Motivation of software professionals
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From: Leif Roar Moldskred on 13 Feb 2010 13:32 In comp.lang.java.programmer Seebs <usenet-nospam(a)seebs.net> wrote: > > Agreed. > > But it's crucial infrastructure, and any policy discouraging it would deal > immense damage to fundamental infrastructure. > > People *MUST* be free to give code away without any kind of liability. Why? We're not today, and the gears of the open source engine appears fairly well greased regardless. -- Leif Roar Moldskred
From: Seebs on 13 Feb 2010 13:34 On 2010-02-13, Leif Roar Moldskred <leifm(a)huldreheim.homelinux.org> wrote: > Why? We're not today, and the gears of the open source engine appears fairly > well greased regardless. In practice we are -- you can give stuff away labeled "WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY" and no one seems to feel this is a problem. The proposal that we should legislate that software CANNOT be distributed without warranty would be destructive. -s -- Copyright 2010, all wrongs reversed. Peter Seebach / usenet-nospam(a)seebs.net http://www.seebs.net/log/ <-- lawsuits, religion, and funny pictures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Game_(Scientology) <-- get educated!
From: Keith Thompson on 13 Feb 2010 14:43 Seebs <usenet-nospam(a)seebs.net> writes: [...] > They might be hard to apply, but consider that a great deal of free > software is written without idiots saying "you need to get this done sooner > so we can book revenue this quarter to please shareholders". It's also > often written by particularly good developers, who care about their code. [...] I'm not convinced that the majority of free software is of particularly high quality. But I think that most free software that's sufficiently popular that you or I have heard of it does tend to be of high quality. There are (at least) two effects here: good free software tends to become popular, and useful free software attracts good developers. The latter effect is less pronounced in non-free software; however much I might like some proprietary software package, I'm not likely to switch jobs so I can work on it. But if you looked at the universe of free software, I'd be surprised if Sturgeon's Law didn't apply (90% of everything is crud). -- Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) kst-u(a)mib.org <http://www.ghoti.net/~kst> Nokia "We must do something. This is something. Therefore, we must do this." -- Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, "Yes Minister"
From: Seebs on 13 Feb 2010 15:04 On 2010-02-13, Keith Thompson <kst-u(a)mib.org> wrote: > I'm not convinced that the majority of free software is of > particularly high quality. But I think that most free software > that's sufficiently popular that you or I have heard of it does > tend to be of high quality. There are (at least) two effects here: > good free software tends to become popular, and useful free software > attracts good developers. The latter effect is less pronounced > in non-free software; however much I might like some proprietary > software package, I'm not likely to switch jobs so I can work on it. > > But if you looked at the universe of free software, I'd be surprised > if Sturgeon's Law didn't apply (90% of everything is crud). Sure. But there's one other huge amplifying effect: You can read the source so you *know* whether or not it's any good. That helps a lot. The bad stuff tends to never go anywhere (see our spammer from last fall with his Unix daemon utility), while the good stuff tends to do quite well indeed (e.g., Rails). -s -- Copyright 2010, all wrongs reversed. Peter Seebach / usenet-nospam(a)seebs.net http://www.seebs.net/log/ <-- lawsuits, religion, and funny pictures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Game_(Scientology) <-- get educated!
From: Lew on 13 Feb 2010 15:44
Arved Sandstrom wrote: > Let's take it as a given that free software has a decent model. I've > been, and still am, a participant in the process of creating free > software, and I wouldn't do that if it wasn't a good model. However, the > main problem with it is that it engages only a small fraction of all > software developers, and accounts for only a very small fraction of all > software that is written. Only a small fraction of software developers (and I've known for a long time you were in that group) are good enough to write good software, free or otherwise. Most of us do need to get paid, and few of us can make more money than as software developers or related jobs. That gives those who are good developers little time to spare for writing free software. > But the real problem, which is not addressed by free software, and which > comprises the huge majority of all software, is custom stuff. And it is > this category that suffers, and suffers badly, from the lack of > professionalism in our field. It is this category where clients would > benefit from having proven, guaranteed quantities when it comes to > employees/contractors and products. There should be a much wider gap between the pay scale of the good developer and that of the putz or newbie. Something akin to the gap between top actors and those who have to wait tables, or top pro athletes and those in the minor leagues. -- Lew |