EU software patent law faces axe 797

I don't think that we have been discussing the desktop at all, kier, but it is a valid topic and one with a whole different set of issues, IMO. What was being discussed was the viability of the open source model in terms of what makes it tick and how likely is it to continue and whether or not it is a benefit or a liability to the software consumer. I think a recap is in order here.

The open source community consists of organized groups of developers or frequently individual developers who produce code and a growing gang of users who consume it. This obviously has some appeal to the Consumer Debt element since they obtain a result that they are satisfied with at a minimal if not zero cost to themselves. A natural concern would be the robustness of the motivations of the developer side, since they are the ones who are most critical to the process and the ones acting, IMO, out of the ordinary expected ways of being highly compensated for a critical service.

If a developer of sufficient skill became a Microsoft employee ten or so years ago, around the time the open source stuff was getting off the ground, the developer would have made several million dollars in total compensation, based on the stock history and the practices of ISO issue at Microsoft during that period. A similar story can be told for many of the commercial software companies. The developers of open source products have not fared so well and there are multiple instances of the developer begging for PayPal handouts to be able to pay for web site fees or new equipment and such. So what would keep the open source developer going, day after day, in the face of this siren song of riches?

Of course many development contributors are indeed paid salaries on a par with the more commercially oriented developer, but even so, many are in companies that are ostensibly not for profit or are academic insbreastutions that do not have the ISO participation offered by the for-profit companies and so they miss out on the big score.

So what keeps them going? On the one hand, there is the self-satisfaction of a job well done and even better if there is an adoring set of fans who are genuinely appreciative of the effort. As an alternate, or even in conjunction, there can be the real desire to save mankind by giving them a boost with some otherwise unobtainable software functions, i.e. the "altruistic" aspect. I personally think it is quite a stretch of the imagination to see how the huddled mbuttes might be saved this way, but Rick likes the image! Use of computers is an economic issue where some payback is involved and is otherwise an entertainment issue, such as the banter in newsgroups like this one, so it is not really a life and rest issue and altruism is hard to come by.

On the other hand, there is the rationalization approach that makes the premise that much of the software used in the world is a focused application that solves common problems for which people can join in that solution and so mutually profit from the experience. So developers for company A create some code that partially solves a problem and gives it to the rest of the interested world so that company B can improve on the solution and give back to the community so that company A also benefits. And so on. This approach demands that there be something in it for the contributor since they are clearly helping compebreastors if only in terms of cost avoidance so the return has to be commensurate with the investment made.

The only need is to ensure the continued participation of the developer component. A large group of users are useful and even possibly necessary to the first situation, since the louder the applause, the more intense the effort put forth by the ego driven producer. Non-contributing users are essentially useless to the second situation.

Ok, I'll refrain until one of you replies with stupid, liar, fool, don't understand, or anything I deem similar, for example clueless, instead of a rational answer to a statement that I make. Scatological remarks are in that category, too, but I'll ignore your last.