[gfykvfyxgc]

I don’t understand the mindset of open source developers who dedicate significant time energy and life to free software, unless there’s a tangible, quantifiable advantage to doing so.

That advantage may well be indirect such as reputational or learning. I just don’t grasp why people do it for nothing, to the advantage of large companies.

[andrew_]

Because it's fun ya mook. That's it. That's the reason.

It's fun to tinker. It's fun to put things out there into the ether. It's fun to exercise the brain and try new things and learn new ways to do things and publish things. The second it stops being fun, we stop.

[sseagull]

I’ve realized the idea that the “Hacker” part of “Hacker News” is no longer here, and just a nod to some ancient, possibly apocryphal, past.

Discussions now are about how you shouldn’t run your own server, and you should use popular stuff so you can speed up development and get your startup going.

I mean, I know about ycombinator and all. But it doesn’t seem to truly encompass the hacker spirit, if you ask me.

[Sebb767]

Actually, in my experience, people that either run their own servers and/or encourage to do so are vastly overrepresented. Interesting self-hosted projects regularly make it to the front page, too. There are, of course, a lot of people and opinions on here, but the overall hacker spirit seems to be alive and well.

[arvinsim]

People always take the convenient route until it bites them in the ass.

Necessity is the mother of invention after all.

[boxed]

It's quite simple: there IS a "tangible, quantifiable advantage to doing so". The problem is that you imply "...to the person writing the code". That's where your confusion lies.

I am getting huge value from the people who built stuff before me. When I build stuff I can (hopefully) make the world better in the future. That's a "tangible, quantifiable advantage" to doing open source. It's just not an advantage to me personally. But lift your gaze an inch off the ground and you'll see we don't need to be ego centric sociopaths. We can build together. For the species. Everyone wins.

[arvinsim]

> But lift your gaze an inch off the ground and you'll see we don't need to be ego centric sociopaths. We can build together. For the species. Everyone wins.

I don't know in what fairy tale you live in but the ego-centric billionaire sociopaths that exploit this system wins.

[grammarnazzzi]

> I don’t understand the mindset of open source developers who dedicate significant time energy and life to free software, unless there’s a tangible, quantifiable advantage to doing so.

They get: meaning, status, influence, connections, reputation, and opportunities

The free and open nature of their contribution makes it much easier to get all these benefits than they would with a paid and proprietary solution.

[arvinsim]

We probably are going into an age where giving away software for free will die.

And you know what? I support this kind of thinking.

I mean, if people can monetize videos on Youtube, shouldn't developers monetize their software too?

[ThunderSizzle]

I was just recently starting a blog series and attempting to pair it with a YouTube channel for a new project. If you want to monetize a project, I'd assume that would be a way to do it.