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...why did you put in all the effort up front to develop it yourself? Because I've spent most of my life working with people who are convinced they're good, wh

...why did you put in all the effort up front to develop it yourself? Because I've spent most of my life working with people who are convinced they're good, when they're not. If they were, they'd have worked, or be working for the likes of Apple, Google, Facebook or Microsoft. I'm so very, very tired of charismatic but incompetent hackers. That is the second reason for creating the software. The first was because I needed a database that works offline and syncs across all my devices. The other problem with open source dev is dealing with the impossible egos. I want to write good code. I don't give a damn what anyone thinks of my language choice, code style or lack of dress sense.

rwl 12y ago
> The other problem with open source dev is dealing with the impossible egos. I want to write good code. I don't give a damn what anyone thinks of my language choice, code style or lack of dress sense. It's funny -- in my (perhaps limited) experience, most of the 'impossible egos' I've seen in the FOSS community belong to people who have similar concerns. They have put a lot of effort into developing a project in a certain way, and are frustrated and annoyed when a Johnny-come-lately coder appears and demands they do something differently. The attitude comes from needing to protect a successful project from 'contributions' that, if unchecked, could ruin the code or the community. It's true that running a successful FOSS project requires managing both your code and your community. You will never be able to just write good code if you want your project to thrive. Maybe you're not into that; that's fine. But, as you well know, that means you have to take on all of the tasks that a healthy FOSS community could otherwise help you out with, like testing, debugging, and writing documentation. If you're eventually hoping to be compensated for doing all that work yourself by selling copies of your software, you're still going to have to do more than just write good code. You're going to have to market it. Personally, I'd rather help manage a healthy development community than try my hand at marketing. Again, maybe you feel differently, but the point is that there's more to do than just write the code, unless you only care about using it yourself. A FOSS community can help you with that; so to answer your original question, that's the benefit.

rwl 12y ago

> The other problem with open source dev is dealing with the impossible egos. I want to write good code. I don't give a damn what anyone thinks of my language choice, code style or lack of dress sense. It's funny -- in my (perhaps limited) experience, most of the 'impossible egos' I've seen in the FOSS community belong to people who have similar concerns. They have put a lot of effort into developing a project in a certain way, and are frustrated and annoyed when a Johnny-come-lately coder appears and demands they do something differently. The attitude comes from needing to protect a successful project from 'contributions' that, if unchecked, could ruin the code or the community. It's true that running a successful FOSS project requires managing both your code and your community. You will never be able to just write good code if you want your project to thrive. Maybe you're not into that; that's fine. But, as you well know, that means you have to take on all of the tasks that a healthy FOSS community could otherwise help you out with, like testing, debugging, and writing documentation. If you're eventually hoping to be compensated for doing all that work yourself by selling copies of your software, you're still going to have to do more than just write good code. You're going to have to market it. Personally, I'd rather help manage a healthy development community than try my hand at marketing. Again, maybe you feel differently, but the point is that there's more to do than just write the code, unless you only care about using it yourself. A FOSS community can help you with that; so to answer your original question, that's the benefit.