It's "having people who understand the meaning of 'properly.'"
The number of people who understand the idea that "free OR open source code" is not equivalent to "I can take whatever source code I find anywhere and use it literally however I want" is vanishingly small, EVEN WITHIN THE IT INDUSTRY.
It wouldn't remotely scale across Google if we had to escalate to legal every single time we pulled in a new dependency. Instead, there's a company-wide allowlist of accepted software licenses, and you only need legal help for exceptions beyond that.
So yes, we do have to know some basics of software licensing. It's just part of being a SWE.
This is akin to saying SWE’s don’t need to understand GDPR, COPA, HIPPA, DMCA or whatever. Obviously there might be cases where someone never touches code in a GDPR or HIPPA context. But any SWE working in those areas should damn well understand the basics of the law — at least enough to flag inadvertent, but none the less blatant violations.
If you're lucky, you'll have automated source scanning, legal will be informed after the fact, and you'll spend a week backing out the offending code and finding a replacement.
What's more likely is that it will be shipped to production and sit there until someone notices or you get sued ;)
Another one that likes to bite is the very not-open source Oracle extensions to open source Virtualbox / Vagrant... How many devs at big corps just click through that splash screen?
Thinking legal is going to protect you is wishful thinking... Devs need to know the basics.
Or perhaps even further -- it clearly demonstrates a reckless or willful ignorance of the entire topic.
You don't develop complex software by having to go through legal for each of your dependencies.
This is relevant because we are talking about Trump, who I see as a termite of civilization, ignoring un-enforced rules and norms. "Who is going to stop me?"
You need:
* A competently run business
* Competent funding
* Competent recruiting
* Competent management
Programmers will generally want to be paid. They'll need a well-run organization, and before you can even hire and pay them, you have to find and recruit them. Not just someone interested and willing to do the work, but interested and willing to forego their existing role, and to forego their existing role for one that is, frankly, not likely to be around in another 6 months, given the track record of these kinds of organizations.
I'd guess fear of ostracism in mainstream tech would filter out more people than actual politics.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/8/18173678/tr...
>“He’s not hurting the people he needs to be”: a Trump voter says the quiet part out loud
>A Trump voter hurt by the shutdown reveals the real reason the president attracts hardcore supporters.
>[...] “I voted for him, and he’s the one who’s doing this,” Minton told Mazzei. “I thought he was going to do good things. He’s not hurting the people he needs to be hurting.”
>He’s not hurting the people he needs to be hurting.
>Think about that line for a second. Roll it over in your head. In essence, Minton is declaring that one aim of the Trump administration is to hurt people — the right people. Making America great again, in her mind, involves inflicting pain.
>This is not an accident. Trump’s political victory and continuing appeal depend on a brand of politics that marginalizes and targets groups disliked by his supporters. Trump supporters don’t so much love the Republican party as they hate Democrats, a phenomenon political scientists call “negative partisanship.” They like Trump not because he sells them on the GOP, but because they believe he’ll stick it to the Democrats harder than anyone else.
Still, as a rule I don't work for governments and politicians because they are perpetrators of violence and they're mostly unpunished by society.
So, for the right price, I’m sure a lot.
However, given what has been reported about wage theft and lawsuits, whether they will pay is a whole different question.
That is not the case here.
No?! Why on earth would that be the logical conclusion? This is almost funny in how Americentric these threads become. You can outsource your project elsewhere. It's very common. America isn't the only country in the world that has software engineers who are competent.
But even then there's much time and risk saved by using readily available solutions instead. The problem isn't basing your work on OSS, the problem is the license violation and that can easily be avoided.
And easily cured. What secret sauce could there possibly be in their modifications that early on?
Why would he change now?
It takes relatively little money to bring in competent programmers to do things properly.