On Thu, May 27, 2010 at 1:33 PM, Gabor Szabo <szab...@gmail.com> wrote:
> This whole thing makes me wonder, why do *you* really contribute to CPAN? > > Is it to participate in the community? > Nah, I was already participating. (Even more so, perhaps – I've been distracted.) Is it to get a virtual pat on the shoulder (or a beer in the bar) from > other programmers? > No. Though there have been some good "pats" or "ego boosts" – good reviews; seeing other distributions depending on mine; being distributed with Mandriva – those are bonuses. > Is it to make other people happy by letting them do their job easier? > Sure. Why not? > Is it because you feel obligated as you are using other peoples code > free of charge? > Not "obligated", I think. I am paying back a debt, but it is a debt without obligations, if that makes sense. Freely given, freely received, freely offered in return. But other than that, yeah – see below. I would run a poll asking this question but I am not even sure in the > possible answers and I'd be happy in more descriptive answers. > > So why do *you* contribute to CPAN? > Because I could and felt like I should? The one distribution I have (so far), was originally just releasing a brushed-up, rebranded version of the testing modules we used in-house. There was no business logic or anything decidedly useless to others, so I could release it without too much trouble. And it was a non-trivial bunch of code that could make others' jobs easier, the way open source had made mine, so I felt like I should. I described it as "starting to pay back". Eirik
