Well, I know I personally feel this way! I've worked on closed source search engines a good while, and now Lucene/Solr for a good while, and I know which one makes me happier ;)
And I suspect that's a good strategy by this client of yours.. I know once I finally have to move away from my sponsor, being free to work in open-source will be a strong requirement for whatever I do next. As for "real" references, I think this video is delightfully relevant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc It summarizes research by economists into what it is that makes people happy, motivates them, in their work, and it ties this nicely into open-source. Mike On Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 11:37 AM, Grant Ingersoll <gsing...@apache.org> wrote: > One of the things I've noticed in my day job, which is admittedly > self-selecting since I work for a company that engages with people deploying > open source, is that I routinely hear, how shall I say it, more enjoyment > from the developers in their work as compared to the old days when they > worked on a proprietary equivalent, and I think it even holds true when > working on "troubleshooting" engagements where something is broken. Since, > most of us here likely work on open source, I'm curious as to what others > think? Are devs who work on or use open source happier in their day jobs? > And I don't just mean committers/contributors here, I mean people who are > using the software to solve some bigger problem for their company and who may > never do anything more than ask a question on a mailing list from time to > time. Has anyone seen _independent_ studies that say one way or the other? > (References please.) I do think, that some of the answer depends on the > quality of the software they are working on (just as it likely does when > working on proprietary software), so perhaps I should separate out what could > be called hobbyist open source versus open source that has a large community > of followers (regardless of license) like Linux, ASF projects, Eclipse, etc. > Therefore, assuming two different pieces of software, one being proprietary > and one being open, both of which will solve the problem, are developers who > solve the problem with open source happier in their job? > > At any rate, my motivation for asking is that I'm writing an article on some > thoughts in this area spurred by something a client told me (at a very old, > established company, mind you) about why they wanted to get the word out that > they were using open source: they felt it would help them attract and retain > developers b/c they would be more satisfied in their jobs b/c they got to > work on innovative open source technologies. > > Thanks for your insights, > Grant > > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: community-unsubscr...@apache.org > For additional commands, e-mail: community-h...@apache.org > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: community-unsubscr...@apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: community-h...@apache.org
