I read the article ‘How Is Open Source Special?’ in this week. The article says that open source projects are decentralized and transparent. The author means by ‘transparent’ is that all of the information of the software is available to anyone who wants to know about it.
In addition, the author quotes a passage from Bill Joy, one of the founders of Sun Microsystems, “no matter what your company is, most of the smart people in the world work somewhere else.” By mentioning this statement, the author is trying to say that open source is a way of employing those smart people. The author states that even though open source project takes a huge amount of time, and someone who works in the project is not getting paid, he/she will still participate in the project because the project helps him or her establish his or her reputations for better jobs.
I somewhat agree with the author’s point. However, I don’t believe that is the only reason for someone who works in open source projects. As the author mentioned, participating in the open source project will take a lot of time and efforts. I believe somebody who joins a project not only expect to be personally benefited from the project such as building reputations or getting a good job, but also purely appreciate his or her endeavor to make change for a software, create improvement, and distribute enhanced version to help others and make the world better.
I agree--why is it so hard for some to understand that there doesn't have to be an extrinsic factor to motivate someone to do what is right. I tend to think of an open source author as a teacher on a larger scale--someone who is just trying to help others learn the best the can. It is the intrinsic motivation that many teachers feel--that teaching is a calling, not in it for the money or prestige, or the resume building. It is strictly for the purpose of helping others learn.
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