Comments
UntangledQubit t1_ja049x4 wrote
There's a significant incentive for programmers early in their career, which is as a resume builder. College students are often advised to put school or independent projects on github to use during interviews.
Tr4c3gaming t1_ja03m78 wrote
Also lets not forget other developers can add to it and work out possible problems, pretty cooperative envoirement at times.
spudmix t1_ja07m3b wrote
This is a good answer, and I'd also add that many individuals/companies thrive only because they exist in an ecosystem where everyone contributes to the advancement of software. Amazon makes a lot of money selling cloud computing resources, for example, so it benefits them to make contributions to advance and grow software development in general which then drives more demand for cloud compute.
dmazzoni t1_ja0al83 wrote
While /u/Aussie_Mo_Bro's answer is good, I think one piece that needs more explanation is that most programmers make money by selling their time, not by selling their code.
Very few programmers write code to sell directly to customers.
Sure, it happens sometimes. There are some indie apps and games on the app store. And some programmers sell their code. But overall that's not a great way to make money.
Instead, most software that needs to be written - including websites and apps - is a means to an end. Chipotle has an app so that people will buy burritos. Avis has an app so that you can rent a car. Chipotle and Avis each pay lots of programmers to build those apps for them. That's generally how most developers make money.
To repeat: Programmers don't make money by writing code and selling the code. They make money by people paying them to write custom code for them.
So because of that, when a programmer releases something as open-source, they didn't lose anything. The code is already written, it's not going to make them money if they keep it secret.
AndreLinoge55 OP t1_ja0mt2k wrote
This makes sense thanks for this!
Aussie_Mo_Bro t1_ja262c7 wrote
I've not worked anywhere that doesn't keep the code you write as their property.
Not saying it doesn't happen, and I haven't really been contracting
dmazzoni t1_ja3hbrc wrote
Sure, I'm not saying you open source code produced for someone else.
Companies sometimes open-souece code that they need but isn't key to their profit. For example, Facebook open sourced React because they found it to be a useful way to build web frontend but it has nothing to do with their core business. So Facebook gets more out of people freely collaborating on React than they would out of keeping it secret.
[deleted] t1_ja05j5z wrote
[removed]
explainlikeimfive-ModTeam t1_ja06brj wrote
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Zeroflops t1_ja06yye wrote
Some companies will OS a subset of the features, which allows users to build around their code only later to discover they really like it and are willing to pay for the additional features.
RedHat a major linux support company OS all their code in the beginning, they made money off of support and service rather than the actual code.
Flair_Helper t1_ja09xwl wrote
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Aussie_Mo_Bro t1_ja03deq wrote
You've answered your own question.
They're allowing free access to this particular bit of code.
The reasons are varied, but could include
Based on an already open source code
Used in a paid product or service. The extra support is offered for free
It is intended for academic use
Its just a small project that they don't want any money for
It is a requirement for a third party site or service that your code is made freely available
They just want to make it freely available
It is a legal grey area, and charging for it would definitely be illegal