taler-merchant-demos

fs-motives.html (6608B)

---

  <!--#include virtual="/server/header.html" -->
 <!-- Parent-Version: 1.96 -->
 <!-- This page is derived from /server/standards/boilerplate.html -->
 <!--#set var="TAGS" value="essays upholding action" -->
 <!--#set var="DISABLE_TOP_ADDENDUM" value="yes" -->
 <title>Motives For Writing Free Software
 - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation</title>
 <!--#include virtual="/philosophy/po/fs-motives.translist" -->
 <!--#include virtual="/server/banner.html" -->
 <!--#include virtual="/philosophy/ph-breadcrumb.html" -->
 <!--GNUN: OUT-OF-DATE NOTICE-->
 <!--#include virtual="/server/top-addendum.html" -->
 <div class="article reduced-width">
 <h2>Motives For Writing Free Software</h2>
 <div class="thin"></div>
 
 <p>Don't make the mistake of supposing that all software development
 has one simple motive.  Here are some of the motives we know influence
 many people to write free software.
 </p>
 
 <dl>
 <dt>Fun</dt>
 
 <dd>For some people, often the best programmers,
 writing software is the greatest fun, especially when there is no boss
 to tell you what to do.<br />
 Nearly all free software developers share this motive.</dd>
 
 <dt>Political idealism</dt>
 
 <dd>The desire to build a world of
 freedom, and help computer users escape from the power of software
 developers.
 </dd>
 
 <dt>To be admired</dt>
 
 <dd>If you write a successful, useful
 free program, the users will admire you.  That feels very good.
 </dd>
 
 <dt>Professional reputation</dt>
 
 <dd>If you write a successful,
 useful free program, that will suffice to show you are a good
 programmer.
 </dd>
 
 <dt>Community</dt>
 
 <dd>Being part of a community by collaborating with other people in
 public free software projects is a motive for many programmers.</dd>
 
 <dt>Education</dt>
 
 <dd>If you write free software, it is often
 an opportunity to dramatically improve both your technical
 and social skills; if you are a teacher, encouraging your
 students to take part in an existing free software project or
 organizing them into a free software project may
 provide an excellent opportunity for them.</dd>
 
 <dt>Gratitude</dt>
 
 <dd>If you have used the community's free
 programs for years, and it has been important to your work, you feel
 grateful and indebted to their developers.  When you write a program
 that could be useful to many people, that is your chance to pay it
 forward.
 </dd>
 
 <dt>Hatred for Microsoft</dt>
 
 <dd>
 It is a mistake <a href="/philosophy/microsoft.html">to focus our
 criticism narrowly on Microsoft</a>.  Indeed, Microsoft is evil, since
 it makes nonfree software.  Even worse, it is
 often <a href="/philosophy/proprietary/malware-microsoft.html">
 malware</a> in various ways including
 <a href="https://DefectiveByDesign.org">DRM</a>.  However, many other
 companies do these things, and the nastiest enemy of our freedom
 nowadays is 
 <a href="/philosophy/proprietary/malware-apple.html">Apple</a>.<br />
 
 Nonetheless, it is a fact that many people utterly despise Microsoft,
 and some contribute to free software based on that feeling.
 </dd>
 
 <dt>Money</dt>
 
 <dd>A considerable number of people are paid to
 develop free software or have built businesses around it.
 </dd>
 
 <dt>Wanting a better program to use</dt>
 
 <dd>People often work on improvements in programs they use, in order to
 make them more convenient.  (Some commentators recognize no motive
 other than this, but their picture of human nature is too narrow.)
 </dd>
 
 </dl>
 
 <p>Human nature is complex, and it is quite common for a person to
 have multiple simultaneous motives for a single action.</p>
 
 <p>Each person is different, and there could be other motives that are
 missing from this list.  If you know of other motives not listed here,
 please send email to
 <a href="mailto:campaigns@gnu.org">&lt;campaigns@gnu.org&gt;</a>.  If
 we think the other motives are likely to influence many developers, we
 will add them to the list.</p>
 </div>
 
 </div><!-- for id="content", starts in the include above -->
 <!--#include virtual="/server/footer.html" -->
 <div id="footer" role="contentinfo">
 <div class="unprintable">
 
 <p>Please send general FSF &amp; GNU inquiries to
 <a href="mailto:gnu@gnu.org">&lt;gnu@gnu.org&gt;</a>.
 There are also <a href="/contact/">other ways to contact</a>
 the FSF.  Broken links and other corrections or suggestions can be sent
 to <a href="mailto:webmasters@gnu.org">&lt;webmasters@gnu.org&gt;</a>.</p>
 
 <p><!-- TRANSLATORS: Ignore the original text in this paragraph,
         replace it with the translation of these two:
 
         We work hard and do our best to provide accurate, good quality
         translations.  However, we are not exempt from imperfection.
         Please send your comments and general suggestions in this regard
         to <a href="mailto:web-translators@gnu.org">
         &lt;web-translators@gnu.org&gt;</a>.</p>
 
         <p>For information on coordinating and contributing translations of
         our web pages, see <a
         href="/server/standards/README.translations.html">Translations
         README</a>. -->
 Please see the <a
 href="/server/standards/README.translations.html">Translations
 README</a> for information on coordinating and contributing translations
 of this article.</p>
 </div>
 
 <!-- Regarding copyright, in general, standalone pages (as opposed to
      files generated as part of manuals) on the GNU web server should
      be under CC BY-ND 4.0.  Please do NOT change or remove this
      without talking with the webmasters or licensing team first.
      Please make sure the copyright date is consistent with the
      document.  For web pages, it is ok to list just the latest year the
      document was modified, or published.
      
      If you wish to list earlier years, that is ok too.
      Either "2001, 2002, 2003" or "2001-2003" are ok for specifying
      years, as long as each year in the range is in fact a copyrightable
      year, i.e., a year in which the document was published (including
      being publicly visible on the web or in a revision control system).
      
      There is more detail about copyright years in the GNU Maintainers
      Information document, www.gnu.org/prep/maintain. -->
 
 <p>Copyright &copy; 2009, 2021 Free Software Foundation, Inc.</p>
 
 <p>This page is licensed under a <a rel="license"
 href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">Creative
 Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.</p>
 
 <!--#include virtual="/server/bottom-notes.html" -->
 
 <p class="unprintable">Updated:
 <!-- timestamp start -->
 $Date: 2021/09/05 07:59:45 $
 <!-- timestamp end -->
 </p>
 </div>
 </div><!-- for class="inner", starts in the banner include -->
 </body>
 </html>