On Fri, 25 May 2007 20:31:27 +0530, Anant Narayanan <anant@xxxxxx> said:
Manoj Srivastava wrote:
This is not an unlaudable goal. I wonder, though, how prevalent that
view is amongst the worker bees of free software, as opposed to the
armchair intellectuals. In my experience with people in free
software development, I have never heard the goal above stated as a
major motivator (and never heard it stated so succinctly).
It is true that most of the *current* free software is a result of
scratching your own itch. But the entire GNU project was founded with
the exact goal of being a replacement for the then proprietary Unix -
and what good is a replacement that isn't used by the masses?
Over the course of time, free software developers; or the worker bees
as you call them, have indeed forgotten the *original* motivation
behind free software.
A trend perhaps started by Linus - I doubt if he really knew the moral
and social implications of releasing his kernel under the GPL. He did
it simply because he really didn't care if the source was visible to
the whole world, something that any university student his age would
have done at the time.
Let's not forget that the "armchair intellectuals" of today were the
"worker bees" of the past, albeit, with different motivations.
- not only for the greater good of the society but also for the
developers of the software itself. I quote from Frederick P. Brooke's
"The Mythical Man-Month":
"Why is programming fun? What delights may its practitioner expect as
his reward? <snip> The pleasure of making things that are useful to
others. Deep within, we want others to use our work and to find it
helpful. In this respect the programming system is not essentially
different from a child's first clay pencil holder `for daddy's
office`"
I don't question the motivation of free software developers. However,
I oppose the view that free software developers shouldn't care about
whether their software is used by the masses or not.
As long as there are people ready to do the pushing voluntarily, the
problem is solved. The worker bees keep developing software for
whatever reason - while others spend time in convincing the masses to
use that software. The free software community is not only made of
developers who can code but also of people who are interested in
spreading its message.
Of course, a small percentage of free software developers *can* afford
to keep "free society" as their major motivator: a vast majority of
university professors and students - who have nothing to lose. And of
course, people who are paid to write free software.
The essence here is not to forget the original goal of free software
development - and one of the objectives is to get the masses to use
it. The OLPC project is an exemplary example.
