This is all a fascinating conversation. I have no problems with a person
that wants to profit from their work, nor do I have a problem with those
that want to work for free. Here is what I am going with on this. The
philosophy of the the internet generation is give it away for free. That is
the open-source methodology, and that is the blogger/podcaster methodology.
So now there is a problem with these two roads when you are putting in more
time working on your freely given work vs. your existing day job. That is
when people start to look for ways to profit off their free work. A blogger
starts advertising, a podcaster moves into consulting, etc. This is what
Aaron is doing now.
On one side, those contributing have to look at this project and wonder if
by contributing to this code what will I gain? If all it is is satisfaction,
great. On the other, maybe a company contributes a piece of code and by that
are able to sell more in services surrounding that code donation. If you
feel you can't contribute code, but are willing to share (non-patented)
ideas that works too. Its a community that creates a project not a group of
individuals. The big difference there is that the community is smarter than
a group of people.
I hope this makes sense...
--
Mike Wills
http://mikewills.info
P: (507) 933-0880 | Skype: koldark
midrange.com
