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A comment on Why do programmers write apps and then make them free.

Re:Why do programmers write apps and then make them free by hasenj on Sunday February 06, 2011 @06:36AM (#2185437)
I'm at a point where I'm actually afraid to use any infrastructure that's not open source, and I think many developers/hackers feel the same.

If I were to write a library/tool that lies more on the "infrastructure" side than the "product" side, I would open source it because I would be scared to depend on infrastructure that's not open source. Also, because I will get much better value out of it if people more talented than me took part in its development.

If node.js wasn't open source, I wouldn't even bother looking at it. If I looked at it, I wouldn't use it, just because it's not open source. I wouldn't trust one company to do it right. But I trust the hacker community to make it rock.

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Re:Why do programmers write apps and then make them free by robryan on Sunday February 06, 2011 @07:00AM (#2185461)
Definitely for infrastructure, but usually if a project is valuable to many businesses/ individuals there will be many contributors so the burden falls less on a few people to dedicate their lives to something everyone else is drawing benefit.

The dynamics are quiet different I think for small single person OSS.

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