Thursday, November 7, 2013
Smallish Post, due November 12
The idea of open source software can be baffling. Why would people choose to spend countless hours of their time to create a product that will produce no revenue? Thousands of people choose to work for free in their spare time with no direct benefit to themselves. I think open source software is absolutely great. I also doubt I will ever make major contributions to open source. After spending all day programming for work, I usually don't want to come home and do the same thing in my spare time. I applaud anyone who chooses to do so and at the same time question their sanity and possibly their social life. The open source phenomenon perplexes and amazes me. I can't wait to see what the next coolest open source technology is.
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People do open source for the same reason they do community service; there's no real mystery about the motive. Doctors and lawyers have been doing pro bono work for centuries. What is so surprising is that large groups of people are producing professional-quality work through self-organization, and that is bringing into question the traditional corporate culture as the best business model for software development.
ReplyDeleteIt is super insane, but without a doubt it's totally about doing service to the community.
ReplyDeleteI think it takes a special kind of person to write OSS, but I'm very happy that they exist.
ReplyDeleteIt is crazy but I glad that someone is willing to contribute the open source projects
ReplyDeleteWorking on open source has a very direct benefit to those who do it. They are working on solving a problem that they have. They want to have better tools for them to use so they work on those projects.
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