Does anyone have any ethical concerns/reservations with working for a commodity brokerage firm?

[nelsonic]

Commodity Trading/Brokerage Firms are not know for the "Social Benefit" they create... They tend to be purely market (profit) driven.
Some say that's a good thing because their motives are very clear.

I have a strong view on companies whose sole objective is to make money.
However I think its worth considering doing this project because we can:

• A) Modularize and _Open Source_ much of the work of building a communications platform and make several modules re-useable by projects with more social aims.
• B) Give people from "A Team" _experience_/exposure to high-availability / low-latency applications
  (a different league from simple web apps)
• C) _pay people well_ for their time (so the best people don't feel like they have to leave for other jobs...)

For now we are only preparing the proposal for the prospective client and we expect he will balk at the price; we have no intention of doing this for "cheap" as The Client makes enough profit to afford to pay market rates.

If you have any concerns with us considering working for a
trading company please voice them. Thanks!

For more detail please see the original brief: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pJ-yN5lw2P-g_DqYboM8y-IpcYBANpFLpi3PZQYgiWs

[sofer]

I have no concern with dwyl considering working for a commodity broker, particularly in the absence of other plausible projects. I might question dwyl actively pursuing such projects.

[notenociz]

I agree with @sofer. I just want to clarify as to who will own the software? I'm not too good on the legal side but can @dwyl own the software and Company XYZ the app?

[notenociz]

Also, at the moment, are we only waiting for approval from Company XYZ before assembling a core team?

[notenociz]

Oh! We should also get our GitHub reference going to help client see what's going on.

[nelsonic]

To be clear, there are many "plausible projects".
We have only just been given the "mandate" by FAC members to handle the commercial side of things in a separate company. dwyl/ateam-proposal#22 (comment)
We have barely started and its far more important to understand exactly what types of organisations we want to work with dwyl/ateam-proposal#28 so that we don't fall into the trap of taking the first project that someone approaches us to build. Which is what all other "agencies" do and then wonder why they don't have a "lets fix the world" culture...

We need time to establish a system for securing new work.
I am speaking to several interesting organisations informally, but we need a systematic approach to this. Our plan is to build a pipeline of work but this will not happen overnight.
Our immediate concerns are:

• Deliver existing project for existing clients. (i.e. don't leave people in the lurch ... unacceptable)
• Develop internal systems for managing work. (Not 7 different systems... unscalable )

Every single day I get offers from Financial Companies (because of past experience) to do work at day-rates most developers can only dream about. The reason I don't take any offers is because I don't feel that any of the established Financial companies are solving a genuine "_human problem_"...

The problem "Company XYZ" needs to solve can be defined broadly as a _Communications Problem_. That is a problem that every (non-cave-dwelling-hermit) Human Being has.
So if we can get paid to solve it for one company we can apply (a part) of the solution to other companies.

However, since the prospective client (lovely guy BTW) approached Izaak we made the effort to prepare the pitch in case other people on the Team want to work on the project.

If Company XYZ decide that we are the best people to build their solution, we will assemble a team of people and blow their minds with our execution. Then, we will get back to what matters.

[nelsonic]

@enociz on the subject of "ownership". The client will "own" the end result.
Analogy: they are buying a "cake" from us. They aren't buying the mixing bowl, spatula, baking trays or oven.

We will use (and _contribute_ to) _several_ Open Source components in building the solution. If unclear I can elaborate further. let me know. 👍