Ethical Jobs (was Re: [DMCA-Activists] TCPA/Palladium)

[Evan Prodromou]

>>>>> "MC" == Matthew Caron <address@hidden> writes:

    MC> The thing is that most places around here don't want to hear
    MC> it. Sure, you can pitch to schools that you can save them a
    MC> ton of money by doing a bunch of Xterms or so forth, but no
    MC> one wants to upset the status quo.  You have to already be in
    MC> the organization, and even when you are (like my job) most of
    MC> the time they don't want to hear it either. They buy all this
    MC> broken software that runs like crap and can't fix, but don't
    MC> want to let me use Free Software and tailor it to their
    MC> needs. They'd rather I write drivers.

So, it's entirely possible that there's really no way you can find a
job working with Free Software. It's also possible that you can't
start doing freelance work (although you'd be amazed at how little the
local Kiwanis care if you do their calendar page in ASP or PHP).

If this is actually the case, you can maybe find a job waiting tables,
filing insurance claims, or scaling fish.

If the question of writing proprietary software for increasingly
barbaric platforms is sufficiently difficult for you, you should
consider putting the big $$ behind you and doing something else for a
living. You can always write Free Software in your Free Time, like 95%
of other people do.

I'm not saying that you can't participate in Free Software without
renouncing your day job in proprietary software. I'm just saying that
if you've got an ethical decision to make, you need to realize that
it's going to be a difficult road, no matter how you make it happen.

~ESP

P.S. I quit my job in the software biz about 1 year ago and I haven't
looked back. Then again, I have a pretty good nest egg from years of
hoarding. B-)

-- 
Evan Prodromou
address@hidden