You might write a post believing that it would elicit a decent response in the way of comments only to find it languishing in a desert of non-responsiveness. Then there are the other “spur-of-the-moment” type posts you may not expect a visitor to even read let alone comment upon that suddenly have a crop of comments growing under them. These comments can happen all at once or over a period of several days. Some comments even take their sweet time in coming after having no comments at all the first few days but any way they come–it usually comes as a bit of surprise.

And my “spur-of-the-moment” post about open source software is a no exception.

I really didn’t expect much of a response to the above mentioned post if any at all simply because it was a spur of the moment type of thing and laced with my attitude at the time which, I admit, wasn’t very good at the given moment of writing.

With that said I will remind everyone who might grace this blog with their visits (I mean that sincerely by the way, it’s nice having folks drop by) that this is a personal blog, not a professional or even semi-professional one and my posts will flow with my moods as can be expected on any personal type journalistic effort.

Even so, what I originally posted wasn’t made up or simply posted as comment bait. My experience has shown that there are more than a few people out there who simply can’t grasp the concept of open source software nor the people who spend their time developing it and then (usually) giving it away.

Okay, with that out of the way…

So what a surprise it was when, after several days of the post just virtually lying there, the comments started to come in. And coming in at a steady rate no less. Not a flood of comments all at once as if I was Dugg or Stumbled but rather comments from interested folks who just decided to pay a visit to see what I was talking about. And majority of them appeared to be developers of open source software no less.

And such a variety of responses as well.

The comments have ranged from those who made honest attempts at explaining their desire/drive to develop open source software so that I might have a better understanding, to responses criticizing my apparent attitude on the subject and how it might be improved, all the way to a few that bordered on the precarious edge of being downright insulting.

And there was even one commenter who decided that neither I nor my attitude was worth a tinker’s damn and that I should obviously just die–badly. Here’s an excerpt:

I don’t think I want to meet you. You’re probably not a very nice person. One might go so far as to wonder if your mommy never loved you, or ask how many bodies are hidden in your basement. Also, why are you blogging about this? Go away. Go away and die alone in a basement filled with rats.

I have to admit that one gave me a chuckle. Obviously this guy was having a worse day than I was when I wrote the original post. Perhaps he’d been banging his head against a recalcitrant bit of code that absolutely refused to do what it was supposed to do?

Anyway, for what it’s worth, here’s a bit of a reply to a few points made by those folks who thought my post was worth a comment or two:

• Surprising as it might be, I can more than understand relating the development of open source software as a type art form or just growing flowers for the heck of it. I agree, it’s an apt analogy. I spent more than two decades as a (damn good) sound engineer until  my hearing degraded to the point where I had to quit the industry (service-related injury caused progressive hearing loss—just so there’s no misunderstanding). In fact the person running the sound board, if they’re any good at all, are probably as misunderstood by some as open source software developers are. The board is their instrument, they just don’t stand on the stage or in the recording studio. Hell, I even grew long stemmed roses for a time. They were quite lovely.
• Contrary to some folks’ assumptions, I’m not brainwashed or money oriented in any way nor does the concept of “software should be free” frighten me at all. Sure, I’m what you might call, “every day practical”–you have to be, especially these days. But my world and head for that matter doesn’t revolve around money or the concept that “you always get what you pay for”.  The idea that “quality costs” as far as software is concerned has become less true than ever these days.
• Developing code for a big company (as in said code now belongs to the company, not the developer) as an example of fueling the drive to develop OSS is an excellent point. Thanks to all those who pointed that out.
• Sharing software that you developed for yourself in hopes that others might find it useful. Another fine point made and taken as such.
• Sticking it to Microsoft, Adobe and the other big boys? Saying that we don’t need them? Okay, I can buy that—so to speak. I’d expect it does something to promote innovation and change within these bad boys as well?
• And no, I’m not going to go away and die alone in a basement filled with rats. My basement doesn’t have any rats. The cats keep them away.

To be honest about it, I’ll probably never be able to wrap my head around programming and writing up code. This is probably for the same reason that I have extreme difficulty learning a different language other than my own and what is programming after all but learning a different language? Life’s much too short and I’m getting a bit too long in tooth to be banging my head against something my head has such a difficult time understanding. I’ll simply have to settle for finding problems, reporting bugs and participating in forums as I have all along.

And so there’s no mistake, I never said that I don’t appreciate the effort that these open source software developers put into their projects, I most certainly do. However, I’ve always been a bit of a cynic as well and that is bound to show up—especially on this blog.

Now I believe I’ll go check the basement for rats—just in case.

When it comes to home computers and the software that runs on them I’m not a developer I’m a user. A technically advanced user, yes but a user nonetheless. Same goes for software that runs in the so-called “Cloud”. It takes a certain mindset, a certain way of thinking to sit in front of a monitor and write line after line after line of code that I simply don’t have. Never could wrap my head around the concept of programming and I’m hardly alone in this respect.

Now this doesn’t mean I can’t track down a buggy piece of open source software to a certain line or lines of troublesome code–I can. What it means is I don’t have the knowledge nor the kind of experience (nor the inclination to get any) to be able correct the problem all by my lonesome.

So I head off to the appropriate forum and/or bug reporting site to find the answer or to report the problem in hopes that I will eventually find an answer. I have no problem making out a bug reports, participating in developer forums or helping out others who might be having a problem.

I’m fairly good at this and a whiz at Googling so I usually get along just fine.

So this is what I don’t understand: Why do the developers of Open Source Software even bother? I mean, what’s the point?

Simply put, open source software is software where the code that makes up that software (often called the “source”) is freely distributable. Anyone can download it, modify it to suit their needs, correct bugs, add features or even use it as a base to build their own version of the software. And there’s no cost associated with either using it or obtaining the source code.

The kicker is that the majority of developers of all this open source software do not get paid for their efforts ergo what’s the point?

Am I missing something here?

Take the current situation. I’m typing this post using TinyMCE which is a web based, javascript HTML/WYSIWYG editor–which is open source.

This TinyMCE editor is part of the WordPress install which runs my beloved old blog here. WordPress is open source.

I’m accessing all this using Mozilla’s Firefox–which is open source.

And all of this is taking place using the Ubuntu 9.10 desktop OS–which is also open source.

As I stated above, the majority of these developers (who range from all over the world) do not get paid. These folks are doing all this work, putting in their own time and effort to help build these programs and operating systems and they just give it all away at the end.

Every piece of software I mentioned above, relatively speaking, has only a handful or less of paid developers working behind the scenes on any one of these projects, say around 5 to 10 percent? That leaves around 90 to 95 percent of these developers, support people, testers, forum moderators, documentation writers, wiki maintainers and whoever else is contributing their time on any given project, working on a strictly voluntary basis.

And then they just give it all away? This is a business model? I’m amazed this stuff even exists let alone work as well as it does.

So what’s in it for all these non-paid individuals anyway?

Does it look good on their resumes? Does it give them a deep abiding sense of personal satisfaction? Does it help them in their chosen field? Do they do this just because it’s there? What?

Why am I able to sit here writing up this post using all this rather high quality free and open software that was developed by people who weren’t paid–that I didn’t have to pay for?

What’s the catch? Why does it even exist?

Perhaps I’m just too cynical but the world I live in there’s no such thing as a free lunch. The only thing I ever get without handing out a chunk of change is the junk mail I find in my mailbox every morning. And yet here I am munching happily away on a new post without having paid for anything except  hardware and hosting. And as far as the hardware’s concerned this computer I’m working on right now is 7 years old which, by today’s standards, makes it effectively worthless. Yet it’s fast, efficient, reliable and does everything I need it to do. And the operating system and all the software that’s running on it didn’t cost me a dime.

People developing quality software for no pay and then giving it away.

I just don’t get it.