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Free software isn't altruistic; be glad

Outsiders looking at free software tend to think that it is a kind of altruism or charity to make great software available gratis.

Some people are driven by a desire to, say, give good software to people in developing nations, or for students to have access to "the best software library in the world". That's well and good, but I think for most participants altruism is not the main motiviation. They want software freedom for themselves, and only secondarily for other people.

This is a good thing. If we were trying to persuade people to spend their evenings and weekends to write free software for the often-ungrateful general public, I don't know if we'd get very far. But if you can get people to do something that's fun, that produces a good result they can use themselves, and that incidentally improves the world, well... the results speak for themselves.

I don't know if I totally believe in the Invisible Hand theory that self-interest necessarily leads to good outcomes. The converse may be true though: most good things people do originate in some kind of self-interest, because most good or bad things people come from self-interest.

You can make a kind of evolutionary argument, however: In some societies, the behaviour caused by self-interest will tend to be constructive rather than destructive. Such societies tend to be more stable and to replicate.

[bonus Google serendipity: dissection of intelligent design creationist kook Michael Behe.]

posted Wed 20 Oct 2004 in /software/freedom | link

Copyright (C) 1999-2007 Martin Pool.