Reading 08: Internal Dialogue

 ESR has written quite the collection of essays here. While the main focus of his essays (I think) is the nature of open-source software and the various motivations of its members, it almost seems as if he is making broader generalizations about human nature itself.

I think the subject of open source is a tough one for me to grapple with. A lot of the books I have read - particularly Malcolm Gladwell and Freakonomics - center around the idea that actions stem from incentives. Essentially, any action that was committed was committed with an incentive in mind, which is often a financial incentive. I don’t think this is an outlandish take, after all, we do live in a capitalistic society which benefits from the incentive to make money (similar to the way the game hackers were motivated by greed). So, before reading this essay, it was sometimes tough for me to understand why people were motivated to contribute to open source communities. Now, it makes sense when people want a specific feature that helps them (not necessarily greed, but somewhere in the ballpark of self-benefit). But as I read through this essay, especially with the context of who the hackers were (from previous readings in class), the picture has become clearer to me. Dollar bills are no longer the main currency, but rather reputation, with a good reputation being the primary reward of this work. And as ESR points out, this good reputation may trickle into other economies. 

So does improving reputation drive people to join an open source community? This doesn’t sit well with me. I am particularly inexperienced with this topic, considering I am not a part of any open source communities, but I struggle to believe someone joins purely for the purpose of improving one’s only reputation. But then again, open source doesn’t promise the reward of money. So is it somewhere in between? 

This is where I believe the context of the hackers’s motives is critical. If this was a financial institution, where no one gets paid, and financial professionals simply work for the “joy of working,” the institution would crumble. Why? Likely because many financial professionals (rightly and justifiably) go into their careers for a financial incentive. But this is not the hackers. We must remember the hackers of the ‘50s and ‘60s, who merely hacked for the love of the game. I would consider the open source community to be far from a financial institution, and more like a video gaming community. While I have not contributed to the development of a video game, I can see the “joy” in things like creating mods for Minecraft, or creating rosters for NCAA 25. ESR certainly knows more than I do about the open source community, but this essay has more been me trying to grapple with my own understanding of why someone would put in work for no financial gain. And it’s because I’ve been looking at this like work, when for the hackers its more like fun. I can now see why a hacker would devote extensive periods of time to create something that provides no financial benefit, and sometimes no reputational benefit. It’s because they love and enjoy to do it.

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