Supporting employees engaged in open source

opensource.zalando.com

32 points·pploug··7 comments

This title feels very misleading. It seems to center around a "harassment policy" rather than encouraging employees to contribute to open source or paying them to do so.

Language is ambiguous like that. They support those of their employees interacting with the open source community at large, through HR support and general guidelines.

That was exactly my reaction. I was hoping that they would be providing time or compensation to employees working on open-source. Adding CoCs is much less impressive, though the legal support is potentially valuable.

well according to the article they do give time to contribute and maintain projects, and the policy is in place to help employees if needed while contributing to open source at work.

I agree. A policy is in place just to make sure that the company does not get into trouble. To encourage employees do do open source work does not really require a policy.

The policy is not the only thing provided, work time, resources, promotion etc is already available to employees.

And no, participation does not require a policy - except for those groups that worry about potential harassment - and these groups are drastically underrepresented in OS.

This policy is exactly that, an act of support to the employees - they are already granted work time and resources to participate in open source.

The policy was not created to shield the company - it is already covered by contracts and local law, this policy is made for the benefit of the employee to know what help and support is available.

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