Very Computer

I don't think anyone has such statistics.

I was paid while developing BRL 1, started BRL 2 on my own time, and am
now paid to maintain/improve it.

--
Bruce R. Lewis                          http://brl.sourceforge.net/

WRT open-source programming for pay vs. programming for the love of
programming, it depends on the nature of the application.  PERL came from a
business demand and many sysadmin and programming tools would likewise come
from the (good) laziness of employees.  Open-source games probably come more
from personal itch ("it sure would be fun to be able to play ___ on my
computer" vs. "there must be an easier way to do my job").  In neither case is
pay explicitly directed to the programming effort.  In both cases the employer
benefits (games--> less stressed employee, more creative employee (diversion of
attention increases creativity); admin tools--> less stressed employee, more
employee time for other activities).

My guess would be that only a small percentage of open-source efforts are
explicitly funded with business goals (though that may be changing).

WRT 'the love of programming,' even explicitly paid efforts are usually for the
love of programming.  People who program only for monetary pay are likely to be
poor programmers (aside from being less concerned about program aesthetics--the
money-motivated programmer tends to concentrate on minimally satisfying a
specification, the for-love programmer seeks artistic satisfaction).  OTOH,
unless the artistic programmer is constrained by time (i.e., must work full
time on other matters or must complete the project so it can be used), the
artistic programmer can be vulnerable to baroque implementation.

Paul A. Clayton
Just a former McD.'s grill worker and technophile

I can only speak as to why I contribute to open source. (But I think this is
the most common)

I do *not* get paid to develop open source. I get paid to design and write
software. Most of the time, there is an open source project that will help me
get the job done. If I can add features or fix bugs that help me, I contribute
those back.

You get enough of people like me, and a couple "owners" that manage the actual
project, you get some pretty high quality stuff being contributed.

Also, a lot of projects have mailing lists. People receive mail about what's
going on and can often interject an opinion or experience.

Open source is really a great way to get comprehensive building blocks made.
Projects like PostgreSQL, Apache, PHP, OpenSSL, KDE, etc. are amazing.

PostgreSQL is a very good example an open source project being funded by
commercial vendors. Some small core of people manage PostgreSQL, employed by a
couple companies. The companies sell support and manuals. The rank and file
others contribute a patch for a feature, here and there, but the core team does
most of the work and the integration.

Everybody wins. The vendor gets a system they could not have hoped to created
in any reasonable amount of time, yet they can be a VAR and offer support and
expertise. The open source community gets a great database, and the company
gets the benefit of many people, of mostly expert level skills, looking over
their product and improving it for real world applications.

Closed source development no longer makes sense in light of this model. True
competition by value of service. True quality assurence at the source code
level.

--
I'm not offering myself as an example; every life evolves by its own laws.
------------------------
http://www.mohawksoft.com

I'm not sure anyone does know because it's such a herd of cats.  There
are a lot of projects, and many of them have a mixture of in-house
programmers, programmers whose employers allow them to develop to Linux
on company time (Linus is in this position), independents who do IT and
also develop on an open source product (Apache has a lot of these), and
straight "for the good of the code" types.  

--
Don't get even -- get odd!

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