Day and night

This article puts forward the hypothesis that free work and paid work are often just two sides of the same productive process. Based on a survey of software production central to our digital infrastructures, it analyzes the relationship between the main paid activity –the“day job”– and voluntary contributions made outside working hours –“after hours.” Thanks to original data covering almost 15 years of activity, this research sheds new light on the temporal dimension of the articulation between free and paid work. In particular, the article shows that while the majority of engineers work for free, the most active minority are now paid by major tech companies, tracing continuous careers from voluntary to salaried work. Furthermore, by analyzing the weekly and daily rhythms of free contributions, the article highlights that free work is not confined to leisure time but also occurs during paid working hours.