Devrights as a recognised quality brand

[@ikbenmartijn]

You see a lot of 'quality brands' these days. Think of the fair trade
logo, the Verisign Cert. logo, ... All of those things are institutes
that people trust, that people know. So I think we would have a great
start if we made this thing recognisable, know by as many developers
as possible.
If we could achieve the 'brand' status, then companies like Facebook,
Twitter, all with big and sometimes vital API's will probably ask to
be recognised as a 'developer friendly' company.

What's your opinion fellow devs? Pro's and con's to this idea, all
welcome!

[Aral Balkan]

I really like this idea. Simon Wardley also suggested it on Twitter.

The current status quo appears to be "it's a free API, we can do what
we like, you have no rights". This is wrong and, ultimately, bad for
the companies involved. As an analogy, we're the battery hens of Web
2.0. We need our own "free range" logo/certification/quality program
to shame these large companies to at least recognizing and providing
_basic_ developer rights.

A "Developer Friendly" certification program could really work –
especially if it gets buy-in from prominent members of the developer
community.

Aral

On May 13, 3:46 pm, "@ikbenmartijn" <martijnvandenber...@gmail.com>
wrote:

[@ikbenmartijn]

I think that should be the first aim, to have a stable group a
prominent developers 'demanding' this from bigger and smaller
companies. We don't want to miss out on the smaller ones. If these
guys get big, they will probably keep spreading the brand as a reward
to who made them big...

[Neil Ellis]

+1 I agree with you guys.

Step One attract prominent folk to build up a critical mass of
interest and peer pressure.
Step Two get one of the existing Web 2.0 companies on board to
increase media attention.

The thing to consider is why it’s in anyone’s interest to be
certified. Developers will tend to head to where this money or cool
APIs not to where there is someone with a certification ‘sticker’ so
it’s not really in the companies interest to care. I’m also not
convinced users would give a damn either as this is a ‘techies’ issue,
so yet another reason why people wouldn’t care.

_However_ tech startups really need talent (not just engineers) I mean
_talent_. And that talent is in short supply - much shorter than some
folk think. So if the talent refuses to work for non-certified
companies you are onto a winner. So I’d continue to spread the idea
of forming a developers rights group - and focus on getting people to
pledge not to work for ‘blacklisted’ companies and to give preference
to certified companies.

I think blacklisting is more important than certification, a company
needs to know that if it continues to contravene the agreed principles
and to unfairly treat the people who work with them that there will be
a genuine consequence.

Next peer pressure, if Aral suddenly decided to work for a blacklisted
company, his peers would condemn him and spread the word and would
cease to do work with him. Without the peer pressure there would be
little apparent consequence for working for a blacklisted company .

Of course that pressure takes time to build up :-)

So now we all know why unions formed in the first place :-) :-)

I’m sure there is a lot of p***ed off Apple 3rd Party devs and Twitter
devs (not to mention Facebook) that will get this moving. Of course it
will be a challenge to avoid slipping into a negative stance, but Aral
you seem like a fairly upbeat guy so it might just work.

Maybe a press release and then send a link to Mashable - that would
put the cat amongst the pigeons.

As both a potential consumer and supplier of 3rd party APIs I think
the time is right to get a fairer balance.

Kind regards
Neil
On May 13, 2:58 pm, "@ikbenmartijn" <martijnvandenber...@gmail.com>
wrote: