<story><title>AWS gives open source the middle finger?</title><url>https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/09/aws-gives-open-source-the-middle-finger</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Pfhreak</author><text>I left AWS after six years of working there wholly because of their restrictive policies about developing software in your spare time -- especially if you were thinking about working on a game.&lt;p&gt;I recognize this article is about a product offering of AWS, and not their internal policies towards contributing to open source, but the two are linked in my mind and I&amp;#x27;m not all surprised to see a headline like this.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>yesenadam</author><text>I just now started reading Merritt&amp;#x27;s &lt;i&gt;Adventure in Prolog&lt;/i&gt; (1990), and the very beginning seems somehow relevant to this thread:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;I was working for an aerospace company in the early 1970s when someone got a copy of the original Adventure game and installed it on our mainframe computer. For the next month my lunch hours, evenings and weekends, as well as normal work hours, were consumed with fighting the fierce green dragon and escaping from the twisty little passages. Finally, with a few hints about the plover&amp;#x27;s egg and dynamite, I had proudly earned all the points in the game.&lt;p&gt;My elation turned to terror as I realized it was time for my performance review. My boss was a stern man, more comfortable with machines than people. He opened up a large computer printout containing a log of hours each 
programmer spent on the mainframe computer. He said he noticed that recently I had been working evenings and weekends and that he admired that type of dedication in his employees. He gave me the maximum raise and told me to keep 
up the good work.&amp;quot;</text></comment>
<story><title>AWS gives open source the middle finger?</title><url>https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/09/aws-gives-open-source-the-middle-finger</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Pfhreak</author><text>I left AWS after six years of working there wholly because of their restrictive policies about developing software in your spare time -- especially if you were thinking about working on a game.&lt;p&gt;I recognize this article is about a product offering of AWS, and not their internal policies towards contributing to open source, but the two are linked in my mind and I&amp;#x27;m not all surprised to see a headline like this.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>spectre256</author><text>I &amp;quot;accidentally&amp;quot; worked at amazon for a few weeks when a company I had just joined was acquired by them.&lt;p&gt;I knew it was time to start looking when I was informed that I had to get prior permission to do ANY open source contributions even on my own hardware on my own time. That&amp;#x27;s just not feasible logistically and above and beyond the general &amp;quot;don&amp;#x27;t write open source that competes with us or on our our time&amp;#x2F;hardware without permission&amp;quot; rule most reasonable companies have.</text></comment>