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by vbezhenar
834 days ago
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> If programmers could somehow satisfy these desires without giving away their work for free, I believe most of the open-source developers would not be open-source developers. It is a means to an end. I don't follow this reasoning. It's not like it's illegal to sell software or whatever. You can create and sell software, libraries, services and whatnot. There must be something else about open source, not fully captured by this article. This phenomena is surprising for me as well, as it's not observed with other fields. I gave some thought about it, but I still have no idea why is it so wide-spread with programming, but not with other areas. It must be something about zero-cost copy of the software, but I struggle to draw a connection. |
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> The types of desires that motivate open-source developers are the same as those of creative people in other fields
Yes, that does seem to be true! However, he draws the conclusion exactly backwards: for most creative people, it is the desire to create which is paramount, but the tedious necessity of making a living leads to a lot of aesthetic compromise and time wasted on business overhead, which would all be joyfully jettisoned if there were some other way of meeting one's material needs.
If artists could satisfy that desire to create without having to worry about making money, most artists would probably not bother to charge for their work at all, because charging money introduces a whole layer of accounting and taxes and promotion and (oh my god, just kill me now) process which purely distracts from the goal of making art.
For me, the fascination and satisfaction of creating software came long before any prospect of making a living at it. For most of my career, I also wrote code in my free time, to give away, for the sheer joy of it. It is inherently satisfying to make something beautiful which liberates people from repetitive drudgery.
Running a business is tedious and time-consuming. The amount of money I could make selling the kinds of things I like to work on would be trivial, and the kind of work I would have to do in order to make enough money to justify the side-project would be... well, I already have a job! Why would I want a second, worse job on top? It's not worth the hassle. I'd rather spend my free time contributing to the global commons and feeling good about it.