Current mood: a little stressed
Current tunes: Wintersun - Starchild
Open-source software development is a wonderful method of developing programs. It pools the talents hundreds of developers around the world. However, open-source will never replace closed-source software development. The reason is that humans are primarily motivated by self-interest and open-source development does not encourage this behavior. In a perfect open-source world, programmers would contribute to many different projects, and all software would be free. Programmers would make money by donations to their projects by those who use them. Unfortunately, this model cannot work because when something is available for free, why would anyone pay money for it? How many programs, apps, and services have we used which ask for donations and we never contribute (sorry Jimmy Wales)? Programmers need a guaranteed source of income so they work for companies which must keep their software secret so they can gain revenue. Open-source software is a great ideal and has brought many innovations to the world, but it will never replace traditional closed-source software.
I agree. Even though open-source software development will never be the breadwinner for developers, I still think it will continue to thrive on hobbyists and self-motivated developers.
ReplyDelete