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Are or were any of them experts on the things that IBM wants done? Are the involved in the communities that IBM wants work done in? If not, then they're still a net drain while they come up to speed, and engaging these communities and spreading out some money in the form of bounties makes sense.

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they're still a net drain while they come up to speed

And we wonder why companies expect candidates to have years of experience in the exact stack they use and don’t offer training to anyone with other experience, just not buzzword-compliant.

All these people were smart enough to get hired in the first place remember.

Yes, but you need to look at the ROI. If it costs more to keep these people on and train them than it would to get the community to do these things then IBM is rationally externalizing these costs. They're not a charity.

That said, I agree that if they need support for these things internally, long term, and consistently, then it makes more sense to train up staff internally.

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