RE: Mission Statement for a New Company based on Voluntarism-taken-to-Extreme

Hi Shlomi,

  I'm really sorry you got fired, it was kind'a nice seeing at the Black
Steer from time to time. 

  But, I couldn't help but read something you wrote on your blog: "My main
problem (and the reason I got fired) was that they were relatively clueless
as far as software management was concerned". Please tell us that you don't
really believe what you just said, as, I'm very sorry to say, that according
to your motto, we should all stand up and leave our current work places.

  Dude, it's a job, nothing more, nothing less. If you happen to be
fortunate and enjoy your job, be happy with that. When you try to impose
your own set of values and paradigms on a system, who usually isn't ready to
accept your values/paradigms, the result is: YOU GET FIRED!

  For example, in my previous work place, I was working with a very well
known open source figure. At some point, we hired another well known open
source figure, which simply didn't fit the job profile. He was a genius when
examining the code and the work, but the values and paradigms were
incompatible. 

  My advice to you is this: next time when you get into a new work place,
try not to stick out like a soar thumb from day one. Blend in, let time take
its course, and make your voice heard once you've established your status.
I'm confident you will see that your employment period will be longer than
the previous one. If you get to a company that is positive to open source,
and is willing to let you work on OSS as part of your work, consider
yourself the luckiest man on earth, and stick to that job for as long as you
can (or as long as you are happy with it).

Nir S

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On
Behalf Of guy keren
Sent: Monday, April 02, 2007 3:40 PM
To: [email protected]
Cc: Perl in Israel
Subject: Re: [hackers-il] Mission Statement for a New Company based on
Voluntarism-taken-to-Extreme


Shlomi,

i'm sorry that you got fired.

however, i think you should do some introspection about why you unable 
to find a steady work place for such a long time - you're burning 
yourself out in the market place.

coming up with ideas about utopian companies, without even thinking how 
they'll earn money, can help you release steam. it will not help you 
earn a living.

unlike with the open-source world, where time is not a factor, and it's 
ok if several people do the same thing again and again until they get 
something working properly, and having 10 different projects doing the 
same thing, until one or two emerge as the most useful, and the others 
ar thrown into a niche (or die gracefully) - i don't see many people 
willing to put their money into such initiatives - because they can't 
see how they are ever going to get it back with a nice profit. if you 
don't have a clear plan - it's safer to invest your money in bond 
stocks, in the stock market, etc.

so i would suggest you started thinking why you keep losing jobs 
(quiting early is not better then being fired). and try to work on 
changing that.

--guy

Shlomi Fish wrote:
> Hi all!
> 
> I wrote this mission statement as a way to put some of my thoughts on
paper. 
> It's just an idea, and I'm not sure how practical it is, but it is still 
> interesting.
> 
> Comments are welcome.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> 	Shlomi Fish
> 
> I recently got fired from my workplace:
> 
> http://shlomif.livejournal.com/39976.html
> 
> That has made me thinking: why can't there be a perfect workplace in
Israel?
> Here's how I define perfect:
> 
> 1. Integrates the best of http://www.joelonsoftware.com/ , 
> http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/ ,
> http://www.extremeprogramming.org/ ,
> http://www.paulgraham.com/ , etc.
> 
> 2. Google lets its employees work for 20% on the time on their projects of
> choice. We will demand employees to work on our own projects only 20% of
> the time, and we will not require them to assign copyrights for what they
do,
> including not at work time.
> 
> Why? For several reasons:
> 
>     2.1. If someone has to work 80% of the time, he'll feel frustrated and
>     only works 20% of the time. If, OTOH, he has to work 20% of the time,
>     he'll work more than that.
> 
>     2.2. Because what employees do on their free days may prove of
interest
>     to us.
> 
>     2.3. Because we're not possessive about our "intellectual property".
We're
>     fully open source (see below).
> 
> 3. We will work on open source software exclusively. Not just GPL - but
also
> ,and often preferably, LGPL or MIT X11. The less other people and
companies 
> ask
> us for permission to use our software - the better.
> 
> 4. We will encourage our workers to "blog": write essays, maintain a
weblog,
> edit wikis, maintain public web sites, publish articles in online and
offline
> publications, etc. We will have a "planet" for the company. 
> 
> 5. We will allow free choice of language.
> 
> 6. Everyone can become a member of the company simply by adding himself to

> the wiki. He or she will not get paid immediately, but they still can
consider
> themselves part of the company.
> 
> ------------------------------------
> 
> Now what we will work on? Will there ever be a lack of good ideas?
> 
> 1. Refactoring MediaWiki - MW is great but its source code is lacking and
> could use a lot of polishing. I've talked with someone who wants to
> re-implement it, but based on the wisdom of the patriarchs Joel and Eric,
I'd
> like to try to refactor it first.
> 
> 2. Writing a web-based email that does not suck - I'm sorry, but KMail
still
> gives a much better E-mail experience than gmail, and makes the people you
> correspond with, who are using a superior email client, much less angry.
> 
> I suppose we can take a popular web-based email client and improve it to
> perfection (as we cannot do the same with gmail)
> 
> 3. Winapt - http://winapt.berlios.de/
> 
> 4. rindolf - a perl 5 compiler written in perl 5 that will make perl 5 on
> Parrot and other VMs, both C-hosting and perl-hosting.
> 
> ---------------------
> 
> These are just a few examples - there are many more. But the point is that
> I believe such a company will not only be very popular, but can in fact be
> profitable. Paul Graham and ESR have rambled a lot about how people who
are
> left to do what they want to do, rather than what they feel they are
obliged
> to do, produce superior results to those who don't. Such a company can be
a
> very powerful force, even in comparison to Google. And most importantly it
> will be a great employer to work for.
> 
> My problem is that while being a competent programmer and a philosopher
(or
> essayist or blogger as they are now called), I'm not sure I'm cut to do
> management. I need someone who'll manage me. Then I'll need to find
funding.
> This way I and others can get paid for doing the things they like to do on
> their free time, and the company can actually make a profit.
> 
> I suppose that once someone has signed a contract, we can tell him to give
> us a percentage of all the consultancy/contracting he's been doing. Or we
can
> give consulting, contracting and support for projects that we have a lot
> of experience with. Alternatively, we can have a completely different
business
> model.
> 
> Regards,
> 
>     Shlomi Fish
> 
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> Shlomi Fish      shlomif-ik1l9ssToec+JF/[email protected]
> Homepage:        http://www.shlomifish.org/
> 
> If it's not in my E-mail it doesn't happen. And if my E-mail is saying
> one thing, and everything else says something else - E-mail will conquer.
>     -- An Israeli Linuxer
> 
> 
>  
> Yahoo! Groups Links
> 
> 
> 



 
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