On Saturday 11 July 2009, Siddhesh Poyarekar wrote:
On Sat, Jul 11, 2009 at 12:05 PM, jtdjtd@mtnl.net.in wrote:
Are there stats about unpaid contributors becoming paid contributors after contribution v/s contributors who have been shifted from closed projects to FLOSS (and still being paid).
Maybe someone who has been on the FOSS development scene much longer can comment on the unpaid FOSS contributor to paid FOSS contributor shift.
Must keep in mind to search for such stats. Would be very intersting.
As for the shift from closed to open, I don't believe it can happen unless the contributors actually *get* what the entire idea of FOSS means. If they don't value the thrill of seeing your code run on hundreds of thousands of computers or the feeling of enlightenment every time someone improves upon your work, it just does not matter.
True. But that is looking at things in a yellow light only.
Secondly what is the alternative available to the closed company and its apps? We know it's easy to produce code, but exceedingly hard to prevent bitrot. So original code contributions would IMO be more a requirement rather than an option. As each individual subsystem becomes a smaller part of the whole ecosystem, it will be a nightmare to keep things barely workable in a closed env.
I guess bitrot does not matter for closed companies as long as it generates revenue for them. Hit their revenues and they will look to innovate. The same goes for some major FOSS projects as well, but the payoff in their case is not revenues -- it is mindshare. Honestly, look under the hood of firefox only if you're really really brave. The same goes for OpenOffice.org. They are not improving all that much under the hood because no one significant is challenging them in that area. They're usable and feature-rich and that is good enough. Firefox is now scrambling to get its act together with Google Chrome giving it some serious competition with superior stability and speed.
Koffice. Havent tried in in a while, but a client started using Koffice instead of OO and does not know the difference.
Agreed. But Close the source and you have shut all chances. Opening it at least permits prevention.