> having non-profit designation be the key factor in deciding whether or not someone can volunteer seems like a rule that would have some really negative side-effects.
This is literally the distinction discussed in the posted question and is pretty standard law in the US. What negative consequences do you see as a result of this?
See Redhat Linux, Gitlab, Chromium, Docker. If a volunteer helps triage issues for these projects, is it a violation of labor laws?
If only nonprofit Open Source companies can use the benefits of Open Source development -- community involvement, community moderation and support, 3rd-party patches, etc... that's a really big reduction in who can participate in Open Source, particularly during a time when we're increasingly worried about Open Source funding and sustainability.
Gitlab even organizes events around community contributions.[0] If the effect of a law is to make it harder for a community to get directly involved with a product, that's likely a negative consequence. I really like that I can get involved with Gitlab. I don't feel like Gitlab is exploiting me.
> If only nonprofit Open Source companies can use the benefits of Open Source development -- community involvement, community moderation and support, 3rd-party patches,
There is more involved here than any one of those things mentioned. There are certain requirements that need to be met. You listed the five criteria New York has, and so in New York's case, those requirements would have to be considered. Simply having moderators doesn't mean you run afoul of the laws behing discussed.
Sure, but... that's what I asked. I wanted someone to expand on the requirements that had to be met.
Would anyone be willing to explain in more detail on how the criteria differ and why this doesn't apply to Open Source companies like Gitlab/Wikipedia/etc?
I brought up for-profit companies like Gitlab only to clarify why I thought drawing a bright line based on purely nonprofit status as the only distinction would have negative consequences.
> This is literally the distinction discussed in the posted question and is pretty standard law in the US. What negative consequences do you see as a result of this?
> Would anyone be willing to explain in more detail on how the criteria differ and why this doesn't apply to Open Source companies like Gitlab/Wikipedia/etc?
I mean, they don't meet the criteria because they don't.
I guess I should ask: why do you think they meet all the criteria? What specific reasons makes you think that?
Well, taking volunteer commits to Gitlab just as an example:
- Degree of Control Exercised
Gitlab has the final say over every pull request, on what issues they'll consider pull requests for. Gitlab has a code of conduct and can ban contributors that violate that code. Gitlab prioritizes and labels issues that they want volunteers to look at. Seems equivalent to Stack Exchange's moderation queue.
- Profit, Loss, and Investment
Gitlab is a for-profit company. Open Source contributions get rolled up into their for-profit enterprise offerings.
- Skill and Independent Initiative
Fixing issues requires a great deal of specialized skill with the codebase, some of which is codebase specific and not generalizable. Individuals can choose to participate (similarly to Stack Exchange), but individuals are not free to pursue any project they want. Participation means following Gitlab's design process and looking at issue labels.
Similarly to Stack Exchange moderation queue, Gitlab hands me a list of issues that are ready for development and I pick out the issues that I want to work on.
- Permanence of Relationship
Volunteer developers to Open Source projects often form long-term relationships with the projects they contribute to. An answer on the main post links to a 2009 guidance letter that calls out for a for-profit nursing home as being in violation of the law for bringing in volunteers to help with events.[0]
With that letter as context, it's not clear to me whether or not permanence requires an explicit contract, or just an understanding that the activity or event is not a rare, one-off occurrence.
- Integral Part of Business
Developing software is an integral part of Gitlab's core business.
It's true that volunteers don't do all of Gitlab's development, but is that a defense? If I was illegally exploiting employees by classifying them as volunteers, I couldn't just say, "but I only did it to a few of them." As far as I can see, the law doesn't say, "you can classify up to 10% of your core employees as unpaid volunteers."
IANAL, I'm only here because I'm curious about any aspects of the law I'm missing.
Thanks for answering. Good questions. IANAL either, but I figure I can share my perspective.
> Gitlab has the final say over every pull request, on what issues they'll consider pull requests for. Gitlab has a code of conduct and can ban contributors that violate that code. Gitlab prioritizes and labels issues that they want volunteers to look at.
None of that is control the law is talking about. SE exerts control over how much the work the moderators do. e.g. If you don't do enough moderating, you are no longer a moderator. Also, anyone can be a contributor. SE doesn't allow anyone to be a moderator in this case. If I'm not mistaken, you "apply" or are "invited." There is a selection process, a "hiring" committee if you will.
> Gitlab is a for-profit company. Open Source contributions get rolled up into their for-profit enterprise offerings.
GitLab also has programmers doing this work as well. They are investing in this area already. While GitLab benefits from open source contributions, they aren't reliant on it. The suggestion is that if SE suddenly had no more free moderators, they'd have to actually start investing in paid moderators.
> Fixing issues requires a great deal of specialized skill with the codebase, some of which is codebase specific and not generalizable. Individuals can choose to participate (similarly to Stack Exchange), but individuals are not free to pursue any project they want. Participation means following Gitlab's design process and looking at issue labels.
So, actually this is wrong: "but individuals are not free to pursue any project they want". That's the nature of being open source. Contributors can, if they want, start working on something else. That doesn't mean GitLab has to accept their commits, but as a contributor, I can work on something else and still contribute.
> Volunteer developers to Open Source projects often form long-term relationships with the projects they contribute to.
If their code is accepted, it will generally stick around for the life of a project. One could argue that it's very much a long-term relationship with just a single commit. That being said, I think the idea is the committing part that matters. And there you have people that commit one change, and those who commit many.
With SE, moderators all follow the same requirements. With GitLab, a contributor can be defined as a one time committer or someone who has committed hundreds of patches.
> It's true that volunteers don't do all of Gitlab's development, but is that a defense?
I think we can both agree the majority of GitLabs business needs are handled by GitLab's developers it pays. I think it's fair to say they contribute substantially financially to the software development of its product.
The way I look at it is simple. If SE were to hire moderators (which all the social networks I know of do already), would their job and roll be effectively the same as current moderators? I'm pretty sure they would look very similar.
Whereas with GitLab, you can directly compare the two and see that the open source contributors and paid developers aren't effectively the same. Requirements of code quality and passing tests aren't the same thing as minimum time spent doing the programming each month.
I don't see any issues with open source projects suffering from this. Contributors aren't treated like employees. Moderators at SE seem to be, with requirements to show up and meet performance requirements to maintain "employment" as moderators.
> See Redhat Linux, Gitlab, Chromium, Docker. If a volunteer helps triage issues for these projects, is it a violation of labor laws?
Perhaps this is an indicator that for-profit companies that solicit volunteer contributions to open source projects should set up a non-profit organization to manage the open source project separately from the for-profit business that sells support and / or provides paid turnkey solutions.
> particularly during a time when we're increasingly worried about Open Source funding and sustainability.
I don't think any of the open source projects owned by for-profit companies you list have sustainability issues. It is possible it would reduce the degree to which for-profit companies accept pull-requests to their open source software , but it might also encourage the adoption of more open governance of corporate run open-source projects. It might also push more volunteer developer hours towards those projects that aren't owned by for-profit interests and help solve some of the sustainability issues those projects face.
> I really like that I can get involved with Gitlab. I don't feel like Gitlab is exploiting me.
The issue is less that volunteers (such as you) are exploited / negatively impacted, since these volunteers are participating voluntarily. The issue is more that allowing companies to have "free employees" unfairly competes with the hiring of people who can't or don't want to volunteer their time.
Since software developers currently enjoy high salaries, you may not see this as much of a downside. However, writers, editors, moderators, photographers and other 'creative' professions often don't see the same levels of compensation as software developers. It seems potentially a little greedy to me to insist that highly paid software developers retain the right to volunteer on a wider range of software projects at the expense of lower salaries for workers in other professions.
> Perhaps this is an indicator that for-profit companies that solicit volunteer contributions to open source projects should set up a non-profit organization to manage the open source project separately from the for-profit business that sells support and / or provides paid turnkey solutions.
The vast majority do, and it's getting more and more common.
> It seems potentially a little greedy to me to insist that highly paid software developers retain the right to volunteer on a wider range of software projects at the expense of lower salaries for workers in other professions.
Are you saying that either everybody should be able to volunteer or nobody should?
This is literally the distinction discussed in the posted question and is pretty standard law in the US. What negative consequences do you see as a result of this?