Hi, There's lots of free software around. How do the poeple who make this stuff make enough money to buy food and stuff? Cheers, BD.

They work for money as well. For instance, I do a lot of bugspotting and patching for OSS, and am working on an open-source 3d game engine, but that's only in my free time -- my paying job is database and web programming for a telecommunications company.

I can think of a couple of ways: support and maintenance and service. Also some projects take donations. Not everybody has the tools to compile their own versions. My brother does shareware for a living, ok, it's not open source but he's doing very well from it. If you do quality work people are willing to pay for it, open source or not.

Also many OSS people are doing their OSS stuff as a hobby or entertainment and not as a 9-5 job.

Thanks for your replies.

Quote: my paying job is database and web programming for a telecommunications company

Would OSS purists prefer that the code you write for this company also be open source?

Quote: Original post by Barn Door
Would OSS purists prefer that the code you write for this company also be open source?

Better question: Who cares?

Quote: Original post by Barn Door
Would OSS purists prefer that the code you write for this company also be open source?

Why would they? Better to ask if my company would prefer that I not write OSS code -- some do. (Mine doesn't, and in any case my free time isn't in their jurisdiction.)

Quote: Better question: Who cares?

I do. Can't you tell?

Quote: Original post by TDragon

Quote: Original post by Barn Door
Would OSS purists prefer that the code you write for this company also be open source?

Why would they?

They might have a utopian vision of a world where all software is free and there's no concept of ownership.

Then you answered your question. If OSS purists had a utopian vision of the world in which all software was free and there was no concept of ownership, then they would prefer that the code I write for my job be OSS.

But I don't know if they do have that vision.