[Novalug] Why create Free Stuff (Was censorship of Wikipedia)

[Fearer, Mark]

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1649666,00.html
   
   How about Jim Wales efforts of a web crawler? Are'nt there parallels with open source freeing the market from monopolies of other giants?
   
  Mark
  Alexandria
  

Clif Flynt <clif at cflynt.com> wrote:
  On Mon, Aug 20, 2007 at 09:18:11AM -0400, David Zakar wrote:
> It's easier than that, even: people hacking stuff onto an open source
> application are usually doing it because they personally want/need it.
> People writing a textbook don't want/need the textbook themselves. It's a
> matter of self-interest, and it's why the open source model doesn't work in
> a lot of places.
> 

There's lots of ways to serve self-interest in Free/Open projects.

I recommended open source projects to a lot of folks who got laid off
during the recent depression and new grads as a way to beef up the
resume. I know several folks who got nice jobs in their area of
interest because some business liked their work on an OS project.

I wrote a dead-tree book a few years ago. I got paid for it, but in
actual fact, the money you make from a tech book is about the same as
the hourly rate at McDonalds. (Mine was considered a very good seller,
the hours I put into writing, proofing, etc eventually got paid back at
almost $10.00 / hour.)

What being an author did to my credentials and ability to bill what I
was worth was priceless.

Being the author of a popular OS project certainly didn't hurt Linus
Torvalds or Larry Wall's careers.

My reasons for writing OS code for vary.

Sometimes it's because I want something that does it my way, and I
might as well let this thing loose on an unsuspecting public.

Sometimes it's because I have a new tool I need to become more
familiar with, and this project looks like a way to become comfortable
with the tool.

Sometimes its because someone else wants a tool but can't pay for
it, and making this tool gets me a bit of name recognition in an area
where I don't normally show up.

Sometimes its a way to pay back/forward to other folks who are doing
a project I'm using. Fixing a bug or two or adding a new config tool
helps everyone.

And lets not ignore the simple egoboo of getting a email from someone
saying "Thanks for TclTutor" (or whatever). Those make my day.

Clif

-- 
.... Clif Flynt ... http://www.cflynt.com ... clif at cflynt.com ...
.. Tcl/Tk: A Developer's Guide (2nd edition) - Morgan Kauffman ..
14th Annual Tcl/Tk Conference: Sep 24-28 2007, New Orleans, LA.
............. http://www.tcl.tk/community/tcl2007/ ............


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