Motivation of software professionals
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From: Ivan Marsh on 5 Feb 2010 10:53 Swifty wrote: > On Fri, 5 Feb 2010 04:23:41 -0800 (PST), Richard Cornford > <Richard(a)litotes.demon.co.uk> wrote: > >>Strange question; the most efficient motivator of professionals is >>money, and money is very popular. > > Then how do you explain the people who work on free/open source > software? Altruism is self motivated. The question was how do you motivate software engineers, not what motivates them. -- "All right, all right, if it will make you happy, I will overthrow society." - Philip J. Fry
From: Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn on 5 Feb 2010 11:21 Richard Cornford wrote: > On Feb 5, 11:19 am, Stefan Kiryazov wrote: >> I am doing a research about motivation in software development, >> the most efficient practices to motivate software engineers, >> their popularity, etc. > > Strange question; the most efficient motivator of professionals is > money, and money is very popular. That would mean that the more you are paid, the more motivated you are, which is obviously wrong. Money is only part of the equation. Money is a factor of motivation in capitalism only because of the things that money can buy, and which it means to others. But those things can be gained without money as well, so you would probably be equally motivated if someone provides them for work you have done. See, e.g., Maslow's hierarchy of needs. F'up2 poster PointedEars -- var bugRiddenCrashPronePieceOfJunk = ( navigator.userAgent.indexOf('MSIE 5') != -1 && navigator.userAgent.indexOf('Mac') != -1 ) // Plone, register_function.js:16
From: Tom Anderson on 5 Feb 2010 11:44 On Fri, 5 Feb 2010, Richard Cornford wrote: > On Feb 5, 11:19 am, Stefan Kiryazov wrote: > >> I am doing a research about motivation in software development, >> the most efficient practices to motivate software engineers, >> their popularity, etc. > > Strange question; the most efficient motivator of professionals is > money, and money is very popular. There's a robust body of work that suggests this is very much *not* the case. Money motivates some people; technical people are more motivated by interesting work and respect from their colleagues. tom -- It is a formal cultural policy to show unreasonable bias towards any woman who is both attractive and weird.
From: Malcolm Dew-Jones on 5 Feb 2010 12:11 Swifty (steve.j.swift(a)gmail.com) wrote: : On Fri, 5 Feb 2010 04:23:41 -0800 (PST), Richard Cornford : <Richard(a)litotes.demon.co.uk> wrote: : >Strange question; the most efficient motivator of professionals is : >money, and money is very popular. : Then how do you explain the people who work on free/open source : software? Well actually I understand that for many such projects (especially large ones) the people do get paid. They often work for companies that pay them to work, and then their jobs include adding the features that a company needs (including some things a company needs simply because it needs to keep their key employees happy). The company does that because the tool is useful, perhaps better than the alternative, probably cheaper over all, and because it denies a revenue stream to a competitor who might otherwise be able to sell a similar tool. Not that money is the only motivation in that case, but the point is that the only way the work gets done is ultimately because the programmer has a job and gets paid to do that work. For small projects, people often create the things they themselves need or want. If they could buy an alternative then creating their own saves money, so money is still a part of the motivation. If no alternative is available then the creation of something you need is tantamount to money in your pocket (i.e. you didn't create it simply for the fun of creating it). (P.S. I doubt many people have filled in the survey, they just post their $0.10 worth back to usenet.)
From: Saga on 5 Feb 2010 13:53
"Stefan Ram" <ram(a)zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote in message news:selection-20100205175941(a)ram.dialup.fu-berlin.de... > Stefan Kiryazov <stefan.kiryazov(a)gmail.com> writes: >>http://ask.wizefish.com/en/MotivationSurvey.aspx > > This survey has a strong selection bias: > > Real professionals are motivated by the money. > > But those motivated by money will not attend > the survey as they are not being paid for it. And those not motivated by money will also not attend the survey because they'll think it is offensive, catagorizing them as "non professional" simply because they are not motivated by money. Saga |