Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Nice people with problems and money

Author:Andrew Duncan
Posted:8/29/2000; 2:11:18 AM
Topic:scriptingNews outline for 8/28/2000
Msg #:20448 (In response to 20400)
Prev/Next:20447 / 20449

Eric Kidd says he works for nice people with problems and money.

I've been thinking about that a fair bit since. I like it.

Somebody else said you get what you pay for. If you pay zero for some open source, what did you get? Some source code, not the expertese of whoever wrote it. So what is the source worth? Close to zero I'd say, unless you can ask the author questions.

Suppose you have a project that you used some open source code to build, and the project is in trouble. Will the authors of the open source code coming running to the rescue? Fat chance.

Do any of the open source licences obligate the author to help in any projects where his code is used? Not bloody likely mate.

But wait, there's more! Do I give away the source for things I have written, asking nothing nothing in return? Absolutely. Ask Scott Burton or Daniel Springett, or have a look at some of my sites.

Do I help people out, asking nothing in return? Yup. Ask Don Finlay about the RealBasic demo program I wrote for him, to help him get his project unstuck.

So you tell me, am I a mercenary?

There are responses to this message:

This page was archived on 6/13/2001; 4:56:21 PM.

© Copyright 1998-2001 UserLand Software, Inc.