A couple weeks ago, I asked the question “Why Open Source?” and received some great feedback from Haacked.  Phil’s comments led me to revisit my basic assumptions about open source and the motivation for working on an open source
project.

It seems that the primary motivation people have when working on open source projects is the sense of community and a hell of a lot less about making $$$.  It’s the idea that you can work on something you believe in with a group of like-minded individuals.  Unfortunately, the open source projects I’ve tried to join have been anything but organized. Maybe I need to start contributing to Subtext and see if I have a better experience.

As for donations, when I see projects like NDoc fold because of a lack of donations, I have to ask “why not charge for the damn thing then?” but I think Phil nailed it when he said: “I used to do a big-brother like mentoring program. Found it fun and fulfilling. But we also had costs, so we asked for donations.”

I really wasn’t thinking about the cost of running an OS project (other than the time) and was simply looking at donations as way to “make money” and not just “cover costs”.  My bad.

I’m not sure I’d ever start an open source project, although to be honest, I have considered it.  We’ll have to wait and see…it could happen.