On Sat, Oct 21, 2006 at 12:45:36PM -0700, AndrueC wrote:
> Okay I can accept the arguments about quality (don't neccessarily agree
> but I can accept them). WhatI stil don't see is:
> If I worked on FireFox or Open Office who would be putting several
> thousand pounds a month into my bank account?

- often times companies have a vested interest in the success of a
  particular open source project and allow employees to work on them
  during company time either part-time or as their entire role.

- sometimes people just enjoy hacking on stuff at night for personal
  gain and the project turns into something you can make money from (e.g.
  software that interfaces with a physical widget you can bundle it
  with).

- sometimes you can take a existing project and make a commercial
  product out of it (less flexibility with the GPL but still possible).
  people are bundling PCs linux w/ open source routing software to make
  non-traditional routers.

if you have to ask, you're probably not currently in a position to
monetize your contributions to open source. that's ok. programming in
the open source world and making rent are not conflicting goals. however,
people who start writing code for the world and just expect the Equity
Fairy to knock at their door may be in for a rude awakening.

-- bill



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