This document discusses the motivations of three open source software developers - Kevin Burton, Trish Lynch, and Rob Savoye. While their work benefits others, each has additional incentives for contributing to open source projects. Burton uses open source to research new technologies and attract consulting work. Lynch contributes to improve software she relies on personally and professionally. Savoye enjoys the community aspect and has been able to make a living from open source work. While ideals motivate all three, their efforts also serve more pragmatic goals.

1. Ulterior Motives
By Peter Wayner , Interactive Week
Special To Interactive Week
May 14, 2001 6:03 AM ET
At first glance, the work seems so noble. after late nights and long hours, bleary-eyed programmers take their valuable
world. The ultimate sacrifice? Not exactly.
Upon closer examination, the motives often are less pristine and the vision cloudy. Although every contributor is drawn
most are also driven by more ordinary desires. Some programmers work for companies that use the free software to ga
software will attract attention and bring consulting work their way. Then there are those who really do see it as a politica
Every programmer in the community is driven by a different mix of motives. Here's a look at why and how three open s
Kevin Burton
Co-founder and primary developer, OpenPrivacy
Kevin Burton has a warning for developers everywhere: Open source programming can suck you in.
"It first starts off when you're using a product. You're using it to get work done," he said.
"Then you see a bug so you fix it. Then you start learning the code inside and out to get more done. Then you want 2.0
you step in and get the job done."
Burton's journey into open source development began several years ago, when he was maintaining servers for one of t
wanted to use Microsoft's Web servers. In fact, it insisted upon it. But the machines kept crashing and Burton had to ke
After some tough negotiations, Microsoft decided to let Burton and his compatriots look at the source code to the Intern
runs on Windows NT platforms. It made their life a bit easier and they even snagged some of the bugs, but that didn't fi
"We were even giving patches back to [Microsoft], but they would drop them. They didn't have any way of accepting pa
a bunch of engineers," he said.
Just giving someone a copy of the source code isn't enough. Open source, to Burton, is a process of sharing the sourc
The open source projects he works on come with well-developed tools for knitting the community together and coordina
"Once a project gets moving, the development is at least eight times faster than a closed source project," he said.
Currently, Burton is a primary developer at OpenPrivacy, a project with the goal of creating a distributed, wide-open rep
"You can post anonymously, but if what you say becomes a jewel - if people decide it's really genius - in the future you
the benefits of privacy and anonymity," he said.
Who's paying for this? Burton is living off the savings he accumulated while working on Jetspeed - another open source
large wireless company paid him to add the features that it would need to Jetspeed so wireless users could see the sam
Companies often fund open source development, he explained, when it helps them sell other products.
OpenPrivacy is currently just a nonprofit in research and development mode, but Burton is looking to form another com
"There are a lot of things that companies can provide," he said, hinting that his current project would be a perfect one to
Trish Lynch

2. Core team member, Listar
Why would you devote yourself to writing a piece of software and giving it away? For Trish Lynch, the answer was simp
work and at home. If it didn't work, then she would need to look elsewhere.
"Listar really needed the people, and it was a piece of software that I was using rather heavily," she said.
The software handles several mailing lists at the Open Source Development Network, where she is a member of the Li
days, it ships out more than 50,000 e-mail messages.
At home, Lynch also uses the software to build a virtual community for several mailing lists of her friends and acquainta
"I do a lot of service work in those communities in a way that I know how," she said, noting that contributing computer e
organizations. In this case, she keeps mailing lists running to help the groups communicate.
Lynch has been working with others on making the list faster and easier to use by integrating it with the popular open s
used for accessing MySQL databases can now be used to maintain the list.
"This is a bit more elegant because it's all stored in a database. It's a little faster. Especially for large, huge lists," she s
Lynch also contributes to the Slash Web publishing and community discussion bulletin board managed by the OSDN th
Taking on the Listar project meant making a few sacrifices. In the past, Lynch contributed heavily to the more popular F
that many of its devotees feel is more stable and reliable.
Lynch has always been a big advocate of FreeBSD, writing articles for a number of online magazines and journals.
She was also offered a position on the FreeBSD team with the ability to "commit" changes to the source code. That is,
access to the team's central computer files. She was trusted enough with the keys to change the system.
But Lynch chose instead the "core" position with Listar, working with lead developer James Traub. "The development c
organizational role that I wanted to play with Listar," she explained.
"When I enjoy something, I give something back. Especially when it's free," she said. "There's also a slight ego boost w
Rob Savoye
Self-employed computer consultant
Rob Savoye explains his dedication to open source software like this: "I'm a very community-minded person. I've done
Sharing source code with other users is a big part of the open source movement. While some cynics see it as a way to
development for free, Savoye is more idealistic.
Savoye said he was attracted to open source because ". . . people were giving me stuff. They were helping me make m
software and giving that away for free. I kind of liked the community, we're-all-in-this-together kind of thing."
Savoye has been writing open source software for the past 10 years and, unlike most open source contributors, has be
He has written or helped write major projects like the DejaGnu, Nilo and other gritty but important parts of the network i

3. Solutions, one of the most influential start-ups, which made its name by developing open source compilers.
Today, Savoye is working closely with Interact-TV, a Boulder, Colo., start-up aiming to dominate the market for televisio
company has quickly assembled a competitive platform by linking a number of open source tool kits.
"They're a handful of people and they realized that if they used Linux, GUI [graphical user interface] tool kits, [Motion P
[they] could put together a TiVo-like box in under a year," he explained.
The company hopes it will be able to unify the various set-top box manufacturers by providing an open platform. Propri
problems when companies get into arguments over who owns what.
Savoye has made the bulk of his hard-earned money by working on software for embedded systems. In many cases, th
they sell, so they don't object to sharing the code with others.
"A lot of companies I talk to, they don't really care," he said. "I tell them, 'I'll do this application for you, but I would like t
much."
Still, choosing to follow an open source path is not always easy. While many hardware manufacturers have no problem
developers can't always simply give away their bread and butter.
"There's a limited number of people who can get paid doing open source software these days," he warned, adding that
dedicated and they can live cheap, then go open source."
Then he ended the interview because he had to go to the Mountain People's Co-op for his weekly volunteer shift.
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