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Young Programmer, Stop Advocating Free Software!
Lansdowne writes "Clemens Vasters, in an open letter to a young developer he met at a software conference, asks him to consider the consequences of writing software for free. "Software is the immediate result and the manifestation of what your learned and what you know. How much is that worth? Nothing? Think again."" While I don't particularly agree with all of the points made here, this is the type of question that needs to be answered to continue to get people involved in Free/Open/Libre/GNU/whatever source/software/code.
I tried to read the article (it's not slashdotted you karma whores!) but i quit after the first few paragrapghs. Some dipshit telling "when I was your age..." stories to someone he didn't care about to ask his email. This rambling is not fit for public consumption. ... well whatever.
Some people really get off on telling other people how the world works. They might even think that everybody that listens is their deciple. Now goth hither and
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
Guess who's making real money off your work.
They sucker in a bunch of Open Source guys and make billions off them.
Yes, you can have a book deal, IF you create a perl or python. Anything short of that league and you're not getting squat.
Also note that the creators of perl, python, etc, still have day jobs last I heard where they're, gasp, paid for creating software.
Not to say that OSS is bad. I just joined an OSS team working on a game design tool for a program for MacOSX and Linux. It's fun, it's great. Contribute. Give something back. Hoorah!
But for those who actually want to be able to buy that Powerbook upon which they develop their OSS, making money may actually be a viable option, perhaps even making money selling software.
(Actually, taking the Knowledge wants to be Free philosophy literally, you shouldn't sell a book on your OSS since that's knowledge. And how can you sell your services to maintain or enhance OSS, since that's knowledge too? Sucker them in with free software that they can't understand or use, and then charge them for usability and customizability?
I see no difference between this and charging for the software directly. EXCEPT for programmers, who get the software and can use/maintain it because of their unique skills/knowledge. So it boils down to: Charge programmers == BAD but charge the unwashed masses == GOOD.)
So, the guys at Redhat, Ximian, etc... don't make money?
Not nearly as much as the guys at Microsoft and Apple.
Score:-1, Harsh Truth.
What keeps me employed and employable?
You are a workaholic and companies absolutely love workaholics?
Vote in November. You won't regret it.
Sure, but imagine how the conversation came about.
Sound to me as if your hypothetical Peace Corps volunteer went around chiding workers in the coporate world for not being in the Peace Corps, the idea being that the world would be a better place if we all devoted our lives only to feeding the poor.
This letter is a response to such nonsense.
I think he makes an excellent point about the famous free-software advocates, many of whom don't make a living doing what they advocate.
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
He's a marketer for Microsoft Germany. Check his bio.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Ah yes. We can all work for universities. What a good idea.
BTW, writing a software program is engineering - not pure research.
And we all know how the market in Mathematicians is booming these days...
Maybe if there was a business model for Mathematics it would be in better shape. As it is they have to beg all their money from the government.
Amazing amount of false assumptions in that letter.
First is the assumption that you can actually make more money in closed source than open source. I have done both. The money is about the same. The difference is that with open source, I own my work. It is not taken away from me for a salary.
There is also the assumption that all programming is done for money. That is not always the goal. Most of the Open Source code I have written has been to fufill a need, not just for a paycheck. Cash is not the only reason things get done. It would be a pretty terrible and expensive world if that were the case.
He also claims that Open Source credits will not get you a job because geeks are the only ones who pay attention to that sort of thing. So geeks don't own companies? They don't hire people based on what they have done? I have gotten lots of jobs because of my activity in Open Source. Open Source also has more active user groups. Actually knowing people in the tech community and having a good reputation will get you more jobs than sending in resumes to whatever gets posted in the Sunday classifieds.
There is also a lot to learn by actually participating in an ongoing programming project. It is a good learning experience, as well as something to put on your resume when you are trying to get that first programming job.
He also does not seem to understand the concept of "giving back to the community". There were a lot of people who helped me when I was a young programmer. They did not do it for money, but out of "giving something back" to the general programming community. That is one of the reasons I help with user groups and open source. It helps with that next crop of programmers that this guy seems to want to clear-cut.
Programming is more than just a job. You have to love what you are doing. It has to be more than just a paycheck.
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."