Yep. Eric Raymond has a good write-up of this phenomenon, which is called a gift culture. http://catb.org/esr/writings/homesteading/homesteading/ar01s06.html

Yep. Eric Raymond has a good write-up of this phenomenon, which is called a gift culture. http://catb.org/esr/writings/homesteading/homesteading/ar01s06.html http://catb.org/esr/writings/homesteading/homesteading/ar01s... the society of open-source hackers is in fact a gift culture... in which the only available measure of competitive success is reputation among one's peers. But I think that only applies to open source, not to what we do for a living.