Re: your edit, I am also baffled by this idea that open source and paid developers cannot exist. In this case it's the government which technically doesn't hav

Re: your edit, I am also baffled by this idea that open source and paid developers cannot exist. In this case it's the government which technically doesn't have to actually make money (budgets, tho), but it can work in non-governmental situations too. Maybe via consulting/support on the technology, grants/donations (OpenSSL, now), maybe just making it open to foster contributions and long-term maintenance[0]. Maybe the actual software isn't the company's main focus and open-sourcing the code is just a way of ensuring accountability and quality. IME, people are actually far more conscientious when they know they code/docs could be read by anyone for all time... even if it probably won't. [0] I'll grant that this is probably quite rare. That's not the point... the point is that there are many potential reasons for open-sourcing.