In my last couple of articles there has been a great debate going on about the people who program for Linux and open source software in general.

One one side of the debate there is the view that the poor programmers are being used and abused because they are writing free software that unscrupulous freeloading users are taking advantage of. This seems to be an unsustainable model and will reduce programmers to starving beggars on the side of the road with signs saying will program for food. Open source programmers are also dreamy naive people who have their head in the clouds and need to come down to earth and meet the real world.

The open source programmers have a totally different view of things and it is one that the other side looking through chinks in the fence boards cannot see. Here I attempt, with help from your comments, to explain why so many people like to program for open source.

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