Doesn't it make developers mad??

[daniel]

On October 28, 2004 04:46 pm, faraz khan wrote:
> I adore linux , I adore KDE and i adore the people who work on this (I do
> too, but not much at all to be noticed). I am becoming a part of a company
> that will become a OSS consultancy in Pakistan. I have a VERY basic and
> philosophical question that has been raised by my investor and left
> unanswered, maybe you can help me out.
>
> He says: Using OSS, the Hardware vendor makes money- the consultant makes
> money, supporter makes money.. EVERYBODY but the poor developer. He wants
> to know how, without money, will these developers be able to sustain such
> development?
>
> I do my work just for fun.. gives me great pleasure in watching my programs
> being used by others.. Dont you guys wish u would benefit off this too?
> doesnt it make u mad that everybody else up the chain is reaping benefits
> but not you?
>
> Just looking for opinions.. I thought KDE might be the best place to ask
> since this is ONE MAMMOTH of a OSS project- taking a lot of developer time.

something i've not heard mentioned yet, but has always been my reasoning 
behind contribution to Free software is that the reward is the contribution 
of others to the same project.

if this type of collaboration never existed (or was never permitted to exist) 
someone could create a really sweet web browser / file manager (say 
konqueror) and that's all it would ever be.  but now, those responsible for 
konqueror can benefit from it's integration with any number of other apps 
they had nothing to do with, not the least of which the new crystal icons 
made for kde3 or the xine libs that allow for video preview.

making your software Free doesn't mean you're not compensated, it means you're 
compensated by the community in different ways.  now we all have really great 
tools to make really great stuff and hopefully some of that "stuff" will 
contribute to the next wave of Free software, and so on.

-- 
Everybody dies, Tracey. Somebody's carrying a bullet for you right now and 
doesn't even know it. The trick is to die of old age before it finds you.
 - Mal to Tracey, Firefly, "The Message"
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