Why Do People Write Open Source Software?

M.Broil writes "Two interesting articles try to answer this question. One's at NewsForge, the other's at Cybernaut.com. The two writers reach conclusions that are almost exactly opposite. Which one is right? Or is it possible that different open source coders have different motivations? (That's what I think, anyway.)" I suspect as well that each developer has their own reason, ranging from ego to malcontent to benevolence.

They are employed by large corporations.

[Anonymous Coward]

For example, AOL pays for most of Mozilla, Sun for most of Apache and Openoffice.org, IBM for most of Linux kernel, Red Hat and Sun for GNOME...

Most people who develop for the big open source projects work directly or indirectly (through sponsorship of individual developers and smaller companies) for large corporations.

I'm sure most open source developers are there to scratch the itch, but those low profile projects are often less complete, more buggy, and entirely redundant.

Boston Research group

[Sepper]

Didn't the study from the Boston Research group address that question? (study done "In Cooperation with OSDN")

http://www.bcg.com/media_center/media_press_releas e_subpage72.asp

OVERALL HACKER MOTIVATIONS

1. Intellectually stimulating 43.2
2. Improves skill 43.2
3. Code should be open 34.2
4. Non-work functionality 30.2
5. Work functionality 30.0
6. Obligation from use 28.3
7. Work with team 20.1
8. Professional status 17.4
9. Other 16.3
10. Open Source reputation 11.5
11. Beat proprietary software 11.3
12. License forces me to 0.4

Note: Question asked for top three motivators of F/OSS participation