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> Actually, the quintessential open source project is a developer scratching his own back. That's not particularly altruistic. He wrote the software to scratch
by capisce 14y ago
> Actually, the quintessential open source project is a developer scratching his own back. That's not particularly altruistic.
He wrote the software to scratch his own back, and now he needs a reason to release it as open source for others to use. My point was that altruism would be just a good (if not better) a reason to release it as any of the other reasons listed by btilly.
- mseebach 14y agoIn my book near-zero cost actions can't be meaningfully altruistic - in that case the term gets so watered down that it's essentially meaningless.
- capisce 14y agoAltruism can be part of the reasons for writing new open source code too. For example in a specific case the set of reasons can be that it's fun, it's a learning experience, it markets the coder's skills, _and_ it provides free value to others. It doesn't have to be the only reason, and I'm not necessarily talking about "pure" altruism here (if there is such a thing), but rather about a general concern for the welfare of others.