[Info-vax] Ada on VMS, was: Re: Free Pascal for VMS ?

[Craig A. Berry]

On 5/17/18 11:16 AM, Dave Froble wrote:
> On 5/16/2018 7:35 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:

>> And the last couple of decades people have written code
>> with a formal open source license.
>>
>> And it was rather clear (in my opinion) that they would
>> never get paid for that.
>>
>> But they chose to do it anyway.
> 
> Which makes no sense ....

Have you never had work that you were passionate enough about that
getting paid to do it wasn't the reason, or at least not the only
reason, for doing it? Sure, everyone needs a paycheck, but once you have
that, does it always govern the sum total of everything you are
interested in doing?

Sometimes people are motivated by getting the respect of their peers,
learning new things, or just helping other people. Some companies
recognize the value of having employees "waste time" meaningfully and
encourage them to spend one day a week working on whatever they want to,
and quite a few of them spend it on open source. Others contribute on
their own time and it has nothing to do with their day jobs.

Now if someone published code under an open source license and wondered
why the tip jar never got full enough to pay the rent, then yes, that
person's choices make no sense. But that is not typically how open
source works.