Technologov wrote:...For OSS contributors, like me, it is instead of watching TV for example...
Which is quite a remarkable way of spending your time, as what you do is useful to other people, while the same thing can certainly not be said about watching television...
...A lot of students are OSS contributors and do this to improve their skills to later work ...
I'm quite sure about that.
What I'm not able to like is the kind of contempt or even hate many people show towards all that
"non OSS" software which actually makes possible the existence of OSS software itself. May Linux lovers, for example, even refuse to pronounce or write words like "windows" or use derogatory words to define windows' users, just as Linux was not good enough to stand on it's own feet.
Others talk about a world in which all software should be free (just like music and literature and so on), as if everybody could spend their time in "contributing" without earning any money. Maybe I'm old and narrow minded, but I really don't see much sense in that, especially considering that most of those contributors actually earn a living by means of the very "enemy" they claim to fight.
There is obviously nothing wrong if a mechanic who works in a large garage enjoys, at night and on weekends, doing some free servicing on the cars of his neighbours. But, should all his colleagues start doing the same, thus causing a significant drop of the garage's sales, they would end up in loosing the job which grants them the possibility of carrying on their selfless... mission, wouldn't they?
