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> You seem to be having a problem understanding why people would be motivated to release genuinely free software. Yes, I do have a problem understanding why pe

• Jedd 9y ago
  > Yes, I do have a problem understanding why people work for free. And yet, despite your inability to understand it, it continues to happen. A lot. I suspect part of the challenge is your misuse (or just misapplication) of the word 'work'.
• Wintamute 9y ago
  How are you paying Andrew? That makes no sense.
  • geocar 9y ago
    Andrew S. Tanenbaum works for a publicly funded (tax dollars) research university.
    • ddalex 9y ago
      That would be tax euros, actually.
  • jcelerier 9y ago
    with whose money do you think researchers are paid ?
  • jhasse 9y ago
    taxes
• boomlinde 9y ago
  Free or open source software doesn't imply working for free. A copy of your software doesn't (necessarily) entail additional work. I guess whether people in general "work for free" depends on how you define "work" and "free". I work on many different things purely for their utility to my friends and me personally, or just for the fun of creating something. I work and I gain something from it, so the time spent on it is paid for. Call it hobbies or normal social courtesy, it's still work by any reasonable definition. It's also not free; I expect it to benefit me in some way, whether it's by having a great time doing it or the satisfaction of seeing someone else enjoy the product or helping my friends have a good time.
  • geocar 9y ago
    > I guess whether people in general "work for free" depends on how you define "work" and "free". Then allow me to be clear: If you want to do something, and you get some kind of psychic reward for it; like volunteering in a soup kitchen, then that's great. But if you're only doing that because you're afraid of going to hell, then someone has convinced you to work for free. If you make some software, and someone tells you how great it would be if it did different things, and then gets offended when you send them your day-rate, so you do it anyway, then someone has convinced you to work for free. If you've got a more useful definition of "working for free" then I'm happy to hear it, and entertain it, but understand this kind of anathematic servitude is what I'm pointing to: I think these guys who go around trying to convince people that releasing "open source" is somehow "more free" and that "freedom is good" is a little bit like we've always been at war with Eastasia. It doesn't make sense to me: In a twisted sort of way, a slaveowner is more free than a non-slaveowner because they don't have obligations (like to work), but it doesn't make this sort of thing right. Being a slaveowner isn't right even if being free is. > A copy of your software doesn't (necessarily) entail additional work. The nth copy of my software cost 1/n of my time. One way to consider this is as n gets large, the cost goes to zero, but another way to consider it is as n gets large, the value of my time goes to infinity. I'm in the latter category, and perhaps this is confusing becauseI contribute to, and release a fair amount of Free Software. However if the only thing that can approach being worth my time is your time, then you'll see why I can't consider any "open source" license for my own software: I don't work for free.