{"id":1023,"date":"2006-09-21T00:01:43","date_gmt":"2006-09-21T04:01:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/?p=1023"},"modified":"2009-03-22T09:43:43","modified_gmt":"2009-03-22T13:43:43","slug":"open-exploitation-parading-as-open-source-on-boing-boing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/?p=1023","title":{"rendered":"Open Exploitation Parading As Open Source On Boing Boing (*Update*)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Talk to any Industrial Designer and if they have any experience they’ll probably tell you that many design competitions are a deceptive way for greedy companies to get designs at little or no cost. One competition not so long ago<\/a> offered as a prize a small cash payout and a job. Oh, and all those entries sent in by designers too wet behind the ears to know better? Those concepts belonged to the company as part of their condition for entry. If they decided to manufacture the first runner-up and make hundreds of thousands of dollars in profit from it, they sent a big, fat check for… $400.<\/p>\n

Nice, huh? Well, at least they paid some compensation. Many don’t bother. They’ll change a minor detail and claim the design is new. And who’s going to do anything about it? Some design student halfway around the world. Not likely.
\n
\nThe thing is, no matter how many times people like me point this sort of exploitation out to young designers, they still send in their work. For some reason they can’t get it through their heads that their free labor – when aggregated with all the other hundreds or thousands of entries – amount to a loss of employment. What they don’t realize is that the new graduate who could have used a job but who instead got displaced by more concepts than he could generate in a year, is the same person who will be competing for fewer jobs the next year, or the year after that.<\/p>\n

I’d like to believe that designers will eventually realize how their enthusiasm is being leveraged against them, but I can’t. Designers, like aspiring entertainers, want to believe that their creativity is special and that they will break through the crowd and become design superstars, ready to take their place among the design elite (though personally I’d prefer not to be anywhere near some of those so-called superstars). It’s their enthusiasm that keeps them going.<\/p>\n

And so it goes without saying that when I read on Boing Boing (Link)<\/a> about PVR manufacturer Neuros’ offer of cash rewards to those programmers\/hackers who code features which (big surprise) help them sell more product, I thought of my design compatriots… too naive to see how they were hurting themselves and helping The Man. Instead of hiring a programmer who could use the money to pay off student loans or raise a family, Neuros offers a pittance to entice these people to do the work for what will probably be less than paying them minimum wage (with no health insurance). They do at least warn people:<\/p>\n

Finally, if you think you might want to participate in the open-source side of Neuros, visit open.neurostechnology.com Be careful, though. You just might put yourself to work helping us<\/strong> make our portable media products the best in the world.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

More and more I’m starting to consider Boing Boing one of the worst websites on the net. They promote unauthorized cracking and distribution of content even though their brother-in-copyfight-arms, Lawrence Lessig, has stated that creators should be given control over the distribution of their content (which, by default, includes respecting the distribution contracts they sign). Is it any surprise that a group of bloggers making plenty of money from their very popular, anti-corporate yet ad-supported website (there’s a Dell ad on it now) is now promoting Neuros? No. Because the people at Boing Boing have probably never bothered to consider how a design competition – or a call for “open source” code – can actually be used by greedy corporations. And Chicago-headquartered Nueros is just another corporation out to make a buck, only this time they’re using open source enthusiasm as a means of exploitation.<\/p>\n

Good job, Boing Boing. Once again you get it wrong. Then again, maybe Nueros is paying for the blog entry. Who knows? It won’t be the first time those who claim to be the voice of the People stab them in the back. Meanwhile, I wonder where Neuros offshores their product design?<\/p>\n

{Update 1:<\/strong> Some good commentary via the trackback to Diary of a Mad Natural Historian.}<\/p>\n

{Update 2:<\/strong> I’ve posted what I consider a more acceptable proposal to the open source community – Link<\/a>. And it didn’t take me much effort to arrive at something that’s far more compelling than what Neuros offers. I’m not saying it’s the best option, but it sure beats what they offered afaic.}<\/p>\n

{Update 3:<\/strong> More comments and Cory’s Lift’06 video over on ISHUSH – Link}<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Talk to any Industrial Designer and if they have any experience they’ll probably tell you that many design competitions are a deceptive way for greedy companies to get designs at little or no cost. One competition not so long ago … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-administrative"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1023"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1023\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1489,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1023\/revisions\/1489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}