At around 11/10/06 7:00 pm, Michael Perelman wrote:
> Josh Lerner of Harvard has suggested that many open source
> contributors do so in order to win a name for themselves and thereby
> advance their own interests. This motive does not necessarily
> contradict the altruistic and aesthetic motives that Ravi seems to be
> suggesting.
>
I am not sure the "advance their own interests" part is true in a
general sense. Also, I am always suspicious of reductionist
"self-interest" arguments -- I think Sen addresses this (as you
summarise in your last line) quite elegantly in his "Rational Fools" paper.
I think when people hear "open source" they immediately think of a few
stars they have read about, eg: Linus Torvalds, who has been all over
the map from startups (Transmeta) to well-funded collectives/orgs.
Stallman is a more difficult case, especially if we avoid
psycho-analytical voodoo and follow his philosophy and its relationship
to his work. However, open source extends beyond such stars.
People who dislike the open source / free software movement (and Peter
made a great point in reminding us about the original meaning of the
"free" in free) seem to combine three types of arguments: (a) what
motivates the developers? (I tend to think that the answers from the
developers should be good enough), (b) is the software really free (or)
is this free software model sustainable? (c) can free software
ultimately "compete"?
--ravi
