> A software developer may have bought his computer for reasons other than > FOSS development, the cost of copying software may be zero, but these > don't justify his spending enormous amounts of time developing products > that he'd actually give away. If his incentive does not stem from the > donations the project receives, then surely the motivations must be > non-material. In this case, an interesting question to ask would be what > is the cause of his motivations, and whether motivations of this kind > can be cultivated some levels before in the production chain, for > example in the producers of the hardware "raw" materials, in order to > achieve truly free hardware.
There is a very real motivation even material. If you look closer at Open Source Software(OSS) you will see that many developers get payed by big companies to develop OSS. So why is that so. The reason is simple. Let me explain with the example of Apache. Imagine you work at a company that want to make money with this new thing that just came up called the "World Wide Web". So you as the Software guy in this company get the task to get them into the game. As you want to push the boundaries using new technology and as the www is brand new you need a good HTTP Server. All the available Servers lack to fulfill at least one of your requirements. So looking gives you at least 2 options: 1.) Roll your own. Software developers love this. Just start with a empty file and write the complete server. Cool solution but some work to do. 2.) Download Apache write a new Module or enhance the core. Same effect with much less work to be done. Ok not as coll, but fulfills all the requirements. Go with such options to your manager and even the most closed sorce fan will go for option 2. The company saves a ton of money (by not paying you for all the work) and time(faster time to market). And If the code you build on is GPLed then your manager will not be happy but he will let you put the code developed on company time as OSS back into the Internet. I hope that helps you understand the motivation of spending time on Open Design Projects. Best regards Lars _______________________________________________ Open-graphics mailing list [email protected] http://lists.duskglow.com/mailman/listinfo/open-graphics List service provided by Duskglow Consulting, LLC (www.duskglow.com)
