From: Ben Francis
Hi again slef
Ben Francis ben@franci5.fsnet.co.uk wrote: [...]
However, the harsh reality is that programmers need money to put bread on the table and apparently some geeks even have families to support! Just say someone were to program full time and released all of their code under the GPL, where does their bread actually come from? [...]
Actually my entire email could have been reduced to that snip, I apologise for waffling ;)
Good post Ben. As someone who has been making a living writing software since 1973 I too have been pondering this question recently and much for the same reasons as yourself.
It seems to me that if OSS becomes the principal software development mechanism (as I have a feeling it might) then writing software as a method of earning a living will become much less common than it has been over the past 25 years.
However, if I look back on the past 10 or so years of my career I have actually cut very little primary source code except for my own satisfaction. Mostly I been asked to perform value added tasks like enhancement, customisation, support, installation, analysis, design, etc.
So I suspect that's where IT professionals will be earning their keep in future. They will be employed not for their skills in cutting code but for their knowledge of using the technology to solve problems.
Your questions might be restated as "how does anyone make money in a free marketplace?" and there are lots of books on that.
Could anyone suggest a good book on this subject?
The Cathedral & The Baazar ?
After all this time of being told that computing is a science, or an engineering discipline, it's closer to being something like performance mathematics, with all the questions of how to make money from performing an art.
Indeed, I'm not a programmer, but a code poet ;)
Personally I think Mark's bang on target here, I have doubted whether the terms computer science or software engineering are valid for some time now. From my experience writing software seems to have more in common with craft based skills such as carpentry, bricklaying, blacksmithing, etc. than chemistry, physics or civil engineering.
Code poet, I like that, but it probably makes what we do sound a bit more upmarket that it really is. Anyone know what the correct term is for the people that demonstrate products in supermarkets? :o)
Keith