Why Do Open Source? 122
harryhoch writes "The NY Times is reporting that a couple of business-school researchers at MIT and Harvard have written a report on motivations for participation in open source projects.
Among their somewhat-obvious insights is the somewhat-obvious comment that some folks work on open-source as a way to gain professional prestige.
" I love talking heads - but again, it is interesting to see outside sources commenting on the growth of the free software/open source movement.
depends on what your intentions are (Score:2)
Why Post Stories On Slashdot (Score:1)
If this report is so obvious that you feel the need to mock, why even post it on Slashdot?
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Re:Open Source isn't necessary. (Score:1)
Resume (Score:5)
Is it wrong to contribute to open source for those reasons? It seems kind of against the whole FSF philosophy, but I'm a bit too much of a pragmatist anyway. Has anyone else started on open source for these reasons?
no registration link (Score:1)
or for the trustin g [nytimes.com]
Re:Open Source isn't necessary. (Score:1)
not ground breaking (Score:2)
Dennis
Somwhat obvious? (Score:1)
While there may be a few old-time longhairs about who really are "doing it for the community", I think the link between professional prestige or community standing is the obvious and immediate reason for low or unpaid participation in OSS projects.
That some people may claim to be doing it for the love of OSS/community benefit/insert-altruism-here, I have a hard time believing that serious commitment to a long-term OSS project has that much to do with altruism. If altruism was the case, people would send in kernel patches via anonymous remailers, and someone would have invented a way to have authenticated anonymous CVS.
Re:Other site for report? (Score:2)
Why against? (Score:1)
--
Preposterous (Score:5)
I'm an Open Source Programmer, so I think that I know what motivates me. I am also a member of the International Socialist Organization (ISO), and yes, that does make me a "card-carrying commie". I perfer Open Source Software because it is the only form of software licensing and design which truly conforms to Marx's ideals: there is no special class of "developers" who weild power over users. Rather, everyone involved in the end product, programmers, users, documentation writers, even lawyers, can have a say.
Further, it is the only system based on the socialist ideas of equality and egalitarianism. All people, no matter what financial status, have access. Improvments in so-called "intellectual" property can be shared easily among many people without the interference of those in power who would profit by restraining new ideas.
While many Slashdot readers are simply terrified at the thought that there are actual communists using Linux, they should bear in mind that the leader of the Free Software Movement, Richard Stallman, is essentially a believer in socialism. Your movement was founded by communists, and we still persist today.
Heheheh.... (Score:3)
The article is important because it's not for us. (Score:5)
So the article and paper are useful because they help explain what is counter-intuitive: how software written by geeks in their spare time can be any good. Not only does it explain their motivation, it also points out that the people who are most likely to contribute to open-source are the top programmers, the ones the business people are desperate to hire.
The point is that articles and papers like these make using open-source an easier decision.
(And personally, I like Postrel's other point, which is that people acting primarily for their own benefit, whether psychological or pecuniary, can also confer substantial benefits on the rest of the world. Too many people ignore the invisible hand these days.)
Re:Royalties largely aren't necessary (Score:2)
As A Repayment? (Score:1)
Why do they assume motives are selfish? (Score:3)
Maybe some people just do open source software to make the world better? Greed and self-aggrandizement are not the only human motivators.
Giving software costs the giver only his time, and for his time he may improve the lives of millions of people.
There's also the pure satisfaction of creating something of worth.
Open software people are simply a class of people for which there is more to life than looking out for number 1.
why I do it. (Score:2)
This allows me to use open source software, improve it, (or bastardize it) and give my clients a more cost effective solution.
I make more money.
The customer pays less.
I add to the overall OSS software base.
Life is good.
Open source.. (Score:2)
GNU is the group of programmers that make all the programs for Linux, and one of the requirements for making a program under the GNU license is that the program must be free and the source must be available to everyone.
"One of the main differences in the varients of Unix between Linux is that almost all Linux software is open source, which with Unix this is usually not true." Says the GNU group..
This kind of thinking is very smart in the OS arena, making the source available to programmers can help advance other programmers' skills to a higher point, and thus in the end you get higher quality software from everyone. Everyone helps everyone else, this is the way life should be..
-meff
Open Source Software == fun (Score:3)
For me, I would have to say it is.
The reason I'm paying massive amounts of money for university tuition to pursue a computer science degree is that I think school is fun, and I think computer science is fun.
Working on software projects is also something I enjoy. And there's nothing quite as gratifying as seeing your hard work produce an amazingly cool piece of software in the end.
So yeah, I do it for fun. Money doesn't really motivate me - as long as I can pay the bills and buy a cool toy every once in a while, I'm not concerned.
I suspect I'm not alone among slashdotters, either.
Show Me The Metrics! (Score:4)
I mean, the FSF is quite clear about what it wants to achieve, and questionable though those goals might be for some, it at least gives them a purpose. What is the goal in life for the Open Source movement?
Could Linux have succeeded as a closed source product, if the same brilliant team of developers could have been assembled and convinced to release the product for free? Or Apache? Why does a seemingly brilliant Open Source project like Mozilla only enjoy such limited success?
And: How many people are actually taking advantage of the Source part of the Open Source equation, not just the Open/Free part? Is there anything more to the Linux hype than that it provides low-income hackers with cool stuff to play with?
Now, don't get me wrong: although the questions are a bit tainted, this is definitely not flamebait. Having some real answers and real statistics here would really help a lot to advance Open Source. If you're a college student in the IT or statistics field, this sounds like a great project to me...
A deeply flawed study (Score:5)
They also downplay the successes of the Mozilla project, at one point claiming that it's only had a dozen or so outside contributions. This will come as surprising news to anyone familiar with actual Mozilla development.
I had a lot of problems with the paper at a deeper level, as well. The actual content of the paper is largely a restatement of esr's "ego-boo" theory in economics terms. To the basic concept of professional reputation, they add the economic value of the credential from the educational experience. This is a step in the right direction, as learning is a very important and generally underreported reason for working on open source, but still to my mind focusses too much on the "signalling" and not enough on the thirst for knowledge and understanding.
But the single greatest failing of the paper is that it doesn't recognize that work on free software is fundamentally different than work on proprietary software. It's not hard to see how outsiders can miss this, as after all the end-user fruits of free software development can be compared head-to-head against proprietary counterparts (Linux kernel against NT kernel, Gcc against MSVC, Apache against IIE or other proprietary servers, Gimp against Photoshop). However, the other "work products" of free software development are just as important, if not more so. These include the understanding of the software and the communication of this understanding to the rest of the community. It is here that Samba differs so dramatically from Microsoft's own implementations of SMB, or that wv [wvware.com] differs from whatever wad of code Microsoft uses to parse their own formats.
You also see the differences in the grand cooperative vision shared by so many free software developers. Free software is working towards everything working with everything else (although this is of course a fantastically difficult problem, so we're not quite there yet). Proprietary software often sacrifices this goal for the sake of short-term business incentives.
The paper asks (and attempts to answer) the question, "why do people work on free software, when it's possible to get paid for working on proprietary software?" I believe it might be interesting to consider the following analogous questions:
In summary, I consider the questions raised by the paper interesting, but the framework in which they're posed has problems, and the actual analysis presented suffers from both factual errors and lack of detailed understanding of the free software process and community.
Incidentally, I was all set to post an extended version of this critique to Advogato as part of a series of articles on the economics of software (previous articles have covered software complexity [advogato.org] and risk homeostasis [advogato.org]), but no interest was shown.
Re:Royalties largely aren't necessary (Score:1)
Re:Other site for report? (Score:2)
-Flerg
Way to be known ... djanai (Score:1)
Sure it is a prompt and proud way to promote one self, especialy after the boom OSS got in big CPU companies (we just had an IBM Linux talk
As far as the only reason, I could not really believe/follow the movement; I believe one publishes OSS code because it helps people by providing a service that should be rewarded by the initial pride of releasing it.
I believe in the GPL/OSS work, and will continue to participate to it
My GPL softwares are :
http://pbm.sourceforge.net/
http://dlc.sourceforge.net/
(and too many projects
Hope you will enjoy them
Realism (Score:1)
Reasons: Right and Wrong ones? (Score:2)
That's almost like asking WHY give to charity?
Is it more Right to give to charity to lessen human suffering, and more Wrong to give to charity to shave a few hundred bucks off your income to drop down by one tax bracket??
I see no conflict here, since the charity still benefits. Wether one is primarily motivated to do Good for selfish reasons, or for purely philandrophic ones, makes little difference.
The End does not always justify the Means, not by a long shot. But if what you do is Good, then your personal reasons for doing this Good are irrelevant, since the Good is still done.
On a more metaphysical level, I am of the belief that EVERYONE does Good for selfish reasons. Even Mother Teresa heals lepers for the benefit of the warm fuzzies of knowing that "I am a Good person", or "I am making God happy" or whatever. Yes, the lepers benefit, but the personal satisfaction of helping the lepers - and not actually helping the lepers - is the driver for the act. Not the recognition one receives, but the internal, emotional 'dopamine rush' of satisfaction with one's Goodness.. ramble-ramble...
Self-sacrifice can be selfish. Benefit the community as a side-effect of pumping up your resume. We'll all be grateful.
Re:Resume (Score:1)
Re:Resume (Score:1)
But I wouldn't want to count on open/free project work to be beneficial on a resume.
You would be surprised at the number of things that will cause a Human Resources droid to trashcan your resume. Basically, it's anything that is out of the ordinary. And now you want a job writing code for money, but your experience is writing code and giving it away. TILT!
Oh, and "You must realize, Mr. Jones, that once employed by ZYX Corporation, all code you write for the rest of your life belongs to ZYX. You will indicate your acceptance of this condition of employement by cashing your paycheck."
Do the code, sure. But not for the glory or recognition or even to get a job. Do it because it's right.
Re:Royalties largely aren't necessary (Score:1)
Economics and the obvious (Score:2)
People work on Open Source because they are lazy. (Score:1)
You can either start your own project, or you can just pick up something else that is close, and add on a little bit so that you get what you want.
There are a few exceptional individuals that begin projects, and I would have to guess that they do so either from necessity (lack of an existing product) or because they like free beer.
My personal opinion is that few projects actually get done for purely religious reasons.
why? (Score:1)
or, you're like me... (Score:2)
say you are working on a project whose scope is beyond your capacities, but you know that other people on the internet would be interested in its completion, and maybe even contribute some code. eventually, you could charge for the product, but for the moment (as it's not done yet, and still buggy as hell) you feel better about making it free (beer) so you decide that, while you're at it to make it Free (open).
it's not just a matter of prestige. hell, i don't know if the names attached to a GPLd widget are professors, professionals, or teenage hackers. they all have the same position in my mind - that of Somebody Who Codes Better Than Me.
html formatting? (Score:1)
The article has one serious oversite (Score:4)
The original authors of most open source projects seem to have needed the particular piece of software they were writing. They also didn't care about potential economic gain from said software.
She quotes "The Cathederal and the Bazarr", but she missed one of the most important points for undertaing the fetchmail project used as the example in that essay. ESR needed a decent program to handle certian email problems. Most programs had some things he needed, and taken together pretty much every needed feature was covered, but no single program had all of the needed features. He wrote fetchmail because he needed it.
He also didn't have the time and energy to debug it properly. Turning to open source projects for many things creates instant feedback. If you have a good idea that is valuable, it will be improved by a huge number of people. Their motivation? It would make their lives easier too.
This seems to be the true reason for contributing to an Open Source or Free Software project.
Why did Linus create Linux? DOS sucked. Minix sucked. He needed something to suit his purposes. It turned out that it also suited the purposes of many other people. They saw the potential in Linux, saw where it needed imrovement, and contributed. Not because of alturism, or to get better known (although that is a factor), but because they also needed it as a tool.
If you look at any of the other high profile open source projects (Apache, Perl, etc.) You will find that people are contributing to those because they find them very useful, and would find the contributions they make useful as well. Once you have something that works, why not share?
If you keep the source to yourself, you might be able to sell it, on the other hand you might not. You may also just find yourself in competition with a large corperation who would think nothing of doing whatever they can to see to it that you never get your program out. Open Sourceing a project is essentially opening a pandora's box. Once you let it out, no one can put it back in.
These are the real motivatioins for Open Source. Not because it's fun (although that is a factor), not for prestige (although that is also a factor), but because you need that software to accomplish a particular task, and it's too difficult to do by your self. Since a lot of other people would be able to use the same software to accomplish the same task, they are more than willing to help if it gets them closer to their goal.
In his presentation ESR has everyone who programs for a living stand up. Then he has everyone who programs for a living, and their company depends upon selling the software that they have written.
In the presentation I saw, the first question had more than half of the room standing. I would estimate that over 100 people stood. The second question had four people stand up. Most people write code to accomplish a specific purpose. Once that purpose is accomplished, they see nothing wrong with giving it away. Their incentive has already been met.
A point of view I never see anywhere... (Score:1)
Intellectual property just can't work because it was basically though for books, paintings, etc. in the 1800's and the 1900's, mostly from jurisprudence that followed American and French Revolution.
That was a long time ago. In theory, good laws are flexible enough to adapt themselves to new facts (lots of our europeans countries' laws are straight from Roman law), but for intellectual propriety, it just doesn't work.
My understanding is that the open source movement, even if it is *not* the solution, is a leap in the good direction. A piece of the puzzle, in other words.
Please, don't take that last sentence as an insult. The movement is a good thing, but I take zealotry with a grain of salt : nobody has the perfect intellectual property system, provided this system can exist.
And that's not certain !
Stéphane
You got to know why (Score:4)
For non-commercial folks, the reasons are very easy to find. You're a hobbyist and open source is like a big hobby meet. You're a researcher and open source fits into your notions of public disemination and peer review.
But commercial interests need to take a good look at it. You will not earn profits off of software sales. You have to think of something else to generate the revenues needed to pay your developers, testers, supportniks and marketroids. Something else is going to have to generate the dividends for your stock holders. If your primary business is hardware, open source is a no-brainer. Ditto if you can use your open source as a loss-leader for other products.
But if you really want to be in the software business and not the support or hardware business, you'll need to come up with a whole new business model. So far, none of the large Linux businesses have earned a profit. The market knows this and their stocks are in the tank. Like it or not, you have to sell something to earn a profit. If you give away your software, you have to sell something else. Maybe 100% open source is not the best solution for you. Maybe a mix is better. Sometimes you might even come to the realization that open source just won't work for you.
Just remember, you no longer competing with Microsoft, Sun and Apple. You're also competing with weekend hobbyists and college students. And your commercial competitors get to distribute your stuff in their shrinkwrap boxes. And SuSE will include it on CD #5 without even a registration card. If you can come up with a business model that will work, you'll be everyone's hero.
Re:The oppression has been stopped (Score:1)
Thats why he is claiming asylum in the USA, to escape the RCMP sodomy-interrogation!
Re:Realism (Score:1)
Another big reason- network externalities (Score:1)
For example, if I wanted to write some web browsing software, it would be better to contribute to the Mozilla project than to build my own browser. That way, there is a chance that Mozilla(and by extension, my work) will take off and be a big success. Then everyone will have access to my work, including me. If I keep it to myself, then I am the only one who ever gets to use my tool, and therefore no one will ever develop anything for it.
Look at it another way. If you wanted to write a new kernel for x86 machines that would run like UNIX, you could just do the work and then keep it to yourself. But if you release the code, then your work has a chance of becoming a standard and a world wide platform with thousands of developers working on your project. Releasing source taps into a huge network of developers.
Mike
Passion (Score:2)
In my experience with opensource, the points they made are correct. Often, OSS is conceived due to a need. But that is not always the case.
More often, though, I think that opensource software is created because the notion of an idealistic world. And programmers have a passion for what they do. It's often this passion that drives projects like the Gimp. Someday, sure, the gimp may be noted as an acceptable tool by the graphic arts industry. Right now, to most people, the gimp is a toy. It's something to use to create flashy web graphics and interfaces, but it's market share of REAL, PAYING, PROFESSIONAL jobs is virtually nil.
The Gimp's development is a passion of it's parents (the coders). It's the vision of an ideal software-world, where we don't have to shell out $995 for Adobe Photoshop, AND we can see how the software works, AND we can fix it if it breaks, or add a feature, if it won't do something.
Open source software development is built on a precedent of programmers who LOVE what they do. Period.
Another reason? (Score:1)
I'm pretty sure many write open source software to do what they can't do in their regular job. I think this goes beyond the "it's fun" reason given in the article.
This is good (Score:1)
Re:Show Me The Metrics! (Score:1)
Economics and the obvious, take 2 (Score:2)
(My original post got the tags stripped by a combination of browser, slashdot, and user error. Here's what it's supposed to look like:)
The original paper is at http://www.people.hbs.edu/jlerner/simple.pdf [hbs.edu]
Among their somewhat-obvious insights is the somewhat-obvious comment that some folks work on open-source as a way to gain professional prestige.
Business schools and economists have a reputation for having a firm grasp upon the obvious. However, the reason they stay in business, and aren't laughed out of intelligent company, is that so many people, especially other academics, don't.
People don't work for free. Sometimes, though, they are willing to take their rewards in a purely non-monetary fashion. In the case of politics, power is the reward. For many other people, the sense of satisfaction they receive from doing something useful is sufficient reward for lots of hard work. Ask any insightful volunteer coordinator at the Red Cross or other charity. Open source software is a form of charity - one is providing a "benefit to humanity" or other warm-fuzzy, while doing something which is interesting and challenging, and not receiving money for it. I hope the biz school professors who wrote the report are familiar with the literature on charity and non-economic motivation.
Of course, sometimes working on open-source can have economic motives. If I'm looking for a job, and I can point to my work on hWidgetFoo, I'll likely get a better(-paying) job than if I can't point to it. If I've been working on software for internal consumption, like at a manufacturer, there may not be a directly work-related product I can point to and say "Here's what I can do".
Both points are addressed in the paper, but most of it can be summed up by a quote from ESR near the beginning:
Good economists recognize that non-economic incentives exist, but many economists ignore them because they're too hard to quantify.
Re:I want my OS Free (Score:1)
I've always thought that... (Score:3)
I've often thought that the reason some companies like Msft churn out bad software is that: it's relatively easy to fool your supervisor - i.e., if you have a project deadline looming and you know some part isn't done or hasn't been tested enough, you can let it slide, the boss remains clueless, the customers and tech support have to deal with it - yet your boss may still be under the false impression that you've done a really swell job! Hidden deep in inscrutable code lies lots of opportunity for office politics and shifting blame that open source scientific peer review just doesn't tolerage, at least not for long!
I asked a silly question (Re: Why against?) (Score:2)
Guess what, the more I try to reconstruct what I was thinking when I posted that line, the less sense it makes. Of course there's no problem with it! <smacks self on forehead>
I also phrased that a bit poorly as it seems I was making the ethics a big issue, when I was really wanting to know how many others got into OSS development for resume building purposes.
Open source experience not detrimental (Score:1)
DFSG = (Score:1)
Re:Open source.. (Score:1)
Nope. Try again. Ever think it's because it's a great OS? Plenty of people I know pay for it, and there are other OSes that have a much better "software base."
GNU is the group of programmers that make all the programs for Linux,
Strike two.
one of the requirements for making a program under the GNU license is that the program must be free and the source must be available to everyone.
Strikes 3 and 4. Man, you're not doing too well today.
While you were looking for quotes on the GNU website, did you run across the license, perchance? Since it's clear you didn't read it, please go back and do so. Along with the rest of the site.
Everyone helps everyone else, this is the way life should be..
Right. So please help everyone by not posting a mixture of obvious and incorrect information.
WTF is up with preview eating all my HTML tags today? It's really pissing me off.
How about doing it for education.. (Score:4)
Many people create open source to "scratch an itch" and some do it to show that 'it' (what ever the it is) can be done. Most do it because they enjoy programming and a challenge.
I for one got into it because I like programming. And I was wondering how Photoshop worked or how different Window systems were coded. Well, Adobe and MS/APPLE were not about to let me in on their source, but E and the Gimp were happy to. I think, as a result (of actually reading real-world code), I'm a beter programmer. I have concrete examples of how things are done by comercial quality software products for use in my own projects (the knowledge not nesessarily the code).
What does it cost me? Time and the responisbility to one day give something back to the community that educated me. I can either work on an Open Source Project myself, or buy from companies that support and do open source. I can convince my company that it makes good business sense to use Linux/Apache/Tomcat/Java solutions for e-business rather than MS/ASP - then I would actually get paid to do open source.
All this and I get one hell of a good window manager and graphics editor - better than what I could buy.
why? (Score:1)
Reasons to give *do* matter. Drug money donations? (Score:2)
This is completely untrue.
Would you, as a charity, knowingly accept money made from drug sales? From hired assanations? From child prostitution? The money will be used to do good, so there's no problem, right? Wrong. There has to be a conscience in accepting charity. Why they give and where they got what they're giving **does** matter. Otherwise it can lead to bad results such as:
Ever wondered why drug lords haven't been stopped in Colombia? They're evil and we know who they and where they are right? Why not to bust them? Well, that's the US Media view of it. Locally, in Colombia, the drug czars give copiously to many local charity groups, sponsor youth soccer groups, build or donate land to local churches, contribute to fund 30% of the local hospital's operating costs. Arresting the drug dealer would hurt local folk because the drugs are heavily woven into the local economy. Busting the dealer destroys the town. Ask these people if they want the drug lord busted. They'll say no. And the politicians who represent these townspeople know that they can't risk offending their constituents, so the corruption perkalates right to the top, all because people turn a blind eye to the reasons for where their donations come from.
Re:Preposterous (Score:1)
Re:Open Source Software == fun (Score:2)
The economist in me says that we're all "rationally self-interested people" who make decisions (buying and selling -- products, ourselves, whatever) based on our own self-interests. Whether the benefit we get from Open Source work is monetary, fun, ego-boosting, or other, individuals do derive a benefit from it. The fact that the benefit can not be easily quantified (as in your "fun" example) does not make their theories null and void. Personally, I think it's fun, too, and that adds to any monetary benefit I may have received.
Nothing about the article/paper is groundbreaking, so I wouldn't call it a great academic achievement. But, it does put the spotlight -- in a very positive manner -- on Open Source in a very public arena...the paper is groundbreaking for that very reason.
But you raise an interesting point: can fun be the _sole_ motivating factor? I don't think so, either. You said as long as you can pay the bills, it's not a motivating factor. What you're really saying (at least to me) is that money is a motivating factor _in how you spend your time_, but it's not your sole motivating factor. If you can cover the bills, you will forego additional money as long as you get fun in return...a very wise philosophy.
In economic terms, you have reached a point where the marginal benefit you would receive by working a little more for $ is not greater than the marginal benefit you get from working for fun. And, if you really wanted to try to quantify your fun, you could look at the opportunity cost of your time spent having fun. It wouldn't be perfect, but you'd have some quantifiable measure of "fun"...which does fit into their theories.
So...back to you...you have a balance of $-motivated work and fun-motivated work. Great! It's tough to get that balance. I've got it too, but my fiancee doesn't understand that, when I'm working at work on a computer it's not always fun, but when I'm working at fun on a computer, it is. She sees the computer as the source of stress...so if I'm on the computer, she tells me to get off...it all depends on what I'm doing on it that makes the difference
Re:Is it wrong for army to use OSS software to kil (Score:1)
Re:Why do they assume motives are selfish? (Score:3)
Simply put, there is a "good" kind of selfishness too, and that is the selfishness practiced by healthy, self-actualized people. They are selfish, but make sure their selfishness doesn't step on other people. On the other side of the coin, those with martyrdom complexes -- you've probably met them, they're the "completely selfless people who look out for others before themselves" -- are ironically the most parasitic, burdensome and draining people you'll ever meet. They too are trying to become self-actaulized, but in a destructive way.
Writing open source software is a selfish act; it's just that it's one that benefits more people than just oneself.
I see... (Score:1)
similar).
Both philosphies sponsor doing good for the communities sake and require that no one be selfish. If this were to actually be possible then a government (Marx) or software development (RMS) could exist within anarchy,and all would be good.
Unfortunately, ever since the forbidden fruit, people can not work solely for the community. Almost everyone's first question is "What is in it for me?" But what's wrong with that? It is the basis of capitalism,and we live in a (mostly) capitalist society.
If you need more proof that you can't live by the FSF's policy then remember that the USSR was originaly built around Marx's.
the "free login required" thing (Score:1)
Free software as charity (Score:1)
The reporting in the NYT makes the original paper seem rather simple-minded. People do not act only from obvious aspects of self-interest such as money and prestige. To characterize the free software movement as an ``economic puzzle'' is to badly misunderstand it.
There are many reasons for people to engage in free software, and others here have pointed some of them out. I won't try to cover them here. I'll just point out one that doesn't get mentioned much.
Many people volunteer at soup kitchens. Nobody tries to figure out the economic motive for this. The reasons are more or less obvious, and generally have nothing to do with money or prestige.
If I volunteer at a soup kitchen, I help maybe 100 people in a small but significant way.
If I write and distribute a piece of free software, I help maybe 100,000 people, maybe many more. The way that I help them is even smaller and less significant, but there are a lot more of them.
Also, the people I help are more my peers, and programming is just plain more fun than doling out soup.
Also, my soup kitchen charity helps people once. My free software charity helps people for years.
Is it really a puzzle that I work on free software?
Re:Reasons: Right and Wrong ones? (Score:1)
Healing is not curing. IMHO, Hospice is a form of healing. YMMV.
Who's the 'ruthless, bloodthirsty dictator'?? The Pope?
As for birth control, and MT's stance on it: Would you breed with a leper? I think they have bigger problems.
But then again, MT is not the point of the discussion, and neither is "My God can beat up your God."
It's a commie plot! (Score:1)
Hey, surely you all have noticed RMS's avowed socialism, and that Linus is the son of former Communists? The guy used to live only KILOMETERS from the Russkies, and now he's working on AMERICAN soil on SECRET PROJECTS of which still very little is known! Their dupe, ESR, preaches libertarianism as these two masters of the protocols of Linux chuckle from deep within their subterreanean headquarters.
Okay, seriously, IME economists are really poorly equipped to comprehend something like the open source movement. Their models simply neglect to explain the existence of art. And yet the so-called new economy is essentially based on artistic activity! True, media and software can be packaged as commodities. However, the genesis of compelling stories and elegant software can never be found by analyzing balance sheets.
I noticed the authors wonder why the feeling of being in a motivated team of talented individuals could not be obtained in an ordinary closed-source software company. Please refer to Dilbert cartoons if it helps you understand.
Re:Preposterous (Score:1)
Further, it is the only system based on the socialist ideas of equality and egalitarianism. All people, no matter what financial status, have access. Improvments in so-called "intellectual" property can be shared easily among many people without the interference of those in power who would profit by restraining new ideas.
Actually, Open Source and the GPL are anti-Marxist based on your comments. Marx wanted a dictatorship of those who actually (in his view) did the productive work - that would lead to a dictatorship of coders in the software world. The ideals you're holding are much better than Marx's ideals.
The advantage that OSS and the GPL have over political socialism is that OSS doesn't become compulsory. If I don't like emacs' licensing terms, no one is forcing me to use it. In a socialist state, I can not choose to perform capitalist acts with consenting adults. In a capitalist society, I can choose to engage in a socialist-style project like OSS.
Slanted main story. (Score:1)
Re:Show Me The Metrics! (Score:1)
Anyone who contributes to open source, send me (at pcolton@mail.com...if that fills up, send it to yennipC@yahoo.com) an email with the following file attached:
A
Field 1=gender
Field 2=average hourly wage (in dollars)
Field 3=average time spent contributing to open-source projects each month (in hours)
Field 4=open source projects you have contributed to -- please dont separate multiple projects with commas or else you'll make my life hell
Field 5=email address (if you want to get the results back)
If enough people (at least 100) email me with this info, I should be able to produce a decent set of statistics that we can look at...I'll even send them back to slashdot for discussion, if they want it.
Re:Reasons to give *do* matter. Drug money donatio (Score:3)
Say you're a poor, welfare receiving parent of a child in dire need of an expensive operation. Do you care where the money comes from?
I know that it's pretty extreme to compare that situation to open source, but really... Who really cares if code is written and released for 1)building own knowledge and skills, 2)beefing up a resume, 3) greater common good, 4) penance for past piracy, 5) the desire to attain status in the OSS community (Karma whoring).
1) is a respectable reason, since the redistribution of code is voluntary. A skill-polishing coder, if they do not release their product, are not in violation of the GPL, and so do not HAVE to release the source.
2) is a respectable reason, but you must release product and code as proof of posession of skills you put on a resume. Can't just say "I wrote a portal site, so I have these skills. Pay me." You CAN say, "Go to slashdot.org, *I* did that. Here's the code that makes it go, as proof of my qualifications." If you base on GLP, you must release your work - but what of the reason? The source is free, you're deemed qualified, we're all happy.
3) Insert my metaphysics quip here. Doing something for the 'common good' is BS; things are done for the satisfaction of having done them 'for the common good'. I get a rush for thinking in 'Utilitarian' terms, for example; it's an application of the theory.
4) Guilt and conscience suck. Until we learn to ignore them, we will do good to balance the scales.
5) ESR, RMS, Perens do this all the time. Witness recent Bruce Perens act of 'making an example' of BeOS. What self-righteousness!! "I am GPL, hear me threaten litigation and steal your thunder!" Grandstanding and self-appeasement by respected people is a pretty good source of temptation - it shows that with enough credibility, you can occasionally shoot your mouth off, and people will still pay attention to you.
Would I take blood-money, knowing it as such, for convenience purposes? NO! For dire need situations? Real tough call...
How about taking it in ignorance, building a life with it, and then finding out it's source? Would I sell my house and car? No. What I would do is skew my life to do Good with the benefits of Bad money.
Oh. Why did Rockefeller, Carnegie, Gates, et al give generously to charity? Do we care? Guilt for their good fortune? Maybe. Realization that past a certain amount, it makes no difference, so others might as well benefit? Maybe. Realization that you can't take it with you, so others might as well benefit? Maybe. Guilt for having exploited others to get the wealth? Maybe. Divine Inspiration? Perhaps.
Who really cares, and must we look the proverbial horse in the mouth? Not really - not in the case of OSS, that's for sure. Leach the code, read the code, tweak the code, share the code. Learn from the code to improve yourself and the code. And if the original author wrote it in the hope that it would help him get a better job... What of it?
Re:Somwhat obvious? (Score:1)
Like someone said, this ain't for nerds... (Score:1)
Re:Somwhat obvious? (Score:1)
For some reason Slashdot tossed my HTML tags, and I didn't notice. Let's try that again.
I have a hard time believing that serious commitment to a long-term OSS project has that much to do with altruism. If altruism was the case, people would send in kernel patches via anonymous remailers, and someone would have invented a way to have authenticated anonymous CVS.
Huh? Why does altruism require anonymity?
Haven't you ever seen the long lists of donors to a museum or an opera house? Those people are getting a little prestige, but, considering the price they are paying, altruism is still their main motivation. After all, when they give all that money, listing their name seems like the least the recipient can do.
Re:Somwhat obvious? (Score:1)
RMS monk-like existance isn't proof of his faith, but it is proof of his denial of material reward. Besides, my original post says that I don't deny that there aren't some people who really believe the OSS mantra.
Re:Preposterous (Score:1)
You haven't read much Marx. Communism could be characterized, in a 'pure' (meaning Marxist) form, as a distributed governmental system. The Internet may not be a communist idea, but as an allegorical model it's useful.
Well, you can't call them communists because they're capitalists. And a "horizontal management structure" still preserves the corporate heirarchy. On the other hand, the developmental heirarchy is definitely a more socialist construction - each contributes according to ability. It's just that the converse isn't true - each is not rewarded according to need (unless, maybe, you're looking at workstations).
"All people, no matter what financial status, have access."
You missed the point of this quote. "Access" to information is not equal or equivalent to being "in the know."
"Improvments in so-called "intellectual" property can be shared easily among many people without the interference of those in power who would profit by restraining new ideas."
::
Then why will people care to invent them? (...) People need some form of incentive besides a pat on the back.
(I removed the rest of that paragraph because it was nonsensical.) I think this statement can be rebuffed (or at least informed) by a cursory examination of the rest of the posts. Your assumptions are assumptions, nothing more.
Beyond that, you missed the point again: that there is a free exchange of information, within context, unlimited by market-based interference. It's like being in a research institution without the politics or the money (which balances, AFAIC) - work on what you want, and take it in the best direction according to your judgement (and through forking or input, that of the community). I think, if you try, you might be able to see the parallel to socialism there, too.
As far as me being scared not likely. Without political power/office communists are just a small contingent of people from liberal arts programs in schools on the West coast. There is no way in hell that anyone like that will ever get power in my country (the United States). In fact one of the sures ways to kill a senate bill is to tack a rider onto it that claims that the communist party will be the only political party in the US.
Bigot: a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices. (Merriam-Webster [m-w.com])
First- sentence2: you're wrong. No argument.
Second- sentence3: part one: don't make assumptions; part two: you're probably right. Let me explain why... Effectively, the idea behind communism was to raise the quality of life level for everyone to the same point, above the previous average. (Yes, I'm aware that I'm comparing a concept and an existing condition here - but there hasn't been a single instance of practiced, national communism that actually deserved the name.) Democracy as practiced in the US preserves the average very effectively. Majority rule in an uninformed and reactionary population is a conservative approach that tends towards mediocrity and 'known evils'. Sure - no way in the immediate future will we be able to consider a third political party as anything but a protest vote. Here's to optimism, though.
Last sentence: I don't know if it's true, but I'll take your word for it. Why? This is the country that harbored and nurtured McCarthyism. Is this a point of pride with you? Do I need to say anything more?
Furthermore, concerning the rest of your post, there was no threat of "real harm" in the original post. None at all, not even implicit. You interpreted it that way because you are an uninformed, reactionary bigot - and this is not a reactionary statement, as you've demonstrated quite enough of your knowledge and willingness to learn. As for your statement that there is no chance for communism to actually work, I again state that you have no idea what you are talking about. If you want to pretend you may, and you can do it in a public forum, but please remember that you expose your mind as soon as you start typing. Try to do this wisely. Others would appreciate it.
Every act of cooperation and assistance is not a communist idea. True enough. Every time someone says, "hey, this sort of resembles communism, which I like," it's not necessarily the raving of a lunatic. But... every communist idea should be an act of cooperation and assistance.
Thanks for your time.
More than Individual Motivation (Score:1)
Business users want a reliable application for a business use. If it is custom software, they would rather not bear the full burden of development. Their choices used to be out source the development, and pay per hour; develop using in-house talent, and pay full development costs; or buy a shrink wrapped product (more recent). Shrink wrap has only begun to show some dramatic problems, not the least of which is our flawed patent law. Businesses find themselves at the mercy of large software houses.
Which brings us to a driving force that is not often enough discussed. The "network effect" and lowered transaction costs. Very large businesses can opt for one of the first two options, but more and more small and mid-sized businesses have found themselves locked into shrink-wrap prepackaged software. Businesses want a standard, and they don't want to be tied to a monopolist.
Transaction costs are an economic concept. Those costs involved in negotiating for a particular economic transfer. The large company overcomes transaction costs in software development by internalizing the entire cost of a project, but then if they wish to keep the product in-house, they must amortize that entire cost. The small company wants a product which solves its problems, but only wishes to pay for so much of the product as it will use. The problem of smaller users has always been in getting those smaller businesses to work together in development of a product which has common value to the contributing businesses.
This brings us to the primary transaction cost in Open Source development, the "free rider" problem. Small businesses, historically (e.g. before the Internet), would not become involved because the difficulties in getting all those small businesses and individuals together to build a product were overwhelming. (I've worked with folks on joint development agreements with as few as a dozen users -- it can be impossible) Both the complication of negotiations, as well as heavy free rider problems impede the effort. Too many businesses would then get the same value whether they contributed or not, or in the alternative, subject the entire relationship to high costs of contractual enforcement.
So if this is true, how come Open Source works? Because of the Internet. The Internet lowers transaction costs so far that the free rider problem is insignificant. Linux, and *BSD, etc... have millions of free riders, and the more the better! But we have enough interested parties (hardware developers, small businesses, driven hackers, and even application developers previously frozen out by ill-applied network effect, etc) to help drive development.
Why do we want free riders? Because the network effect itself has a value. The more riders, the larger the network effect. In fact, that network effect was an economic bonus that MS picked up for free in selling shrink wrapped OS. And it was their abuse of that network effect that openned the opportunity to Open Source when the competeing transaction costs were lowered. Network Effect is the economic value which counters the transaction costs. All those businesses contribute to the economic value of Open Source by contributing their network effect.
Prove it? ISPs, small ones not giants, who push every possible angle to make their businesses valuable. ISPs that found themselves faced with high priced Unix stripes that were proprietary and tied to overpriced hardware on the one hand, or NT and the BSOD on the other that permitted commodity hardware but surrendered their network effect value to a software monopoly. ISPs were some of the first to adopt, and have been heavy developers of Open Source. Why? Because they can't afford to fully develop packages themselves, but they desperately needed those applications without the terrible consequences of the alternatives. Cooperate with other ISPs? Even in the face of some of the hottest competition, it was and is in their interest to overcome free rider transaction costs to recoup the network effect. Do you really want to pay >$700 for a base NT license (or worse for the old proprietary UNIX versions), just so you can pay at every turn for every other piece of your network application? Or do you welcome Open Source, and have your few in-house developers open source your improvements so that you aren't the only one maintaining them.
This wild shift in transaction costs, and the economic balance in software development offers small and medium sized businesses a fourth alternative. One that provides them source, so they can always pay for their own development (something big companies have had the economic clout do demand from the beginning), that eliminates the precipitous end to a shrink-wrapped product life cycle, that provides continuing evolution and exponential enhancement of any in house innovation. Why give that away to competitors? Because it vastly overcomes the economic benefit of foolishly keeping it in house.
Well what does this do to our software markets? Won't software companies go out of business? Maybe they should. Maybe this is a paradigm shift greater than people have previously understood. (sorry, I had to use the "p" word.) Maybe the developers should be in-house, closer to the user. Maybe development that is user based, instead of monopolist based, will better serve the consumer. Maybe the network effect is something which should be the goal, and not a lever to preserve monopoly profits and hinder innovation. Maybe central planning of applications and OSs is something that should be done through overt negotiation between interested parties instead of centralized within the walls of one corporate entity.
And yes, once this evolution becomes more clear, developers in the community become extremely valuable to:
a) Hardware developers (VA Research, Penguin)
b) Customer Support Vendors (Linuxcare, Redhat, IBM)
c) Application Developers (Corel, IBM, Oracle)
d) Network Providers (ISPs, ASPs)
e) Any medium sized business with custom requirements)
f) Computer Manuf. (IBM, Compaq, Dell)
This is something I have been thinking about for a while, so I am looking forward to refining my thoughts on this issue. Who knows, maybe the FSF isn't communist, maybe they're just protecting the economic interests of consumers? ;) Sorry this got so long.
Re:Resume (Score:1)
Tangible Benifits to Open Source Development (Score:3)
The biggest benifit we have had with all the Linux IPO's was people asking questions. Most people don't understand Open Source at all, especially those in the traditional IT world.
I have had the most success with finding and explaining tangible business advantages to companies with using and contributing to Open Source projects.
One benifit is that of remote development expertise and tools. In today's labor market it can be very difficult to lure good talent to a location for 3,6 or 12 months, and remote development is not always a great option when using traditional software for development also the quality of these people can be questionable, no matter how good the resume looks. Mozilla's biggest achievement so far is a litany of tools that assist in managing distributed software development. When I can point to Mozilla, Linux, Apache, Perl, GNOME and KDE and talk about how these projects were developed and are maintained through the Internet by distributed developers, business types get big eyes. The pool of developer's is now larger to pull from for development talent, because distributed development is a reality.
Another problem facing companies, is the method with which they go about finding talent. Most use headhunters, you know the schmucks who can do nothing more than match keywords they know nothing about and pick up a phone (It's amazing how many of these people who can't use email). Headhunters manage to deliver dubious quality and tend to be expensive. There are many small businesses such as mine that can perform the work but who lack the inside contacts to get the job. Having internal IT departments use Open Source and participate in the community introduces them to a whole bunch of labor that may or may not be looking for work, or who may know someone who is. Typically one can lean on these relationships to find labor, and have a better idea of the quality they are getting.
One reason that I push for companies to sponsor Open Source projects has a lot of the same reasons as listed above. One project that I am pushing with a client, is remote automated remote administration and maintenance for a large number of database/webservers that will be located at customer sites internationally. They have looked at Tivoli from IBM but it looks like it will not meet their needs. Most likely they will have to develop the project in house. I have proposed that they develop the project as an Open Source project after the initial development is done. Why? Well the initial development will be done by a couple of internal developers that may leave, or move on to other work. If they sponsor the project as Open Source, if this comes around, finding a replacement developer may be as simple as posting to the mailing list for the project. Secondly, what if they need people to do administration and implementation work? Rather than hiring people with general skills and training them, they can simply find people who may already be offering these services as part of their own business. It will generally be much cheaper to contract them out than handle it all in house. Secondly it acts as PR and marketing for the company in question, like the Cluetrain says marketplaces are conversations and conversations create markets.
Another client is a small ISP who needs a lot of management and automation software for their lowest common denominator employee's to manage some of the day to day stuff. The owner is a software developer, and his first thought was to sell this software as a network management system something similar to NetMax and Cobalt et al. My suggestion was that this was not his core business and he would then have to compete with those guys, so why not make it an Open Source project, using the exposure to promote his core business and the find more talent for his core business. This would be preferable than entering a new market to compete with NetMax and Cobalt and everyone else who wants to play this game. After all he is probably the least capitalized out of all the players in question.
I have moral and philisophical reason's to prefer Free (as in speech) Software, but owning a business means that I have to make a business case if I want to stick to my convictions. I think this can be done, and there are many more business idea's that can be extrapolated from the Open Source movement. I don't think that most of them involve "ego-boo" and the less tangible economic benifits that ESR and company have espoused. I think that ESR was the first to try and formalize why this works and really explain it, but I also believe that we are far from understanding all the models that will make Open Source profitable.
So keep banging away guys, we all know deep down inside that Open Source makes sense, we just have to figure out how to explain it to everyone else.
After all, appearently even the economists don't quite get it.
Re:depends on what your intentions are (Score:3)
Becuase I can DIRECTLY make a living at writing closed source software. I can't write opensource here and make money. I suppose I could do it in my "spare" time, but I prefer to spend it with my wife and son. If I have time left over, I will study to learn some new skill which will make me more money when I take my next job. Or certification.
I guess I'm just a selfish bastard, huh? I spent five years being an "idealistic" reporter making jackshit. I give to charities like NPR and the like when I feel like being idealistic, not write code, sorry.
---
why? (Score:1)
Plus, when I see: "Among their somewhat-obvious insights is the somewhat-obvious comment..." and then the all-too-familiar moderator's comment: "it is interesting to see outside sources commenting on the growth of the free software/open source movement." While I think it's great that outside sources are taking notice, I would be much happier to see a more in depth piece from some of these bastions of information rather than what has become the standard form letter used by Window-jockey reporters who read a few websites about linux (more than likely linux.com, being that it's the obvious place). Until such time, what's the point with wasting space on
As far as the Open Source movement is concerned, I am a big believer in being able to effectively argue against one's own position. That being the case, DevShed had a great little article last February called Open Source - On Why Not. Stephen Den Beste makes some truely interesting, if somewhat elementary points about some valid shortcomings in the movement. What's interesting about the article is that he refrains from arguing which is better code (open or closed source), but rather which makes more business sense from an investor's standpoint. Like the man said, "no bucks, no Buck Rogers."
I know, I know, RedHat and others are riding high right now, but eventually, people are going to stop throwing money at them and want to see the company turn a profit. Lots of things change, but one obvious constant in business is a company needs to be profitable if it hopes to stick around. Companies like VALinux will probably keep gaining in value simply because they have a tangible product that people must buy if they want to get it... get it legally, that is.
Anyway, my point in writing this was not to flame anyone on Slashdot, this a great site. I just don't see why we need to have the bi-monthly "it's good to see the big media guys taking notice of what we're doing here" story. Sort of pointless stories in the first place if you ask me. So moderate me down... you know you want to
so that's my $.02. I be broke now.
Re:why? (Score:1)
Ah, but the paper is for specialists... (Score:2)
Another Good Reason... (Score:1)
...is that the software would be useless if it were not open. This is especially true for anything that seeks to set a standard, or that needs to be installed on a wide variety of operating systems that are likely to be configured in many different ways.
Socialist Lies (Score:1)
I would be happy to be a socialist as long as I knew 100% that the socialiast government in question was completely infallible. For this same reason I stopped pledging allegiance to the American flag when I was in high school. Why would I pledge allegiance to a government that is not infallible? Why would I pledge allegiance to a government which might use its CIA to conduct brainwashing experiments on its own citizens? (Yes, the CIA did this!)
I am a strong believer in individualism, free enterprise, competition (bust up M$), and freedom. Socialism stands in the way of every one of those goals, and I have no problem thinking that I would literally go to war to put bullets in the heads of those people who dare try and take those freedoms from me. If this sounds harsh to you, then try to remember how many people died in China's "Great Leap Forward."
And as far as our movement being founded by communists: so what? It is far from a "communist movement." If it were, then the state would mandate that all software companies had to produce software for free. But that's not what it is -- It's much more of a meritocracy. Those who have the best brains turning out the best code have ascended to the thrones of the Open Source movement. I'm sure it irks you to think that some people have actually succeeded without the help of the government.
Re:Resume (Score:1)
My resume [std.com] lists substantial open-source software and documentation.
All 4 interviewers had my resume in front of them.
Not one remarked on the open source stuff.
Re:Reasons to give *do* matter. Drug money donatio (Score:1)
Sure why not? I'd take money from that, Bush or RG Renolnds. They are no different.
Ever wondered why drug lords haven't been stopped in Colombia?
Never wondered, I KNOW why. Prohibition is the reason. It's odd that now the liquor dealer the town over no longer attacks the dealer here in town. In the 1920-30's it was common, Capone, etc.
You don't like drug lords? Then don't let them make a profit. You can't legislate them away (while at the same time you make it profitable to sell drugs).
How soon people forget the lessons of history.
Because selling licenses is fundamentally flawed (Score:2)
Now, why do people WRITE free software? Put aside for the moment the issue of community auditing of code -- after all, not all free software has to be open. Free software has utility to the end-user, and is the path of least resistance, as above. People who write free software do so partially for the joy of coding, but mostly for the utility of the end product. That utility, to the coder, is threefold.
I can hear you saying "huh?" from the last one. But if you accept my statement that "selling licenses is fundamentally flawed", you had better hope there are ways to make money off of free software or software writing may cease altogether. After all, #1 and #2 can be powerful reasons, but they don't pay rent. How, then do you make money? I suspect we'll start moving to service-based companies. Witness the rise of ASPs, the massively multiplayer online games (few of which are free), and the (admittedly dubious, but widely publicized) success of some of these Internet startups selling everything from bill pay to food delivery. Software will be written to give service providers a service to sell, not for its own sake.In conclusion, there are very few new ideas in software programming these days. There are some, and I wish there were more, but the vast majority of software products compete on features and implementation, not originality. Features and implementation are what service industries are all about. It seems to me a natural move for software companies to stop trying to sell their software for what it IS, when most commercial software consists of a reorganization of other peoples' ideas, and start selling it for what it can DO.
Re:How about doing it for education.. (Score:1)
Actually, they do mention it, but they call it skills improvement, which they think we do so we can get jobs. I guess they never heard of the challenge of an idea, or the satisfaction at feeling competent with some code you've never done or rarely done before.
One of the main reasons people job-hop in IT is they don't get training in new or improved skills - some of us do it ourselves, though.
Re:Reasons to give *do* matter. Drug money donatio (Score:1)
The trade-offs can be simple - stealing bread to feed a hungry child, having exhausted all 'Right' options can hardly be Wrong in the relative sense. Surely the child's welfare is more important than the posession of bread (provided you do not cause greater harm via good intention)... blah blah.. Aristotalian Ethics rears it's ugly head...
Conversely, the statement that one 'can not hold up great ideals by compromising lesser ones' has merit. Here lies absolutism, and stealing a stamp is a Federal offense.
Life is complex, and that's why, after thousands of years of battle with morals, ethics and philosophy, there are no easy answers.
You're right though, "Utility" works well, provided we consider the extent to which our actions have effects, and choose wisely. But then there's always that contrary bugger who comes along and says "What gives YOU the right to make such decisions?"
Re:Why do they assume motives are selfish? (Score:1)
If you want to make the world a better place, go out and build houses for the poor with Habitat for Humanity, or join the Peace Corps, or work in a soup kitchen.
If you want to write OSS, do so, but don't expect people to pat you on the back for improving the lot of millions of people.
Re:Open Source isn't necessary. (Score:2)
Perhaps, but I doubt anyone would clean public restrooms for any other reason...
Another example of why. (Score:1)
http://www.linuxprogramming.com/news/news_story
Its an example of how and why open source projects get started. The example is on a small scale, but I think its more applicable to the majority of us than are larger projects.
Re:Why do they assume motives are selfish? (Score:2)
Re:Resume (Score:2)
In this day and age, I find that my classmates at school, while some are very smart, can not find a good internship. This is because a company can not be sure what they are getting for an intern based on grades alone - getting good grades doesn't necessarily mean they'll do well in your company.
On the other hand, I have found that it has never been difficult for me to get a job, or at the very least considered for one up until the final round of cuts. I truly believe that the coding I have done (for Litestep [litestep.net]) has helped me get better jobs than ones I would have had otherwise.
Re:I asked a silly question (Re: Why against?) (Score:2)
No, you didn't make an incorrect assumption. Stallman wishes all software was open source.
*Points to evidence -->
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-free. html [gnu.org]
and
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/should befree.html [gnu.org]
While it is a lofty goal to have all software with the freedom of source and copyleft, Stallman seems to think the right of the developer should be "restricted" for the greater good. As a liberterain, I don't think that's right to "deny" someone the freedom on the basis of the rest of society.
Cheers
Re:Economics and the obvious (Score:3)
Now there's an open-source project that's needed: an open-source replacement for Adobe Craprobat. Acrobat does only two things, display documents and send them to a printer, and it does both badly. There's an opportunity here. (No, DocBook isn't the answer.)
It's worth noting that most open-source projects are in areas where there are already commercial products, but the commercial products have problems that aren't being fixed. We don't generally see open-source projects breaking new ground. Linux, after all, is Unix Reimplementation #4.
Re:Why do they assume motives are selfish? (Score:2)
Either this statement is true but meaningless -- it's true for all interactions and thus distinguishes none -- or it's deep but untrue. Some people some of the time do some actions for reasons that I think cannot be accurately labeled "selfish".
So here's "gilroy's hierarchy of motivation":
* Most people can be motivated only by considering themselves as the most important (or only!) factor in the Universe. They choose their actions without regard for what it does to others, and if they help others, it is only to hedge their bets against future need.
* A minority of people are motivated by their sense of the universal. Leaving behind the grounding in their baser selfish instincts, they see the Other as more important than themselves. They subjugate their own needs to the needs of the Other. If they look after themselves (for example, drawing a salary while working at a non-profit), it is only to provide the necessities required for continuing their work. These are the martyrs.
* A very, very few manage to slip past that fallacy, too. They value the individual, and since they too are individuals, they value themselves. They balance the needs of the Other against the needs of the Self and figure a best-fit path walking between them. They recognize that there are times that they, as human beings as well, are entitled to respect and protection.
That last is a tough, slippery line to walk. But no one said this would be easy.
Re:Open Source Software == fun (Score:2)
Fun is an all-too-often overlooked reason for people to do things (OSS being an example, but only one). All the drones and most of the sheep would be shocked if you were to say, "I enjoy my work. I like what I'm doing". In the modern world, you can be pleasured but you cannot have fun -- fun is random, and individual, and cannot be reduced to a bar graph and a bottom line. Fun cannot be marketed, and so corporations must spend literally billions convincing people that so-called entertainment is fun.
And as geeks, we must not imagine we are alone in this stance. Our allies are few, too few, but they are powerful. They are musicians and artists, writers and poets, teachers and preachers -- those motivated by a love of what they do and a passion for life and for human enrichment and a corresponding disdain for consumerism and corporatism. Together we all hover on the margin, in the society but not of it, witness to its excess and its own loud silence, its final utter futility. We observe the corporate world and its tainted society and we wonder what happens when it finally collapses in on itself.
But by living on the margins, we also happen to ring the beast. And if -- no, when -- we all wake up from our enforced slumber -- when all those on the edge, living life for the sake of living -- finally link hands, the days of corporatism will be numbered. We will have surrounded and removed our enemy -- by cooption, by the example of a better way. To end a long rant, let me reiterate: It is all about the fun. That is the key that keeps this movement, like others, going forward.
Re:People work on Open Source because they are laz (Score:2)
There's nothing wrong with being lazy, as long as you are productively lazy. I teach physics -- at least, that's what my contract says I do -- and I spend all year trying to hammer home that point. In physics, properly understood, the goal is to take new phenomena and (as much as possible) understand them in terms of or at least by analogy to known phenomena. Sure, sometimes something totally new comes along ... but even quantum mechanics draws heavily on good old wave motion.
Look to science as an example. Are people being "lazy" learning Newton's Laws or Feynman's QED theory? Shouldn't they just re-invent all that from the ground up? Of course not. That would be worse than silly. You see farther standing on the shoulders of giants.
I cannot comprehend this deep-set cultural obsession with work for its own sake... for doing something, anything, just for the sake of doing something. It's part-and-parcel with the mentality that work can't and shouldn't be fun or impassioned or interesting. The separation between "work" and "play" is one of the most unfortunate schisms in human history.
Re:Money is necessary and motivates here's why (Score:2)
I do it because (a) it's important; (b) I'm good at it; and (c) I enjoy it.
Money facilitates my life. Would I like a new machine? Sure. Do I like to spend money on books or trips? Sure. So do I expect a living wage, a chance not to sweat every night over my bills? Of course. (Do I receive it? Well... :) )
Further sayeth the poster:
If your pyschological well-being rests on getting money, I feel little but pity for you. Your life must be so empty and fearful that I cannot imagine it. If, on the other hand, your life is not, then I'm sure looking hard enough we'd find things more important to you than money.Either way, it isn't logic. It's just the peculiarities of your own personal history. The peculiarities of my history lead me to the job I do.
And finally the poster offers:
to which I reply:No, spending your entire life slaving only to realize at the end of your days that you have nothing but little green pieces of paper -- no fond memories, no loved ones nearby, no lasting contribution to humanity -- that must be a severe blow.
Re:Preposterous (Score:2)
Re:depends on what your intentions are (Score:2)
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Re:Open Source Software == fun (Score:2)
Seriously, I think the poster missed something I said, perhaps because of the inserted parenthetical. So I repeat myself, at the risk of being rude:
NB: I don't say geeks don't value money. They like money, to have a decent place to live, or to afford cool vacations, or (more likely than not) to buy more neato hardware. But money is not an end in itself, and neither is material accumulation. As such, geeks can get off the treadmill -- they have a point where they can say, "I have enough." Sheep almost never do this. Droids cannot do this -- to them, the rat race is all there is.Admittedly, as the poster points out, my philosophy sounds pretty pie-in-the-sky. It certainly doesn't sound like it should be viable ... but I believe it is. Notice that I say I believe it is, not that I can prove it.
I can only speak for myself, of course, but my material needs are close to being met, and I'm not even in a hugely high-paying job. In fact, I am a teacher at a private school, which (as those in education will tell you) is a recipe for unmet material needs. :)
And finally, I'm glad I made someone laugh. I, for one, don't really thnk what I'm saying is laughable, but hey, your mileage may vary. If my original post has brought a little more laughter into the world, it has already repaid me manifold.