Royalties for Software Engineers Too

Body

Web Worker Daily has an article[Bill Gates on Collaboration and Continued Learning] discussing Bill Gates' essay [The skills you need to succeed].Bill talks about the importance of software, and how it has turned nearly everyone into information workers.

While Bill Gates is personally benefiting from code he wrote 30 years ago, most software engineers don't getroyalties for their creative efforts. Robin Harris on StorageMojo has a great piece on [Why are the writers striking?]The writers in this case are those who write scripts for television programs. They get 4 cents for every$19.99 DVD sold today, and want this bumped up to 8 cents. More importantly, they want the same deal forcontent shown over the internet. Currently, they get nothing when content they wrote for is shown on the internet, and they would like that fixed also.

Paying royalties to creative writers encourages them to write good stuff. The best stuff will result in moreroyalties, and we want to encourage this. What about software engineers? Don't we want them to write the beststuff also? Shouldn't they get royalties too, not just a flat salary and continued employment?

Something to think about...

technorati tags: Web Worker Daily, Bill Gates, collaboration, continued learning, skills, succeed, software, information workers, Robin Harris, StorageMojo, writers, strike, royalties, software engineers