Boredom Drives Open-Source Developers? 199
Henry McClyde writes "Chris Anderson of The Long Tail posted an article yesterday in which he claims that "spare cycles" — or boredom and the tons of people who wish they had something better to do — is what drives Web 2.0.... and the open source development community. While Web 2.0 in general is driven by "the long tail," NeoSmart seems to have taken up issue with Anderson's claims that open source developers (and other freeware programmers in general) do what they do because they're bored and have nothing better to spend their time on. Same with Wikipedia contributors, and bloggers in general."
Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Spare cycles power Slashdot...
Slashdot is on another scale (Score:5, Funny)
A couple of spare cycle is what you need to build Linux.
On the same scale, the amount of time wasted on
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Again...we already have a cure for cancer. Slashdot wasted time could be better spent finding a cure for HIV
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Re:Wrong (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wrong (Score:5, Funny)
Take me for example: I'm so busy I can't even post right now.
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Then they're clearly spent levelling your demicanadian motorcycle.
How about calling avoidance of other boring work? (Score:5, Interesting)
maybe it is not about being bored but more about not wanting to do that crappy assignment your boss wants you to do? Maybe creating a better disk partition method for detecting NTSF, sizing correctly, and loading GRUB efficiently feels better to do than that cover sheet for the TPS report?
People want to feel useful at work. Certainly the greatest percentage doesn't do it for the money so what about doing something useful with your time than being a cog in someone else's soulless business machine?
Re:How about calling avoidance of other boring wor (Score:5, Interesting)
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Then you will have truly mastered the art of the sysadmin.
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Re:How about calling avoidance of other boring wor (Score:5, Interesting)
That's what we do. (Score:2)
Here's my blog [blogspot.com] where I talk about my work.
It's important to always lay the cards on the table, and be truthful about what is going on with one's work, for bet
Re:How about calling avoidance of other boring wor (Score:3, Insightful)
<br><br>
Well, in order to stop me giving in and getting a TV I wrote a book. Now that's finished my next project is a risk management toolset. In my case it's not so much boredom, it's the fear of distracting myself in non-productive ways when I could be doing something interesting.
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Incidentally, I suspect open source and "side projects" are going to get a whole lot more hours devoted to them now that Scrubs is ending. And maybe we should all thank the networks for not picking up Firefly.
Re:How about calling avoidance of other boring wor (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How about calling avoidance of other boring wor (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:How about calling avoidance of other boring wor (Score:3, Insightful)
Though I have some doubts about this "boredom drives OSS idea." Sure, programmers might be bored if they didn't have some fun/intersting programming to do... but certainly that can't drive them. I mean, you hav
Re:How about calling avoidance of other boring wor (Score:2)
My take on Long Tail is that Chris Anderson uses the term "bored" as a sort of short-hand for the variety of emotio
Re:How about calling avoidance of other boring wor (Score:2)
girlfriends and OSS (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:girlfriends and OSS (Score:5, Funny)
Post says, "I recently got a girlfriend". Post means "I recently found a porn magazine".
Post says, "I was about to start an open source project". Post means "I was using an open source program and I thought it was decent so I considered writing a MAN page for it".
Lesson 1 completed. Tomorrow's lesson, how to talk to a n00b.
Re:girlfriends and OSS (Score:5, Funny)
Just wait till you have a wife. I try writing my own stuff and I never have the time to. I actually have stuff to do at work, so I can't work on anything there, and when I go home my wife insists that I "spend time" with her. And, apparently, tapping away at my Powerbook while she watches TV doesn't count.
I'm hopeful that once we have a kid I'll be relegated to the role of grocery courier and she'll have someone else to bother all the time. But I'm not going to hold my breath. (First kid's due in October.)
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Re:girlfriends and OSS (Score:4, Insightful)
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Kids, though... that I don't get ('course, neither does my wife).
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+1 separate offices with closed doors (Score:2)
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but overall, I can't bring myself to take on new projects anymore. Its left me very bored sometimes.
352 webcam drivers? (Score:5, Funny)
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Necessity.
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325 possibly hot chicks waiting for web cam drivers
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it's true (Score:2)
Procrastination (Score:4, Interesting)
It's the same with READING Web 2.0 content... And why I'm reading
What? (Score:4, Funny)
wget -qO - http://www.infiltrated.net/slashdot|\
ruby -lne 'puts STDIN.readlines.reverse!.slice(0,2).reverse!;#suc
perl -p -e 's/[0-9]//g;s/X/
ruby -pe '$_ = $_.chomp + " " + gets if $. % 2'
True by definition (Score:5, Insightful)
This is by definition true for any activity we undertake. If there was something more profitable, enjoyable, pressing, useful to do, we (as rational thinkers) would be doing it.
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So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
I haven't read the article, so I don't know if this is supposed to be a slam against open-source contributors or not, but I think it's safe to say that people who choose to do this with their free time are certainly being more productive than those who just sit and play Evercrack for hours on end.
If these people were charging for their product, you'd call their motivation "entrepreneurial spirit", but since they're giving it away, you slight them by saying that they contribute only because they're bored?
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I am an open source developer. I don't think it reflects *at all* on the challenge in my job (which is interesting and I'm very busy), but it *is* a reflection that software development is *different* than my day job, and by using a different part of my brain, I can find the development challenges in an open source project to be relaxing.
Maybe one could argue that is a form of "boredom", but if so, does volunteer
OSS (Score:2)
well, in part (Score:5, Insightful)
Some similar things outside of computers:
1) (this is a bit in excess of what OSS typically has in terms of altruism) - I have friends who do Habitat For Humanity on Saturdays. One could say this is out of boredom, but it is also (and one case) more believably out of desire to help others.
2) I know a lot of people who do their own home maintenance and "upgrades". This is not only less financially burdensom, but they typically get things done somewhat faster and better than a contractor would.
All these mindsets mindsets (altruism, desire to have direct control of the quality, and greed) can also cause a person to develop OSS, with or without the presence of a "I have time and don't know what to do with it" state.
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with or without the presence of a "I have time and don't know what to do with it" state
I think "I have time" is a necessary condition. Just as obvious to me, "don't know what to do with it" is definitionally false for anyone doing anything with their time, unless it is possible to occupy one's time completely by accident. ("I woke up and discovered I had written a C# library".)
/.). I didn't interpret Chris Anderson's characterization ("bored") as a pejorative. I thin
I think the NeoSmart reaction was a little bit defensive (though a lot less defensive than half the responses here on
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In my example, I mentioned Habitat for Humanity, and a friend. She does not have the time to do Habitat for Humanity, but she cuts the time out of other things (usually sleep).
If you find it important enough, you make the time. That can go as much for OSS dev as for other things.
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I'm simply not suggesting anything good or bad about spare cycles, but I think we would probably both agree that almost no job requires 100% cycle utilization. Very few things do, which is good, because I'm pretty sure human beings aren't built for that. The spare cycles characterization is still a useful descriptio
Money (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't do open source (Score:4, Interesting)
I could read books, but I enjoy the architecting a solution to a problem more
Boredom (Score:5, Funny)
Hmph (Score:4, Insightful)
In a lot of cases, people are contributing to something really meaningful and valuable, and to imply that they have nothing better to do is flat out condescending. If one CAN make the Linux kernel (or whichever project) better, there are very few things to be involved in that would go to benefit the public.
The implication that people contributing their valuable time to something like open source is only out of boredom and lack of alternatives is absurd and insulting. That may indeed be the reason why some people contribute, to be sure, but to imply that it is of no value to them, or the world, is utterly lunatic. (On the same continuum and with the same absurdity, the opposing exaggeration is that people contributing to open source are doing it for the betterment of mankind, as against the unrelenting corporate machine.)
I'm fairly certain that the truth lies in the middle, and that for an individual contributing to open source is a valuable way to spend your time because it gives you experience, exposes you to new ideas and people and challenges. As a bonus to the world, these contributions generally improve the publicly accessible wealth of knowledge, ideas and software functionality.
Any implication that these people are doing something of no value to them or the world is disgusting.
It's the only time we can do something beautiful (Score:3, Insightful)
sociology (Score:5, Insightful)
The fewer people that are required to produce crops to feed the maximum amount of people frees those people for the pursuit of things like religion, philosophy, politics, literature, technology, or whatever other discipline doesn't lead to the direct creation of crops and cattle.
So basically, yes, Open Source is driven on free clock cycles that don't have to be dedicated to survival. This is even true for the company that commissions open source projects for its own use. If the company wasn't creating enough profit to allow for investment in future growth or any risky investment behavior then it wouldn't have the spare cycles to devote to the investment. And, software is risky it only pays off half the time.
You don't invest in the stock market with your lunch money. You might invest your retirement account in stocks, but not the cash you need to stay alive in the next few days. If the need is too vital it precludes any risk behavior.
If you want more open source, then create an environment where more people can take the risk of creating open source projects and even potentially waste their time on them. Consider that most projects fail. Most projects do not become popular. There must be enough surplus developer time to support those risks so that the one lucky project that changes everything has the chance to get created and have a few people waste their time on it before it becomes a product.
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Excellent point. This whole "civilization" thing, along with all the "science" and "economy"-- these are all done out of "boredom". At least, if "doing [something] out of boredom" consists of doing something that isn't absolutely necessary because you have an excess of time and resources.
Calling it "done out of boredom" belittles the activity without giving you any insight into the motivations. Instead, people should ask, "Out of all the things developers could choose to do 'out of boredom', why are they
Open Source takes commitment (Score:3, Insightful)
Not too far from these people are the contributors who submit bug fixes and new features and support. They don't work on this every day but they created a little something they needed and end up sending it back to the source (no pun intended) for the community to enjoy. They probably do it originally out of necessity and send the change back out of generocity and a sense of community.
Boredom? (Score:2, Interesting)
Does a painter paint because he's bored?
I think not!
Being creative is giving me a feeling nothing else can, and I
think this is true for people since way back when man painted
on the walls of their caves.
I don't think it's boredom... (Score:5, Insightful)
Previous generations had hobbies that let technologists use their skills in ways that gave them pleasure. For example, electrical engineers would tinker with Ham Radio sets, and build gadgets. Because at the time there was no internet, these hobbies tended to be personal and private, although there were some magazines that would allow submissions (and sharing of information).
Modern technologists are far less limited. They have the global internet and the open-source movement, plus a huge infrastructure for sharing information (like Sourceforge and Slashdot) available. It's like a hobbyist renaissance, or maybe the hobbyist version of the Enlightenment.
Who can resist participating? It's marvellous. Your average nerd (myself included) was picked on throughout his childhood, and surrounded by people who didn't share his interests. Now, suddenly, there's a whole world of people who would just LOVE to help you debug your networked application.
It's Nerdvana.
Saying it all derives from boredom is equivalent to saying you don't share our interests, and don't "get" them. It's not cool. We're not bored, we're INSPIRED.
And it's WAY more fun than what we have to do all day at work.
Isn't that what any hobby is? (Score:3, Insightful)
Some people choose to spend their free time say. Watching TV, playing video games, playing cards, knitting, gardening, building tiny ships inside of bottles, listening to music, going to the gym, going for a hike - all things that *some* people may enjoy doing, so when they have free time and 'nothing else to do', its what they spend their time on.
Is it so bad that open source developers chose to spend their time on something they enjoy doing, are passionate about, and helps out thousands of others in the process?
I'd say an Open Source developer that is contributing to a widely used project is making far better use of their 'spare cycles and boredom', than the fat lump watching American Idol re-runs.
I need my coffee (Score:3, Funny)
Without question it does (Score:2)
now that it's nice outside and i feel less bored, I haven't been working on it at much..
One guy's release from boredom... (Score:5, Insightful)
Look, this is a stupid argument, akin to saying that they're doing it "even though they're not getting paid for it." Of course open source developers do it to relieve boredom - if I have available time, and I get bored, know what I do? Something that makes me happy.
The author could have said that open source developers do it because of the joy it brings them, and it would have been functionally equivalent.
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Sometimes, open-source / Free software does get created out of boredom. Here's an example from my personal experience:
1999-2000, I wrote GNU Robots. [gnu.org] Was it my long-time passion to write a program that simulated a little robot wandering around a large room? No, I did it because I needed to have something to do. My employer had just announced that we would be shutting down the company, so all projects were cancelled, and we were in a "keep the lights on" mode until we transitioned off our customers thro
Not in my case (Score:3, Insightful)
Personally, with a wife and four kids, a 50+ hour-per-week job and lots of hobbies, boredom is not a problem for me. I do contribute to open source projects when I can find the time, but it's definitely something that I have to make time for, because "spare cycles" just don't happen. Mostly, my OSS development time is between 11pm and 2am, when I would (should!) be sleeping.
Like virtually any other characterization you choose to make about open source developers and open source development, this one is partly true and partly false. Lots of people really want to pigeonhole OSS developers, to fit them neatly into their existing worldviews, but it doesn't work because there is simply too much diversity. To say that there are as many motivations for OSS development as there are OSS developers is really only a small exaggeration. Some people undoubtedly do it out of boredom, some do it as a way to avoid other work, some do it to build a "resume", some do it because they love it, some get paid to do it, some do it for the admiration of their peers, some do it because it's the only way they can get software they like (this is me, mostly, along with the "love it" and, when I'm honest, a little bit of peer admiration)... I'm sure there are plenty of other motivations out there, and I'm sure every OSS developer does it for some blend of reasons.
If you insist on finding a dominant motive, one that is perhaps more common and leads to more code than any other, I'd nominate "for the love of it". People who don't understand just how much fun writing code can be tend to discount that reason, and for them boredom may perhaps seem a more plausible alternative, given that they have experienced boredom and been led to do useless things to fill their time, but have never experience the rush that comes from creating a finely-crafted and elegant piece of code. IMO, though, "because I can't find a better way to fill my time" is a very weak and unlikely motivation. There are always Star Trek reruns.
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Regardless, boredom is not a problem for me. I always have more things I want to do than I have time to do them -- plus a bunch more things I'm supposed to do.
Not 'spare' or 'Selfless' : 'Self-interested' (Score:3, Interesting)
Appreciation of the code handed down to us encourages respect for the givers, and a desire to garner some of that appreciation for ones' self. The debt demands payback, or in this case, pay forward.
That's all you need for the 'moral' part. The 'self-interested' folks have taken it a level further, and understand they have future wins, not just present, if they nurture the value-donating culture.
Hobbies? (Score:2, Interesting)
You mean, like every other hobby? You do it because otherwise you wouldn't have anything to do with your free time and would, therefore, be bored.
completely true (Score:2)
Boredom, hobby, what's the diff? (Score:2)
If what this guy means to say is that "Several people weren't spending their free time driving race cars, collecting model trains, teaching pole dancing classes or saving the world, so they deci
Spare cycles power TV too. (Score:2)
Boredom powers the book publishing industry, the video game industry... hell, just about everything defense, procreation, shelter and food.
Half right (Score:2)
That's half right.
A programmer in his downtime can play video games, watch TV, get drunk, or contribute to open source projects. Being an amateur open source contributer is a great hobby, and is a very good thing to spend your time on. Everyone has spare time once in a while; it doesn't mean they're bored.
Boredom Drives Progress (Score:4, Insightful)
The fact is that a leisure class with the right motivation and philosophy, can be a real benefit to the rest of society. They have the time and money to "follow their dream", for the most part. Many artists, writers, and scientists in the past held down more or less sinecure positions that paid cash even though they really never actually did the job as specified in the job title. A significant portion of notable contributors to progress and art have been outright aristocratic.
Boredom can be aimless and cause no end of trouble, but in the right sorts of people, can lead to progress where it could not otherwise exist.
Exactly the purpose of boredom (Score:2)
Note how often doing creative work is accused of being driven by boredom, and how seldom watching TV.
Not for me. (Score:2)
The biggest contribution that I made to open source did not come from boredom at all. It was more of a political thing. Like all the people you see who donate some of their time to a cause they believe in. They do it because they believe in the cause.
I happen to agree (Score:2)
Boredom? How about inspiration? (Score:2)
They havent got a clue (Score:2)
One just needs to tip the balance a little more to the altruism side. Then s/he feels light as a feather, and any feeling of guilt that results from the recognition and job offers that working on o
boredom ? stupid (Score:2)
Money... (Score:2)
Can you say pidgeon hole? (Score:2)
I have my own reasons for contributing to OSS and different reasons for contributing to WikiBooks. Neither of them has much to do with boredom. Besides this stuff (though, my contributions to wikibooks has been a little slow lately) I have a full-time job as a software engineer, take 16 hours a week of classes pursuing two degrees, and work about 8-15 hours a week as a research assis
Both right (Score:2)
1. Paid to do so. A number of folks are paid by various companies to make sure that companies' products operate properly with open source software. This is a relatively new phenomenon which did not contribute to open sources' original growth.
2. Side-effect of career. When I worked for for an ISP, I produced software to improve our business. The software wasn't the product; the services were. So I was able to release some of the software a
"I don't understand it... (Score:2)
So *THAT*'s what has been killing my projects! (Score:3, Interesting)
Last time this happened was on the YopyNG project [archive.org], I was porting the 2.4.28 Linux kernel to the Yopy YP3700 PDA and everything was going perfectly. The drivers were all working and the new kernel was responding much faster than the original one ported by G-mate (the manufacturer), but there was a final bug to resolve: for some reason people were reporting random kernel panics that I never managed to reproduce, and all of a sudden I lost interest in the project, especially when G-mate disappeared and the Yopy died.
For years I've wondered why this is happening to me and envied people like David Reveman (cmpiz's father) for their ability to remain focused on their personal projects as well as quiet about them until it's time to come out and show the community what they've made, and the culprit has always seemed to be my lack of discipline, but after reading this article I'm beginning to believe that perhaps there's more to it than what I thought, perhaps I have too much to entertain myself with and will have to accept the fact that no matter what I do, I'll never be like those people...
here i am (Score:2)
Alert the media! (Score:2)
OMG, I think we've discovered a perpetual motion machine!
I had a few problems with these articles (Score:2)
>Here are the people that make more than half of the software on any given computer
What... I'm writing this from linux now... but if I turn to my right there a whole lab of windows machines that only have *one* piece of open source software on them (firefox).
>and are the drive behind most (if not all) of the innovation in the software industry
>being referred to as bored people idly filling their time...
Open source is the drive behind innovat
uhm.. these people are payed (Score:2)
Projects start for a lot of reasons. Most of the people I know who do open source do it for a mixture of
1. They are just creative, and part of their personality makes it necessary to do creative things to be happy
2. They want
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(2004 is around/about when I stopped doing freewares/sharewares, due to lack of energy and time to do so anymore as well as need to do so (in that that apps I have done are finished, per user tests/critiques long ago, & they work "perfectly" (purely relative term imo) all the way from Wind
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I think you're lost. This is Slashdot. The sports pages are over there.
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Set B is the set of idiots who disliked the smart kids back in high school.
Set B is usually a subset of set A. While almost all high school idiots who dislike smart kids are sports fans, not all sports fans are idiots.
Why are you annoyed? Guilty conscience?
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If I could post graphics, I'd give you a Venn diagram.
Of course, I think you've clarified what subset you belong to. Maybe it's a moot point.
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I saw a documentary on PBS about the summer of love, and it struck me how much of that philosophy is present in the Open Source movement. Take, for example, the Diggers, who would get bruised and otherwise unsellable food from grocery stores, cook it, and give it away in the park to anyone who wanted it. They took things that would have gone to wasted and made them into something useful for others.
Open Source contributors are continuing this tradition. They're taking spare programmer cycles and spare serve
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Working for free producing whatever you feel like would be socialist/communist only if society/community would provid
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I think you are a solid 12-36 months away from being able to form a worthwhile post here. In the meantime, Digg.com [digg.com] welcomes you with open arms!