Thread: working on free software

But why should developers be working on free software?

I am not saying that everybody should develop free software. If you don't feel like developing free software then you don't have to, because lots of other people will. I certainly don't want to pressure anyone into spending his time writing free software ifhe is not interested in doing so. But what you should not do is release proprietary software, because that is denying freedom to somebody else. It is not legitimate and is unacceptable for anyone to do that. So, if you are developing software to release, you must make it free software. But you don't have to develop software to release it Now, we should know that most people who are paid to write software are writing custom software.

There is a particular client that wants a particular program, and he is paying them to write it. This client should, of course, insist on receiving the product they paid for as free software and that should be capable of running on a completely free platform. Because, otherwise, they are paying to lose their freedom. They still have to pay some people to write solutions, because this is not something people would want to volunteer for otherwise. So, companies have to pay and this means that most people who get paid to program ftee software won't change things much. It may increase their productivity somewhat, but it won't change things much.