my sponsor, being free to
work in open-source will be a strong requirement for whatever I do
next.

As for "real" references, I think this video is delightfully relevant:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

It summarizes research by economists into what it is that makes people
happy, motivates them, in their work, and it ties this nicely into
open-source.

Mike

On Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 11:37 AM, Grant Ingersoll <[email protected]> wrote:
> One of the things I've noticed in my day job, which is admittedly self-selecting since I work for a company that engages with people deploying open source, is that I routinely hear, how shall I say it, more enjoyment from the developers in their work as compared to the old days when they worked on a proprietary equivalent, and I think it even holds true when working on "troubleshooting" engagements where something is broken.  Since, most of us here likely work on open source, I'm curious as to what others think?  Are devs who work on or use open source happier in their day jobs?  And I don't just mean committers/contributors here, I mean people who are using the software to solve some bigger problem for their company and who may never do anything more than ask a question on a mailing list from time to time.  Has anyone seen _independent_ studies that say one way or the other?  (References please.)  I do think, that some of the answer depends on the quality of the software they are working on (just as it likely does when working on proprietary software), so perhaps I should separate out what could be called hobbyist open source versus open source that has a large community of followers (regardless of license) like Linux, ASF projects, Eclipse, etc.  Therefore, assuming two different pieces of software, one being proprietary and one being open, both of which will solve the problem, are developers who solve the problem with open source happier in their job?
>
> At any rate, my motivation for asking is that I'm writing an article on some thoughts in this area spurred by something a client told me (at a very old, established company, mind you) about why they wanted to get the word out that they were using open source:  they felt it would help them attract and retain developers b/c they would be more satisfied in their jobs b/c they got to work on innovative open source technologies.
>
> Thanks for your insights,
> Grant
>
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