[Dominic Harr]

These guys are contributing to open source because of a desire to give something back to their community -- not because of greed and selfishness (the basis of Rand's theory).

Then you shouldn't have a problem coming up with someone like that, then.

Face it, you're wrong.

"Doesn't justify the effort involved"?

That just said a whole lot about you. Believe it or not, most of the best coders do it because we love it. The pay is nice, but I'd be doing this even if I wasn't being paid. Heck, I *did* do this before ever being paid.

And that may be why you just can't understand the OS movement. As I said, it's a "group jam" for programmers. Is a musician jamming with his friends doing it out of a "desire to give something back to the community"?

No. It's pure selfishness.

You know why I do some open source work on the side? Because I can't tell you how much seeing that source code is worth to me. To see how other people do things, to see real-world techniques and patterns in use. I end up using all of that knowledge in my job. It makes me a better developer, and increases my pay. I can give my boss better solutions more quickly.

You blow that off as unworthy of effort. Man, that alone tells me something.

[Bush2000]

Then you shouldn't have a problem coming up with someone like that, then. Face it, you're wrong.

No. The facts contradict your attempt to link open source developers with Rand. To rand, selfishness is the motivation and the glue of capitalism. These guys aren't acting out of self-interest at all. Hence, your link is bogus.

[Crispy]

" That just said a whole lot about you. Believe it or not, most of the best coders do it because we love it. The pay is nice, but I'd be doing this even if I wasn't being paid. Heck, I *did* do this before ever being paid."

I agree with this 100%. I get paid well to be a programmer and I enjoy my job. I also occasionally do coding as a hobby for free. I love this too.