At 03:08 PM 3/23/02 -0800, Tim May wrote: >There are other examples of "one man projects with limited expectations
>of financial gain," whether anonymity was an issue or not. Stallman >comes to mind. What Tim writes is correct, but he ignores personal motivational psychology. Stallman felt burnt when his community of friends could no longer share code because they got real jobs. He continues to work out his anger. Ditto for a lot of the early Unix tools, even entire >languages. These folks were largely building reps in their litle communities. Much like open source teenagers. >Many people are motivated by ideology more than a desire for (often >meager) financial benefits. Sure, most people want some recognition, or >some compensation. But they often do things even when there's no >prospect at all for recognition. Anonymous benefactors, for example. Benefactors feel empathy with the community they help. Individual "altruists" (e.g., anon remailer developers and maintainers) are doing same, and working out hostility to censors, fascists, etc. There is hope, so long as there are folks who still have a bit of fire inside, and can channel it.
