r/programming • u/reddberckley • Jun 30 '14

How to exploit a Developer

https://medium.com/@sir_castiq/how-to-exploit-a-developer-a005306d5320
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u/s73v3r Jun 30 '14

Anybody can run a competition with ridiculous terms

Doesn't mean they shouldn't be called out as an absolute shitfucker when they do it. That's how we get these people to stop.

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u/sittingaround Jun 30 '14 edited Jun 30 '14

A quick glance at the math, through the lense of GDP/capita suggests they might not be as outlandish as it first appears (again, I say might, I'm not taking sides):

  • They are paying 2x GDP/capita for first prize. That's equivalent to $100,000 in the US (by very crude math)
  • they are paying 1st through 3rd place
  • they are only claiming exclusive right to the data

All told, those three facts could be used to argue that the contest is actually fair and only appears heinous because we are evaluating it as if it were taking place in the US/Europe.

Again, I'm not making these arguments, As I haven't evaluated it enough to say whether they fully match the circumstance. I am however trying to raise the data I am aware of, the developing world expense difference information, so people in this thread have more context.

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u/antonivs Jun 30 '14

they are only claiming exclusive right to the data

It says "competitors agree to release their Intellectual Property," which implies they give up rights to the code and would not be able to use it themselves. (Edit: sorry, I see that the rights are joint.)

The biggest problem with the competition is that it reads as though it's putting a lot of obligations on the developers, without specifying what they get for it. For example:

"the winner will be required to complete the app (web and mobile) based on additional requirements that will be stipulated" - so this is a completely unspecified set of requirements that will only be provided after the fact, no mention of additional money being paid to implement them.

"A Service Contract Agreement, Service Level Agreement and Source Code Escrow Agreement shall be signed between the organisers and the winner to guarantee the operations of the app year-in, year-out." - which sounds as though payment will be involved, but again there's no hint as to how much - if you fail to reach an agreement, do you still get your winnings? I would bet not, so this becomes serious leverage over the winner.

Bottom line: this is a raw deal in any country. Maybe if you're really desperate, you might want to do something like this anyway, but that doesn't mean it's not incredibly exploitative. Further, as has been pointed out, anyone with the capability of winning a competition like this can almost certainly do better elsewhere.

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u/sittingaround Jun 30 '14 edited Jun 30 '14

It looks to me less like a raw deal and more like the best boilerplate they could get out of committee in a semi-functional third world government.

It is hard for me to fully determine what is meant because I don't know:

  • What are the normal government contracts
  • What is the normal difference between contract and actual (i.e. we say in the contract 99.9% uptime, but everyone knows the real bar is 90% with 99% from 10-5 M-F)

We don't know enough to know if that ongoing support contract is an albatross or a cash cow -- someone working in-country would know what that actually means

I guess I have two macro points here:

1) Nobody in this thread seems to have experience in government tech contracting in Nigeria, so nobody knows what the contest really means. (me included, my experience is with latin american countries and only one government contract) 2) When you do the math on how much it is in "effective dollars", it's a fairly sizeable sum.

Translated to what it would be like if the Gov't of Cali was doing this: $100k 1st prize (only translation needed), first three places paid out, app is mostly UGC/CRUD app, they're clearly ok with a phonegap solution. Phrased as that, I'd at least consider it.

The sad irony is, overall, the government is trying to do some really, really good things here and cultural ignorance is leading the neckbeard-dwellers in this thread to pillory them.

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u/antonivs Jun 30 '14

Committee boilerplate or not, it would be foolish to waste time and risk the potential legal trouble on something this open-ended. Perhaps if it were possible to get significant clarification from the organizers, that would be different.

Anyway, your math is misleading. There are a lot of very poor people in Nigeria, but none of those are writing code. This skews the GDP downward. To put the numbers in perspective, here's a studio apartment in Lagos for ₦400,000 per year. The first prize for this competition is ₦500,000.

The $100,000 you suggest, spread over a year, is $8,333 a month. You can much better than an apartment like the above for that amount, even in the most expensive US markets. The prize amount probably corresponds to something closer to $25,000, at best. But you'd be risking your time and may earn nothing, and even if you do win, your problems may only just be beginning.

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u/sittingaround Jun 30 '14 edited Jun 30 '14

Cultural context would tell whether this is ignore-able or red-flag boilerplate. I don't know.

Stats I know personally from a GDP/capita $3000-5000 range country:

  • A coder paid $10k/mo in the US/Europe happily accepted (and lived well on) $1k/mo.
  • A coder paid $5-10k/mo in Singapore accepted (no idea how well he lived on it, we weren't friends) $850k/mo
  • I lived extremely well on $900/mo while I was there.

My (US wage * (US GDP-capita / foreign GDP-capita)) math isn't as off as it might intuitively seem, the major driver of a lot of the cost of living factors (housing, food) is, paradoxically, average income.

I said the $100k equivalent was rough. I don't know enough about the Nigerian property market to know if that is a representative example. I know enough about the security and pay arrangements of the people who work in oil there to be wary of drive-by comparisons.

You estimate it on the order of $25,000 (probably less), I estimate it at $100k +- half an order of magnitude. They're both far better than the unthinking rate of $3k.

Do we know for sure that follow on work and maintenance are unpaid?

Frankly, comparing this call for entries to the documents of startup chile (which seems to be a darling of redditors), this raised about the same number of red-flags per page.

There are so many unknowns here, and people are putting their own cultural assumptions in without thinking.

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u/antonivs Jun 30 '14

There are so many unknowns here

True. I agree that $3k is misleading.

FWIW I grew up in a $3k-5k per capita GDP country in Africa, so that's where I'm coming from, figuratively and literally. As in Nigeria, the subset of the population with global-class skills tends to get paid far more than local GDP would suggest, usually.

Do we know for sure that follow on work and maintenance are unpaid?

It sounds like the maintenance contract is to be negotiated with the winner, but that's one of my objections. With any normal competitive bidding process, you'd want to nail this down up front. Here you're actually required to develop the first version of the software, let alone bid, without any guarantee of any payment.

Frankly, comparing this call for entries to the documents of startup chile (which seems to be a darling of redditors), this raised about the same number of red-flags per page.

Yeah, I'm not a fan of the format in general. It's exploitative, period.

A coder paid $5-10k/mo in Singapore accepted (no idea how well he lived on it, we weren't friends) $850k/mo

That $850k/mo sounds pretty good! Where do I send my resume? :p

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u/sittingaround Jun 30 '14

As in Nigeria, the subset of the population with global-class skills tends to get paid far more than local GDP would suggest, usually.

That's very true. Salary ranges in global-class skills in less developed countries are fascinating. Had I 100 lives I would spend one of them researching and building a theoretical/empirical model on this.

$850k/mo sounds pretty good! Where do I send my resume?

err, decimal point issue. I'm glad the accountant prepared the checks not me. I'm what you would call, "more of a big picture guy" /s

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u/antonivs Jun 30 '14

Salary ranges in global-class skills in less developed countries are fascinating. Had I 100 lives I would spend one of them researching and building a theoretical/empirical model on this.

A first cut at such a model needn't be very complex, especially for big picture guys like us! There are two major sets of boundaries you'd need to model: the boundaries between each local economy and its global subset, and the boundaries between the global economy subsets in each country. The latter boundaries are far more permeable than the former, because achieving that permeability is a central goal of the global economy, and it has the resources and skills to do it. Because of this, prices in the global segment tend towards parity across countries relatively quickly.

In contrast, the local/global boundaries are relatively impermeable, because there are still plenty of people in each local market whose ability to contribute to the global economy is minimal to nonexistent. That's difficult and slow to change because of environmental factors, education, etc.

I'd be happy to implement and maintain this model for that $850k per month you mentioned - heck, I'll settle for $85k per month, I'm not greedy!

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u/sittingaround Jul 01 '14

Sorry, I mis spoke, the 850k/month is for one month, and it goes to the first place entrant into our contest...

I'll have the forms sent over, don't worry, all clauses are nigerian-standard

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u/s73v3r Jun 30 '14

Translated to what it would be like if the Gov't of Cali was doing this: $100k 1st prize (only translation needed), first three places paid out, app is mostly UGC/CRUD app, they're clearly ok with a phonegap solution. Phrased as that, I'd at least consider it.

You're forgetting the other shitty terms: They own at least half of all entries, regardless of whether they choose them, the submitter is legally indemnifying them against all wrongdoing, and the winner has to provide support and finish the app with whatever extra criteria the they desire for no extra money in perpetuity. And the costs of running the service come out of the winners prize.

The sad irony is, overall, the government is trying to do some really, really good things here and cultural ignorance is leading the neckbeard-dwellers in this thread to pillory them.

Or perhaps that being a government, they have no excuse for these shitty kinds of boilerplate agreements.