3 ms·

Github (and indeed most open source) projects are not created out of a sense of altruism. How many people treat github as an online resume? These projects are m

Github (and indeed most open source) projects are not created out of a sense of altruism. How many people treat github as an online resume? These projects are meant primarily to show off people's coding capabilities in order to sell services, and are not the primary means of making money. These people get a full-time salary writing custom code for businesses. This approach does not apply to most artists. Nobody is going to pay an author a full-time salary to write new books just for them, or a musician to make new music just for them. The better option for most artists is to invest in creating the best work they can and sell it for commodity prices to a lot of people.

pvdebbe 11y ago
"I like your music. Would you like to compose something for our movie/game?" Is this too far fetched?
TeMPOraL 11y ago
> How many people treat github as an online resume? These projects are meant primarily to show off people's coding capabilities in order to sell service That's what it is now, and the reason it happened was because Github was full of projects created out of a sense of altruism and fun, and it got respected this way. Yes, the respect and popularity Github has stems not from code-resume-builders, but from the altruists and people doing fun shit for fun that came before. You see, this is a pattern that repeats all over software industry, the whole Internet included. First you start with people doing something to actually do it (i.e. as a terminal goal). Then whatever useful and/or fun they made gets recognized, popularized, and some people smell a money making opportunity (i.e. doing stuff as an instrumental goal, to get money). The business comes and the whole environment turns to shit.
scotty79 11y ago
> This approach does not apply to most artists. Nobody is going to pay an author a full-time salary to write new books just for them, or a musician to make new music just for them. That's exactly how it worked before invention of phonograph. > The better option for most artists is to invest in creating the best work they can and sell it for commodity prices to a lot of people. That's absolutely absurd. For one person that strikes gold and makes comfy living, five will make some living and hundreds will have no money from their creative bets. Create something in hope someone will buy it is most of the time very inefficient way to attempt to make money. It's way easier to find people who will buy your stuff and make it for them.

pvdebbe 11y ago

"I like your music. Would you like to compose something for our movie/game?" Is this too far fetched?

TeMPOraL 11y ago

> How many people treat github as an online resume? These projects are meant primarily to show off people's coding capabilities in order to sell service That's what it is now, and the reason it happened was because Github was full of projects created out of a sense of altruism and fun, and it got respected this way. Yes, the respect and popularity Github has stems not from code-resume-builders, but from the altruists and people doing fun shit for fun that came before. You see, this is a pattern that repeats all over software industry, the whole Internet included. First you start with people doing something to actually do it (i.e. as a terminal goal). Then whatever useful and/or fun they made gets recognized, popularized, and some people smell a money making opportunity (i.e. doing stuff as an instrumental goal, to get money). The business comes and the whole environment turns to shit.

scotty79 11y ago

> This approach does not apply to most artists. Nobody is going to pay an author a full-time salary to write new books just for them, or a musician to make new music just for them. That's exactly how it worked before invention of phonograph. > The better option for most artists is to invest in creating the best work they can and sell it for commodity prices to a lot of people. That's absolutely absurd. For one person that strikes gold and makes comfy living, five will make some living and hundreds will have no money from their creative bets. Create something in hope someone will buy it is most of the time very inefficient way to attempt to make money. It's way easier to find people who will buy your stuff and make it for them.