Sara Chipps 
Who the Frag Has Time For Open Source?
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The other day I was reading Jeff Atwood's blog post discussing why OO.o couldn't attract people to their open source initiative. He made some great points about it being OO's job to attract the developers to them by offering a worry-free coding environment and catering to their needs. I completely agree, but it really got me to wonder. When on earth do I have time to contribute to an open source project?
Now some my think I live a jet-set glamourus life with my spray on tan and my beautiful friends, but really those fun crazy times are few and far between. What my life really exists of is work(which I enjoy doing), development, Tivo, take-out, and Reddit. In that order. When I am doing development work I'm working on the parts of my project that I don't have time for during the day. The refactoring, the "not cutting corners", the things I didn't have time to do. Not just this project either. I've been like that as long as I can remember, about every project I care about. I'm thinking about the project, not something new.
Do you do open source? Most of you have children and families at home, I can't imagine that you have time between bed time stories and washing the dinner dishes to get to know a new project and care enough about it to get seriously involved.
I mean, I don't know about you guys but I get approached all the time by people looking for a developer that does "side work." "You can just throw something small together." Nevermind the reality behind "something small," but I always say "no, sorry, I don't have time." That's stuff I would get PAID for, not free.
Do I use open source stuff? Sure. Do I support the projects? Absolu. However, I definitely need a clone if I ever think about getting involved in one.
(Note: Opinions expressed in this article and its replies are the opinions of their respective authors and not those of DZone, Inc.)
Comments
Steven Baker replied on Mon, 2009/02/02 - 4:29pm
Michael Mol replied on Mon, 2009/02/02 - 4:58pm
Andrej Koelewijn replied on Mon, 2009/02/02 - 5:16pm
Complete nonsense. Most opensource is created by companies: employed programmers payed to work on opensource software.
Have a look at the linux stats: mostly company sponsored developers. Red Hat, Linux foundation, Oracle, Intel, just to name a few.
Companies pay for opensource because it allows them to do things with opensource, what they couldn't do with closed source. Innovate by changing the code, sell cheaper products, open monopolized markets, etc.
A lot of the more succesful open source projects has been created by payed programmers. Open Source is just another way for companies to create software. The big difference is the possibility to collaborate with other companies, because the source is available to everyone.
This is not just the case with linux. A lot of the java software is also commercial software: JBoss (redhat), Glassfish (sun), ServiceMix (progress), SpringFramework (interface 21), etc...
So what Sun should be doing isn't looking for hobby programmers, but other companies who would also benefit from a better OpenOffice (eg., companies that sell netbooks with linux installed).
I've written about this some week ago: Open source is not about free labor
Pe S17 replied on Mon, 2009/02/02 - 11:26pm
Well, actually, it is rather about mindset and community around... Looking at .NET world there are not that many OSS projects, are there? Probably because the mindset there is, as you stated "That's stuff I would get PAID for, not free."
Well, at my job, we are involved in quite a few OSS projects. We are definitely not the brains behind any of those but if we find a bug, we fix that and contribute back. I think that is pretty much healthy relationship.
Really, you have never found a bug to fix or a simple feature you wanted to implement to help you - and others - and do that just for pure fun and reward which comes in the form of appreciation instead of €?
Howard Fore replied on Tue, 2009/02/03 - 12:06pm