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Why Do People Write Open Source Software?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the why-and-the-who dept.

M.Broil writes "Two interesting articles try to answer this question. One's at NewsForge, the other's at Cybernaut.com. The two writers reach conclusions that are almost exactly opposite. Which one is right? Or is it possible that different open source coders have different motivations? (That's what I think, anyway.)" I suspect as well that each developer has their own reason, ranging from ego to malcontent to benevolence.

14 of 280 comments (clear)

  1. The better question is.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Why do they only half write it?

    1. Re:The better question is.. by tomstdenis · · Score: 5, Insightful

      As the author of a cryptographic toolkit [libtomcrypt] and a bignum toolkit [libtommath], both of which are written in portable ISO C, build out of the box on any GCC equipped machine and generally perform reasonably decent I have two cents to offer.

      As an OSS developer myself I have to say that it is not that I'm not willing to go all the way with a complete product it is often that the end users themselves are not willing to put in the effort to review it.

      For instance, combined 500 people have downloaded the recent releases of my libraries. Which doesn't seem like a lot except that crypto libraries are generally not horded that much.

      Often I will go months before receiving anything from anyone. Whenever a bug is found I often fix it within a few hours at most. Mostly I find the bugs in the libraries as I wander through it.

      Though my projects are "limited" scale I bet similar reasoning applies to larger scale projects. If a developer doesn't get user feedback its not only hard to fix bugs they don't know about but often discouraging to continue development.

      Tom

      BTW my libs are at http://libtomcrypt.org for the curious....

      --
      Someday, I'll have a real sig.
    2. Re:The better question is.. by Nick+of+NSTime · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Conversely, if you charged for it, people would bitch about it all the time.

  2. They still don't get it?? by bluesangria · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This one of those "well DUH!" kinda articles.

    Does it really take people that long to understand that someone may want to create something just for the sheer joy of creating something useful or helpful? How the hell do you explain drawing, music, painting, etc.? Jesus, corporate-boneheads must think everybody is a greedy, sonuvabitch driven only by monetary compensation.

    blue

  3. OS - why? by haxor.dk · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Because opennes implies freedom. Humans like freedom.

    Second, because we have bad experiences with Microsoft. Microsoft is closed. Proprietary. Restrictive. Opressive. User hostil. Unreliable.

    Etc.

  4. Mt. Everest by finkeldude · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Because it's not there.

  5. local government ::: OSS by dollargonzo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    it seems to me that people get into OSS for the same reason they might get into local government (i.e. small town politics). if someone is interested in government and politics, they try to do something locally first, because a) people will let them and b) there is less bureaucracy. there is usually little or no pay when involved in local government, but just like working on OSS, it gives a good resume boost and gives valuable experience. i guess the only difference is that local government is not aiming to be a competitor to higher authorities :)

    --
    BSD is for people who love UNIX. Linux is for those who hate Microsoft.
  6. Two reasons... by HaloZero · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...to make the world a better place, and just because you can.

    --
    Informatus Technologicus
  7. Re:Most open source coders by bluesangria · · Score: 5, Interesting

    One last final point: Open source was doomed from the beginning. Yes, it's a blanket statement that sounds ridiculous. Keep reading. Open source is based on the very principles of communism: everyone works on it, everyone owns it. The very thing that led to the collapse of Communism leads to the inability of open source to become popular: workers then tend to migrate quickly, and not work hard, since they can't gain anything from working on one thing hard.

    Actually, I disagree that communism failed because people got tired of contributing. In my opinion, there really hasn't been a "ideological" communist state to exist yet. Russia and Cuba are both just glorified dictatorships, not communist states - no matter how much they claim otherwise. Their governments ended up hoarding all the resources and not really giving back to the people they governed.
    Getting back to open source software, however, a key difference is that you can LEAVE an open source project whenever you feel like. Do some people have the attention span of mayflies? Sure. But sometimes they just need a break to be able to get back into the project. Since this is their personal interest, it's less likely to be subjected to permanent disinterest. Somewhere, somebody loves everykind of project.

    blue

  8. Why I wrote it. by questamor · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I wrote mine and released it OSS for one reason - laziness.

    One was a simple addressbook, 2 were games, and one a graphics prog - the latter for Commodore 64s.

    I released them all as free software, source included, and didn't know what the GPL was at the time. All the same it was open source, simply because I couldn't be bothered with the marketing/distribution/etc. I may have sold them as shareware or donationware had I a strong enough urge to, but for me the majority of the fun was in writing the programs themselves. Getting money for them seemed more work than I could be bothered putting into it

  9. What about laziness? by richieb · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I think most programmers get tired of doing the same thing over and over again, especially as you move from job to job. I had convinced several companies I worked for to release some of the software as open source, mostly so I can use it in the next job.

    For example, this project was part of code we build at a startup (now defunct). Since then I used it in two other jobs. The team that build this software to start with, is still using it at several different companies.

    So, rather than building the same thing again and again, I got to build it once and then since it's open source, I get to use it as long as I need.

    --
    ...richie - It is a good day to code.
  10. Here are two reasons..... by i_want_you_to_throw_ · · Score: 5, Interesting

    In my own case I do it for two reasons...
    1. To show my customer that I can bring them a wealth of functionality with no additional cost (which goes a LONG way towards explaining why we keep getting awarded our military contract year after year even though our expense is a little higher than our competition)
    2. To level the playing field and to empower the little guy. Here's a great example, travel agents are being put out of business slowly but surely by airlines and GDSs (SABRE, WorldSpan, etc) by the way of no commissions, etc.

    Orbitz, a collusion between carriers to control the distribution channel for tickets, does things like sends ticket holders a notification if their flight is late and so on. Travel Agents have not had that ability until now. They CAN use such CRS solutions like Virtually There and so on but SABRE strips the customer data and will market to their customers behind their backs bypassing the payment of any commisions. This lack of commission is pretty huge. Imagine if your travel agency was turning 10 million dollars worth of revenue for the airlines to get nothing in return?

    I created a Perl app called TripTiger that parses CRS terminal data and stores it on the travel agent's web server and stores it in a MySQL database.

    The CRS cannot harvest their customers emails, I can have a Perl script running via a cron job to check flight information and send notifications but MOST importantly travel agencies can now control their customer data.

    TripTiger is FREE to all trave agencies and they don't have to host with my service at all. It's more important to keep them in business by demonstrating their value to the customer and this helps.

    Open Source hasn't crashed the travel technology party and I am trying to help make that happen. Otherwise travel agencies aren't going to be in business much longer.

    By the way, I have placed TripTiger on Sourceforge but am having some difficulty with file uploads if anyone can offer advice. I have the spirit just not a master at the mechanics yet.

  11. Boston Research group by Sepper · · Score: 5, Informative
    Didn't the study from the Boston Research group address that question? (study done "In Cooperation with OSDN")

    http://www.bcg.com/media_center/media_press_releas e_subpage72.asp

    OVERALL HACKER MOTIVATIONS
    1. Intellectually stimulating 43.2
    2. Improves skill 43.2
    3. Code should be open 34.2
    4. Non-work functionality 30.2
    5. Work functionality 30.0
    6. Obligation from use 28.3
    7. Work with team 20.1
    8. Professional status 17.4
    9. Other 16.3
    10. Open Source reputation 11.5
    11. Beat proprietary software 11.3
    12. License forces me to 0.4

    Note: Question asked for top three motivators of F/OSS participation

    --
    I live in Soviet Canuckistan you insensitive clod!
  12. Or is it possible that different open source coder by jasonditz · · Score: 5, Funny
    Or is it possible that different open source coders have different motivations?

    No... its been my experience that every human being thinks and acts exactly the same.