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

[Dave Froble]

On 5/17/2018 2:32 PM, Craig A. Berry wrote:
> 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?

You mean other than chasing the ladies and flying?  No.  Small things 
maybe, but when it's a major project, and others can benefit, then 
perhaps they should share the costs.

> Sure, everyone needs a paycheck, but once you have
> that, does it always govern the sum total of everything you are
> interested in doing?

I'm interested in flying.  But I have no desire to fund the flying of 
others.  Helpful, yes.  Funding, no.

> 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, that's different.  When a person is getting paid, even if it's for 
free software, that is a totally different thing.  I'm thinking many 
tend to mistake the two things.

> 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.

I've never expected one cent for anything I've contributed.  Sort of 
goes along with the definition of "contribute".