On Fri, 22 Apr 2005, Ryan Ware wrote: > ... One begins to see why a lot of ISV's are not beating the door down > to make a Linux version. I certainly don't mean to pick on you directly > Dwight. I'm just wondering about a culture in which everyone seems to > want everything for nothing and how that culture will ultimately sustain > itself or attract new development. Maybe I need to go read the > Cathedral and the Bazaar or somesuch, but it just doesn't make sense to > me today. The culture of consumers isn't what sustains the free software movement. It's the culture of the programmers. People do things without being paid. For example, some people like to maintain a pretty yard and beautiful flowers. This reflects well on them, they think, or maybe they just enjoy looking at their yards and gardens. No one pays them to do this. I think at this point it is pretty obvious that many programmers are willing to work thousands of hours without pay on free software projects because they like doing it. They often get some money, probably not a lot, but it's a really cool thing to work on and we all appreciate their efforts. Their program does what they want it to do, which also is nice. Also bear in mind that some programmers are relatively poor (by US standards) people living in places where it would be hard for them to get work as programmes. Contributing to projects allows them to make a name for themselves internationally. Anyway, I don't see this falling apart any time soon, or ever actually. It's nothing like the "dot-com bubble," for example. Mike