Why people build things for free

Akaina wrote:

Here's why people code for free. Because Microsoft funds FUD.

A classic example of the SICKNESS (see previous post)at work.  You have it too, I see.  It has caused you to paint yourself in a corner. 

Do you believe that article is worth reading? Does it actually merit a link resource? Surely you don't believe that Microsoft is "puppeteering" the IT community as you all but suggest.

Do you fail to see how this illusion I have pointed out damages the profit centers of the smaller software companies?

Akaina wrote:

This is why no one trust Microsoft's products. As nice as you developers are, you're being given a bad name.

Sorry to burst your bubble, plenty of people trust Microsoft. I bet you even trust Microsoft to some degree, or you wouldn't be here now at Channel-9.

My conflict isn't with the technology BTW.  It's with the propaganda surrounding it.  But just to show that there are issues there too:

Taken from:
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http://weblogs.asp.net/aaguiar/archive/2004/05/07/127895.aspx  |  Comments

An interesting study from the Vanderbilt University,  Three Unexpected Results in Open-Software Engineering, reaches to three conclusions:

1. Linus's Law is not applicable to open-source software development

2. Linux in unmaintainable

3. The LST result is false   (I did not know what the 'LST' was, but it's explained in the powerpoints).

Remember... don't blame the messenger!

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The point of my post is that VITO is ultimately mis-lead very un-fairly by the "unknown" and I think that this is a bigger violation of trust than anything brought to date.

Truth in advertising? 
What's Red Hat Ent Server ~$1900.00 ??? 

A public company, brought to life by the idea of FREE yet you may not get the full benefit of the product without subscription to RNH.

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All I am saying is I think that free has no place in the marketplace.
 
Even you would be put-off if I sold you on the idea that something was free, and it ended up costing you, let alone, if it ever really measured up in the first place and you had to go back to the drawing board, losing valuable time, that apparently not even *nix can recover....

JB

dude, and I use the term thoughtfully... I don't even know where to begin...

Should I start with your logic and obvious capitalistic die-hard bias, or with case after case of OSS software beating closed-source competitors?

Or perhaps you could lend me more rope by expounding on exactly how I've been painted into a corner - and if applicable, any tools I've used to do it.




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Prodev wrote:

Do you believe that article is worth reading? Does it actually merit a link resource?

It's not worth reading. But it's worth asking why Microsoft funds someone that write that kind of crap.

Prodev wrote:

Sorry to burst your bubble, plenty of people trust Microsoft.

Trust comes in many shades of gray. Anyone that blindly trusts a profit-seeking enterprise either owns it, or is a fool.
 

Prodev wrote:

I bet you even trust Microsoft to some degree, or you wouldn't be here now at Channel-9.

If Microsoft C9 is analogous to Lenns fear of flying, I'd say the purpose of C9 is to diminish the fear of Microsoft.

/Lars.

Lars which your you comment is very interesting and realistic, the correct way and but far {;-])

Just becuase you don't charge money for your software doesn't make it free in the Programmers world. Free is freedom, as in free from the DMCA (http://anti-dmca.org/)

If I buy it, then I should be able to use it, change it, and by all means Fix It!

One thing that hasn't yet been mentioned here are support costs associated with commercial software.

When I write things on my own time, I often do it for fun or because it fills some need of mine.  I'll often then just post the code so that others may benefit from it.  If I was to charge for the software, it would create an expectation of support being available -- and I really don't want to spend lots of time answering questions. 

So my reasoning is simply to put it out there and wash my hands of it.  I may update it as it suits me, but only when I have time/desire.  If others wish to contribute, then so much the better, but I can't spend too much time helping them.

Not everyone is driven by economic forces.  My future career plans are not fixed in stone, but if I am not stuck in front of a computer all day at work, I will be doing my best to design and produce high quality free software.

Yes there are support issues, and my preferred way of dealing with this would be to also make the source open and available to all.

It is unceasingly fascinating that the 'ethics' of capitalism seem to force its victims to lose all awareness of other modes of behaviour.

And here's where it all ends up pointing...

Open source ideas are subject to Darwinism. The quality of the software's support is eclipsed by superior ideas working better out of the box and beating out old ones.

I think it's a safe assertion to say that if people wrote better quality software to begin with, there would be far fewer tech support calls: "why can't I get into my e-mail?", "How come Excel chopped off all the rows beyond 65535?", "Why do I have this blue screen after I installed a new screensaver?", "What is a VXD file, and why is telling me it's missing one?"

I predict that eventually tech support will be limited to hardware failures.

Right now only the Software COMPANIES are subject to Darwinism - via capitalism. Open source steps aside from that whole argument very elegantly.

We don't have time for Company-sized lifecycles to learn what works and what doesn't. We want to see the future NOW.

In terms of trust, I feel I have developed a somewhat healthy distrust of all media when talking about things like closed source/open source, Linux/Windows etc.

There are extremely few, if any at all, media organisations which are not biased one way or the other, be it Gartner, this Institute, The Register, Slashdot or Groklaw ("Linus, unbeknownst to us, is not the man of integrity we know him to have proven himself to be"...FFS, Get.  A.  Room!).

My own opinion is somewhere between both worlds, and I have yet to see a media article which swings it one way or the other.  For information, I work in an environment where we use a lot of Microsoft technologies (from XP Pro to AD to Visual Studio).  However, the team I work in developed a really exciting deployment system based on Linux (yes, we are installing XP using Linux...sick, eh?!).

I think above everything else, this whole debate gets bogged down in the quagmire of capitalism/anti-capitalism.  Its an issue which hasn't been answered and is to some extents unanswerable.  I think it is a cop out to suggest that any financial ramifications of a software industry dominated by Free and Open Source Software will be swallowed up by companies changing to a service-based model, and appears to be a genuine concern for ISVs.  My opinion is that there needs to be a line drawn between free as in speech and as in beer.

Very good post Holl, and I agree with you 100% on the reasons you have set forth.

A lot of these posts seem to be missing the mark for me. There is a ton of software out there that was developed for free. This typically was not a result of business decisions, or strategic planning, or a way to promulgate a philosophy. It's almost always much more personal than that.

Here are the advantages I see to writing free software:

(1) Enjoyment. I spent a lot of time and effort getting a CS degree, and spend a lot of effort in my career. Why? Because I like it! Would it surprise you that pro golfers occasionally golf without being paid for it? Or that artists create works for their own pleasure? Why is it odd that programmers write programs for their own enjoyment?

(2) Freedom. Remove the need to make a buck, and you don't have to worry about customers (note that worrying is different from caring about). Without money in the equation, you are completely free to make mistakes, discard legacy choices, try new approaches, burn and rebuild, backburner as long as you wish, abandon, and so on. This is equivalent to why businesses usually resist the transition from being privately held to publicly held. A company beholden to shareholders is a different company than one privately held.

(3) Money. I learned a while back that "free" efforts lead to money. True, the money comes indirectly from secondary effects, but it often does come. Mozilla was free, google was free, yahoo was free. Additionally, the free phase of a product is often needed before you have enough information to construct a decent business plan for related for-fee projects and products.

(4) Influence. Which leads to money, and to cool opportunities. Actually, opportunity is a lot better than money, because money is just one of opportunity's many benefits. Influence is also closely related to pride (as in, pride in work).

(5) Respect and gratitude. Do not dismiss this as a small factor. I am disappointed that one of my ideas was patented on Microsoft's behalf. I understand the decision to patent it, but I am disappointed that I cannot return a fraction of what I have freely received from the graphics community as a whole. Folks often want to give back for this reason.

Communication. Programs are often a (laborious, but profound) communication with a community. The essential ideas, approaches, algorithms, and patterns flow from program to program, from point to counter-point as the community at large works together on large-scale problems. Each program can be seen as a statement in a large-scale conversation.

(7) Necessity. Most programs are written because the developer wants to get on with some other task at hand, and nothing out there is filling their immediate need. I write small programs all the time that I just need to get things done, or to do them faster, or to never have to do them again at all. Thus, Perl, gcc, and sendmail.

(8) Education. There's nothing like writing a program to learn a topic, or to acquire expertise or familiarity. When you're done, why not share it? This ranks right up there with necessity as one of the biggest reasons people write free software.

(9) No good commerce model. I've written a very cool heuristic replacement for the CD command that learns about your enviornment as you hop around the world, and does a bunch of things like UNC auto-mapping, localized scouting, and so forth. How much would you pay for it? Probably nothing. Shareware doesn't work well, since it's typically far too heavyweight for something whose true value is something like a buck. Or a quarter. Any do you really want to pay for each of the five hundred or so programs you use directly and indirectly day-to-day?

I've probably missed some other reasons, but frankly, it feels good, so people do it.

I'm still sticking with my "company life-cycle" comment.

All the reasons Holl mentioned were instances where an individual has the power to work on their own timeline - not wait 50 years for a company to be born, develop a customer base, and invest in a development project.

Company sized life cycles are too long for us mortals.

Company life-cycle would fall under item seven, "necessity". If only a few tens of thousands of people are interested in something, then companies may never get around to meeting that need. For example, will a company ever decide that a good binary diff tool is worthwhile? In this case, the life-cycle is effectively infinite, because it will likely never be profitable. Microsoft might (or might not) choose to do this, but if it did I'll bet you that it throws it into the general "cool things you get with Windows" bag, and you'll never see it on a line item.

Whatever the reason, there are vast amounts of software that you'll need to write yourself if you want it. Profitability (and commercial interest) may come later, but if you need it this month, you get hacking.

Well put

La fuente de conocimiento se encuentra en la naturaleza del objeto, toda interpretación sobre el espejo de una realidad individual es libre de ser entendida.

The knowledge source is in the nature of the object, all interpretation on the mirror of a entity reality's is free of being understood.

:O:D