Speaker unverified: belief

Transcript context

…I’m not going to do what you tell me to. I’m here as a bringer of gift. I am sharing code that I wrote on my own time, on my own volition. And you don’t have to say thank you. I mean, it’d be nice if you did. You can take the code and do whatever you want with it, you can contribute back if you want, but you can’t tell me what to do or where to go or how to act. I’m not a vendor. This is a fundamental misconception that users of open source occasionally step into because they’re used to buying software from companies who really care about their business. I care about people using my software, I think it’s great, but we don’t have a transactional relationship. I don’t get something back when you tell me what to do, except grief, and I don’t want it, so you can keep it. So my open source philosophy from the start has been I got to do this primarily for me. I love when other people find use in my open source. It’s not my primary motivation. I’m not primarily doing it for other people. I’m primarily doing it for me and my own objectives. Because as Adam Smith said, it’s not for the benevolence of the butcher that we expect our daily meat. It’s for his self-interest. And I actually find that to be a beautiful thought that our commons increase in value when we all pursue our self-interest, certainly in the realm of open source. This is also why I reject this notion that open source is in some sort of crisis, that there’s a funding crisis, that we have to spend more. No, we don’t. Open source has never been doing better. Open source has never controlled more domains in software than it has right now. There is no crisis. There’s a misconception from some people making open source and from a lot of people using open source that open source is primarily like commercial software; something you buy and something where you can then make demands as a customer and that the customer is always right. The customer is not always right, not even in business, but certainly not in open source. In open source, the customer as it is, is a receiver of gifts. We are having a gift exchange. I show up and give you my code. If you like it, you can use it. And if you have some code that fits in with where I’m going with this, I would love to get those gifts back. And we can keep trading like that. I give you more gifts. You give me some of your gifts. Together, we pool all the gifts such that someone showing up brand new just get a mountain of gifts. This is the magic thing of open source is it increases the total sum value of what’s in the commons when we all pursue our own self-interest. So I’m building things for Rails that I need. And you know what? You want me to do that. You do not want me to build things that I don’t need on behalf of other people because I’ll do a crap job. I build much better software when I can evaluate the quality of that software by my own use. You do not want me to build things that I don’t need on behalf of other people because I’ll do a crap job. I build much better software when I can evaluate the quality of that software by my own use. I need this feature. I’m going to build a good version of that feature, and I’m going to build just enough just for me. So I’m not going to bloat it. I’m not trying to attract the customer here. I’m not trying to see some angle. I’m just building what I need. And if you go into open source with that mentality that you’re building for you and everything else is a bonus, I think you have all the ingredients to go the distance. I think the people who burn out in open source is when they go in thinking, “I’m making all these gifts. I don’t really need them myself, but I’m hoping someone else does and maybe they’ll also give me some money.” That’s a losing proposition. It never basically works. If you want money for your software, you should just sell it. We have a perfectly fine model of commercial software that people can make that kind and then they can sell it. But I find a lot of confusion, let’s just call it that politely, in open source contributors who want to have their cake and eat it too. They like the mode of working with open source, they maybe even like the status that comes from open source, but they also would like to earn a living for making that open source. And therefore, they occasionally end up with the kind of grievances that someone who feels underappreciated at work will develop when others aren’t doing enough to recognize their great gifts. And then they might walk away. I wish I had more insight into their mind state of the individual people that are running these projects, if they’re feeling sad or they need more money. It’s just such a dark box.…

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