Free speach, beer, or plain stupidity?
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Sometimes I have a little argument with Open Source supporters :-O . I ask them why they think that only programmers should work for free. I mean, programmers develop i.e Samba or Apache, and then administrators in big companies use it for free to make money. Why there are no "open source" admins who would work for free? Or for that matter, "open source" doctors, lawyers, teachers... Everybody works for money, only for programmers it should be shear pleasure. I mean, it makes sense to write articles or some code that you might want to share with your fellow developers (there are technical articles in other professions too). But to waste your free time to develop software products that other people (or companies) will use to make money for themselves is plain stupid, IMHO. I vote pro drink :beer:
You're starting with the wrong premise. The idea that software should be freely available, readable, and modifiable doesn't mean that the programmers are supposed to work for free. In fact, very few Open Source and Free Software programmers are unpaid. Larry Wall (creator of Perl), Guido van Rossum (creator of Python), Linus Torvalds... they're all getting paid, and pretty well, from all accounts. But to waste your free time to develop software products that other people (or companies) will use to make money for themselves is plain stupid, IMHO. It is if your only criterion is your bank balance. If that's your criterion, why would anyone be contributing code to the Code Project when they could be selling it? And I'm not just talking about little snippets and articles, but things like PJ Naughter's large collection. If you're making something available for free, why does it bother you whether someone else is just using it "for fun", or making money from it? The effect to you isn't any different. See also this quote. Tim Lesher http://www.lesher.ws
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You're starting with the wrong premise. The idea that software should be freely available, readable, and modifiable doesn't mean that the programmers are supposed to work for free. In fact, very few Open Source and Free Software programmers are unpaid. Larry Wall (creator of Perl), Guido van Rossum (creator of Python), Linus Torvalds... they're all getting paid, and pretty well, from all accounts. But to waste your free time to develop software products that other people (or companies) will use to make money for themselves is plain stupid, IMHO. It is if your only criterion is your bank balance. If that's your criterion, why would anyone be contributing code to the Code Project when they could be selling it? And I'm not just talking about little snippets and articles, but things like PJ Naughter's large collection. If you're making something available for free, why does it bother you whether someone else is just using it "for fun", or making money from it? The effect to you isn't any different. See also this quote. Tim Lesher http://www.lesher.ws
Tim Lesher wrote: In fact, very few Open Source and Free Software programmers are unpaid I would say quite the opposite. Very few of them are paid. Tim Lesher wrote: why would anyone be contributing code to the Code Project when they could be selling it Did you read my post? I mean, it makes sense to write articles or some code that you might want to share with your fellow developers (there are technical articles in other professions too). But to waste your free time to develop software products that other people (or companies) will use to make money for themselves is plain stupid, IMHO. Tim Lesher wrote: See also this quote. I will quote myself again: Why there are no "open source" admins who would work for free? Or for that matter, "open source" doctors, lawyers, teachers... I vote pro drink :beer:
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You're starting with the wrong premise. The idea that software should be freely available, readable, and modifiable doesn't mean that the programmers are supposed to work for free. In fact, very few Open Source and Free Software programmers are unpaid. Larry Wall (creator of Perl), Guido van Rossum (creator of Python), Linus Torvalds... they're all getting paid, and pretty well, from all accounts. But to waste your free time to develop software products that other people (or companies) will use to make money for themselves is plain stupid, IMHO. It is if your only criterion is your bank balance. If that's your criterion, why would anyone be contributing code to the Code Project when they could be selling it? And I'm not just talking about little snippets and articles, but things like PJ Naughter's large collection. If you're making something available for free, why does it bother you whether someone else is just using it "for fun", or making money from it? The effect to you isn't any different. See also this quote. Tim Lesher http://www.lesher.ws
Tim Lesher wrote: The idea that software should be freely available, readable, and modifiable doesn't mean that the programmers are supposed to work for free. In fact, very few Open Source and Free Software programmers are unpaid. Larry Wall (creator of Perl), Guido van Rossum (creator of Python), Linus Torvalds... they're all getting paid, and pretty well, from all accounts. This is inaccurate. The guys you mention are the celebrities of the Open Source world. As far as application software goes.. there's no way to be paid if your source is public. Tim Lesher wrote: If you're making something available for free, why does it bother you whether someone else is just using it "for fun", or making money from it? The effect to you isn't any different. Speaking for myself and not the original poster: the avowed goal of OSS is to end the use of commercial software. That's how most of us make our money. OSS will unfortunately probably succeed. Net result: most professional programmers will probably end up working for banks and other large institutions, fixing bugs in code written by amateurs.
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Tim Lesher wrote: The idea that software should be freely available, readable, and modifiable doesn't mean that the programmers are supposed to work for free. In fact, very few Open Source and Free Software programmers are unpaid. Larry Wall (creator of Perl), Guido van Rossum (creator of Python), Linus Torvalds... they're all getting paid, and pretty well, from all accounts. This is inaccurate. The guys you mention are the celebrities of the Open Source world. As far as application software goes.. there's no way to be paid if your source is public. Tim Lesher wrote: If you're making something available for free, why does it bother you whether someone else is just using it "for fun", or making money from it? The effect to you isn't any different. Speaking for myself and not the original poster: the avowed goal of OSS is to end the use of commercial software. That's how most of us make our money. OSS will unfortunately probably succeed. Net result: most professional programmers will probably end up working for banks and other large institutions, fixing bugs in code written by amateurs.
We will basically switch back to a model that was abolished 15 years ago. Programmers will work for in-house projects and the retail/public software model will die. Tim Smith "Programmers are always surrounded by complexity; we can not avoid it... If our basic tool, the language in which we design and code our programs, is also complicated, the language itself becomes part of the problem rather that part of the solution." Hoare - 1980 ACM Turing Award Lecture
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We will basically switch back to a model that was abolished 15 years ago. Programmers will work for in-house projects and the retail/public software model will die. Tim Smith "Programmers are always surrounded by complexity; we can not avoid it... If our basic tool, the language in which we design and code our programs, is also complicated, the language itself becomes part of the problem rather that part of the solution." Hoare - 1980 ACM Turing Award Lecture
So what, what is the difference? You still get paid. There is no way that there will ever be enough free programmers around to fill the needs of the software industry. As I see it, in-house projects are where you get to really make a difference. It is really easy to see your work put to use, and that is what I am in this for (aside from the paycheck). Ryan Johnston
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So what, what is the difference? You still get paid. There is no way that there will ever be enough free programmers around to fill the needs of the software industry. As I see it, in-house projects are where you get to really make a difference. It is really easy to see your work put to use, and that is what I am in this for (aside from the paycheck). Ryan Johnston
So you don't see a problem with the retail market bottoming? That is what we had with the old service/in house model. Tim Smith "Programmers are always surrounded by complexity; we can not avoid it... If our basic tool, the language in which we design and code our programs, is also complicated, the language itself becomes part of the problem rather that part of the solution." Hoare - 1980 ACM Turing Award Lecture
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So you don't see a problem with the retail market bottoming? That is what we had with the old service/in house model. Tim Smith "Programmers are always surrounded by complexity; we can not avoid it... If our basic tool, the language in which we design and code our programs, is also complicated, the language itself becomes part of the problem rather that part of the solution." Hoare - 1980 ACM Turing Award Lecture
Tim Smith wrote: So you don't see a problem with the retail market bottoming? To be honest, I don't think it really will. The average consumer wants to be able to go to the store and buy a copy of a software program, and they want it to work with out modification or complex installation. I think it would take a lot more than what is currently out there (or could be developed in the near future) to convince a computer novice that they don't need Windows/Office anymore. Open source could hurt business applications. A lot of times out of the box solutions don't work for very specific needs. Large companies are willing to pay programmers to make it work for them. In the end, programmers still have jobs, the retail market still exists for home/small business, and large companies have an easier time of developing in-house solutions. Open source is not going to destroy anything. Ryan Johnston
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Tim Smith wrote: So you don't see a problem with the retail market bottoming? To be honest, I don't think it really will. The average consumer wants to be able to go to the store and buy a copy of a software program, and they want it to work with out modification or complex installation. I think it would take a lot more than what is currently out there (or could be developed in the near future) to convince a computer novice that they don't need Windows/Office anymore. Open source could hurt business applications. A lot of times out of the box solutions don't work for very specific needs. Large companies are willing to pay programmers to make it work for them. In the end, programmers still have jobs, the retail market still exists for home/small business, and large companies have an easier time of developing in-house solutions. Open source is not going to destroy anything. Ryan Johnston
Can't have it both ways. A large potion of the OSS movement thinks that all software should be free. Thus there is no money in software that doesn't require some type of service revenue. I just don't see Quake IX making any money using a service model. And before you say that id software supports OSS, I would look closely at what they do. All they release is out dated software which has limited revenue outlook. Tim Smith "Programmers are always surrounded by complexity; we can not avoid it... If our basic tool, the language in which we design and code our programs, is also complicated, the language itself becomes part of the problem rather that part of the solution." Hoare - 1980 ACM Turing Award Lecture
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Sometimes I have a little argument with Open Source supporters :-O . I ask them why they think that only programmers should work for free. I mean, programmers develop i.e Samba or Apache, and then administrators in big companies use it for free to make money. Why there are no "open source" admins who would work for free? Or for that matter, "open source" doctors, lawyers, teachers... Everybody works for money, only for programmers it should be shear pleasure. I mean, it makes sense to write articles or some code that you might want to share with your fellow developers (there are technical articles in other professions too). But to waste your free time to develop software products that other people (or companies) will use to make money for themselves is plain stupid, IMHO. I vote pro drink :beer:
Reading through this makes me feel a bit awkward. I am writing a framework that is OSS and free. I am also writing a development tool to use with it. I spend an enourmous amount of my time outside of work (yes I do have a job in the financial industry, albeit a boring one :) ) working on this for the epxress purpose that it will provide other developers with a freely available cross platform framework and IDE that currently do no exist to my satisfaction. Am I stupid ? Well according to Nemanja I am. Would I like to sell it? Absolutely. But as far as I can tell it will never sell. No one will ever actually pay for it, so I am essentially screwed if I want to pursue that avenue. So it seems to me I have a choice. Work at my boring job (no I cannot relocate, for a variety of reasons, all of them out of my control, and none of them relevant to this discussion), and never see anything I produce/code/develop get any sort of recognition or chance of real use. Or develop this stuff on my own (or with others if they choose to participate, the stupid leading the stupid, if you will :) ), and just maybe others will use it and I will have the satisfaction that I may have, perhaps, made a bit of a difference. I am not sure I see this as stupid. Is it ridiculously idealistic ? sure. But unless someone has a better idea I am not sure what is so bad about, particularly when the commerical companies refuse to write software like this, or at a level I can afford.
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1. MS-Word with HTML editing ability hasn't been around for 20 years. You make it sound like we are using the program that they created 20 years ago. That just isn't the case. 2. OSS is not about creating public domain software. In fact, GPL is one of the most restrictive licenses out there. 3. The "service model" doesn't work. In fact, our current model was hailed as being moving forward from the high cost service model. "Those who forget the past are doomed to relive it." Tim Smith "Programmers are always surrounded by complexity; we can not avoid it... If our basic tool, the language in which we design and code our programs, is also complicated, the language itself becomes part of the problem rather that part of the solution." Hoare - 1980 ACM Turing Award Lecture
Tim Smith wrote: 1. MS-Word with HTML editing ability hasn't been around for 20 years. You make it sound like we are using the program that they created 20 years ago. That just isn't the case HTML editors have been around for a long time, Microsoft only recently decided to get on the bandwagon. To use your example MS-Word, it seems to me most people use about 20% of the features, and the core features they use haven't changed much since Word 95. You and I may be more sophisticated and use newer features, but most of the public doesn't. Tim Smith wrote: 2. OSS is not about creating public domain software. In fact, GPL is one of the most restrictive licenses out there. Then what is it about? I use OpenOffice and Mozilla for free. GPL is not the only license in the open source world, and GPL is only restrictive if you want to modify the program, not for users. Tim Smith wrote: 3. The "service model" doesn't work. In fact, our current model was hailed as being moving forward from the high cost service model. "Those who forget the past are doomed to relive it." I'm not sure I know what you mean by the service model; from other posts it seems like you mean a model with only in-house programming, with no retail software. I'm not sure why open source would doom retail software. Everyone on this site (and to be fair on open source sites) is so all or nothing, the discussion seems to be dominated by zealots. I think open source software will be most successful in applications that are widely used, where many people stand to benefit from the finished product so they therefore will contribute. All software will not be free, new useful programs will always be worth buying. Neil Van Eps "When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That's relativity." -Albert Einstein
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Tim Smith wrote: 1. MS-Word with HTML editing ability hasn't been around for 20 years. You make it sound like we are using the program that they created 20 years ago. That just isn't the case HTML editors have been around for a long time, Microsoft only recently decided to get on the bandwagon. To use your example MS-Word, it seems to me most people use about 20% of the features, and the core features they use haven't changed much since Word 95. You and I may be more sophisticated and use newer features, but most of the public doesn't. Tim Smith wrote: 2. OSS is not about creating public domain software. In fact, GPL is one of the most restrictive licenses out there. Then what is it about? I use OpenOffice and Mozilla for free. GPL is not the only license in the open source world, and GPL is only restrictive if you want to modify the program, not for users. Tim Smith wrote: 3. The "service model" doesn't work. In fact, our current model was hailed as being moving forward from the high cost service model. "Those who forget the past are doomed to relive it." I'm not sure I know what you mean by the service model; from other posts it seems like you mean a model with only in-house programming, with no retail software. I'm not sure why open source would doom retail software. Everyone on this site (and to be fair on open source sites) is so all or nothing, the discussion seems to be dominated by zealots. I think open source software will be most successful in applications that are widely used, where many people stand to benefit from the finished product so they therefore will contribute. All software will not be free, new useful programs will always be worth buying. Neil Van Eps "When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That's relativity." -Albert Einstein
HTML editors have been around for a long time, Microsoft only recently decided to get on the bandwagon. To use your example MS-Word, it seems to me most people use about 20% of the features, and the core features they use haven't changed much since Word 95. You and I may be more sophisticated and use newer features, but most of the public doesn't. 20 years? LOL... Word 95? That is only 7 years old. Then what is it about? I use OpenOffice and Mozilla for free. GPL is not the only license in the open source world, and GPL is only restrictive if you want to modify the program, not for users. GPL is very restrictive for users. Read it. public domain software[^] Article on Service Model[^] Service model ruled the software industry for the longest time. Once the PC really took hold, the retail model took over. Now for some reason, the OSS people think they have come up with this great new concept of the service model again. Sort of like that great new concept of centralized servers they developed. :rolleyes::laugh: Tim Smith "Programmers are always surrounded by complexity; we can not avoid it... If our basic tool, the language in which we design and code our programs, is also complicated, the language itself becomes part of the problem rather that part of the solution." Hoare - 1980 ACM Turing Award Lecture
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Can't have it both ways. A large potion of the OSS movement thinks that all software should be free. Thus there is no money in software that doesn't require some type of service revenue. I just don't see Quake IX making any money using a service model. And before you say that id software supports OSS, I would look closely at what they do. All they release is out dated software which has limited revenue outlook. Tim Smith "Programmers are always surrounded by complexity; we can not avoid it... If our basic tool, the language in which we design and code our programs, is also complicated, the language itself becomes part of the problem rather that part of the solution." Hoare - 1980 ACM Turing Award Lecture
Tim Smith wrote: A large potion of the OSS movement thinks that all software should be free. To hell with what they think. They are dreaming. There are places for open source, and there are places for closed source. We can have both, regardless of what the idealistic morons want. Tim Smith wrote: I just don't see Quake IX making any money using a service model. I don't see any traditional game making money on a service model. Games should be closed source. In fact, I think all content (which is really what a game is) should remain proprietary. Ryan Johnston
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Reading through this makes me feel a bit awkward. I am writing a framework that is OSS and free. I am also writing a development tool to use with it. I spend an enourmous amount of my time outside of work (yes I do have a job in the financial industry, albeit a boring one :) ) working on this for the epxress purpose that it will provide other developers with a freely available cross platform framework and IDE that currently do no exist to my satisfaction. Am I stupid ? Well according to Nemanja I am. Would I like to sell it? Absolutely. But as far as I can tell it will never sell. No one will ever actually pay for it, so I am essentially screwed if I want to pursue that avenue. So it seems to me I have a choice. Work at my boring job (no I cannot relocate, for a variety of reasons, all of them out of my control, and none of them relevant to this discussion), and never see anything I produce/code/develop get any sort of recognition or chance of real use. Or develop this stuff on my own (or with others if they choose to participate, the stupid leading the stupid, if you will :) ), and just maybe others will use it and I will have the satisfaction that I may have, perhaps, made a bit of a difference. I am not sure I see this as stupid. Is it ridiculously idealistic ? sure. But unless someone has a better idea I am not sure what is so bad about, particularly when the commerical companies refuse to write software like this, or at a level I can afford.
Jim Crafton wrote: Would I like to sell it? Absolutely. But as far as I can tell it will never sell. No one will ever actually pay for it, so I am essentially screwed if I want to pursue that avenue. Have you thought of shareware. You may be surprised how many people would buy it if it was priced right. Why not try it? If nobody is willing to shell out $30, $20 or even $10 then just release it for free. You will not know until you try. Joel
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HTML editors have been around for a long time, Microsoft only recently decided to get on the bandwagon. To use your example MS-Word, it seems to me most people use about 20% of the features, and the core features they use haven't changed much since Word 95. You and I may be more sophisticated and use newer features, but most of the public doesn't. 20 years? LOL... Word 95? That is only 7 years old. Then what is it about? I use OpenOffice and Mozilla for free. GPL is not the only license in the open source world, and GPL is only restrictive if you want to modify the program, not for users. GPL is very restrictive for users. Read it. public domain software[^] Article on Service Model[^] Service model ruled the software industry for the longest time. Once the PC really took hold, the retail model took over. Now for some reason, the OSS people think they have come up with this great new concept of the service model again. Sort of like that great new concept of centralized servers they developed. :rolleyes::laugh: Tim Smith "Programmers are always surrounded by complexity; we can not avoid it... If our basic tool, the language in which we design and code our programs, is also complicated, the language itself becomes part of the problem rather that part of the solution." Hoare - 1980 ACM Turing Award Lecture
Tim Smith wrote: GPL is very restrictive for users. Read it. I have read it, could you please elaborate on how it restricts a user? I only see restrictions placed on using or modifying the code. Shawn
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Tim Lesher wrote: The idea that software should be freely available, readable, and modifiable doesn't mean that the programmers are supposed to work for free. In fact, very few Open Source and Free Software programmers are unpaid. Larry Wall (creator of Perl), Guido van Rossum (creator of Python), Linus Torvalds... they're all getting paid, and pretty well, from all accounts. This is inaccurate. The guys you mention are the celebrities of the Open Source world. As far as application software goes.. there's no way to be paid if your source is public. Tim Lesher wrote: If you're making something available for free, why does it bother you whether someone else is just using it "for fun", or making money from it? The effect to you isn't any different. Speaking for myself and not the original poster: the avowed goal of OSS is to end the use of commercial software. That's how most of us make our money. OSS will unfortunately probably succeed. Net result: most professional programmers will probably end up working for banks and other large institutions, fixing bugs in code written by amateurs.
Oh no? www.trolltech.com[^] dual licenses its toolkit. GPL for free programs, and a commercial license for non-free programs. Redhat Linux, mostly a collection of other software, but the glue is written by Redhat. Which is then sold. Sources are available, but yet they manage to sell CDs. SAPDB - http://www.sapdb.org/[^] - The RDBMS in SAP is free, it's GPL'd. Still they make SHITLOADS of money. Hell, even GNU sells CDs with precompiled binaries for quite a hefty price. Let me ask a counter question; Would you just "download" software of considerable size from the net and use it in your program? I'm sure you wouldn't. You would rather pay someone to wrap it up and document it for you, ready to use. But the thing is; if you have the source code, you can fix stuff when it breaks (if it's in your vendors code that is). The GNU projects is about making, what they call, a fully free operating system. Yes.. so what? If you want to make money, just make a better operating system/whatever which people will pay for. The rest of the OSS crowd are open sourcing stuff that will help them, not hurt them. Just look at SAPDB. Do you honestly believe that SAP would release their RDBMS software if their business depended on it? I think not.. They've release a non-critical subsystem of their software as open source. They've done it in a "smart way" too. First; if outside people use it and find bugs - cool they'll get free testing and bug reports/fixes. And the best part; they've GPL'ed it. This means basically that no one else can "steal it" and "sell it". Of course, an outsider may package the source on a CD and sell it, but that wouldn't hurt SAP at all. They sell software installations worth millions, not RDBMS. It's not their market! I'd say it's smart to open source certain non-critical software components. Jim A. Johnson wrote: Speaking for myself and not the original poster: the avowed goal of OSS is to end the use of commercial software. That's how most of us make our money. I would say that OSS promotes commercialism. If you open source the right kind of software, you won't have any drawbacks, only advantages. Of course, don't open source your tricks of the trade. That's just stupid - and I think most OSS-pe
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Tim Lesher wrote: In fact, very few Open Source and Free Software programmers are unpaid I would say quite the opposite. Very few of them are paid. Tim Lesher wrote: why would anyone be contributing code to the Code Project when they could be selling it Did you read my post? I mean, it makes sense to write articles or some code that you might want to share with your fellow developers (there are technical articles in other professions too). But to waste your free time to develop software products that other people (or companies) will use to make money for themselves is plain stupid, IMHO. Tim Lesher wrote: See also this quote. I will quote myself again: Why there are no "open source" admins who would work for free? Or for that matter, "open source" doctors, lawyers, teachers... I vote pro drink :beer:
I would say quite the opposite. Very few of them are paid. You're entitled to your opinion, but a recent study says just the opposite. Did you read my post? Yes, and that's why I took pains to separate "article"-level contributions from large amounts of freely-contributed code, like PJ Plaugher's site, or Sam Black's library. I think these go far beyond what's given away for free in other professions. Why there are no "open source" admins who would work for free? Or for that matter, "open source" doctors, lawyers, teachers... Hmm... you've never heard of free clinics, Doctors Without Borders, or lawyers who do pro bono work, or people who act as unpaid tutors, or... Seriously, it's hard to apply "open source" to other professions except perhaps teachers. Ideas don't work the same way as material products do, and most attempts to force them to work that way will fail. It's simple impedance mismatch. Tim Lesher http://www.lesher.ws
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Tim Lesher wrote: The idea that software should be freely available, readable, and modifiable doesn't mean that the programmers are supposed to work for free. In fact, very few Open Source and Free Software programmers are unpaid. Larry Wall (creator of Perl), Guido van Rossum (creator of Python), Linus Torvalds... they're all getting paid, and pretty well, from all accounts. This is inaccurate. The guys you mention are the celebrities of the Open Source world. As far as application software goes.. there's no way to be paid if your source is public. Tim Lesher wrote: If you're making something available for free, why does it bother you whether someone else is just using it "for fun", or making money from it? The effect to you isn't any different. Speaking for myself and not the original poster: the avowed goal of OSS is to end the use of commercial software. That's how most of us make our money. OSS will unfortunately probably succeed. Net result: most professional programmers will probably end up working for banks and other large institutions, fixing bugs in code written by amateurs.
Actually, more of them are paid than you would imagine. About 30% of people who work on open source projects are full-time, paid programmers; many of the rest are professional programmers who work on open source software either on their own time or else because it's related to their work, acccording to a recent study. Speaking for myself and not the original poster: the avowed goal of OSS is to end the use of commercial software. That's how most of us make our money. You're confusing the Free Software Foundation with the Open Source movement. The FSF wants to end the use of proprietary (not commercial, just closed) software. The Open Source community recognizes, for the most part, that there is a place for open and closed software. Tim Lesher http://www.lesher.ws