Open Source Code vs everything else

2005-03-24

Why is it that anytime someone writes a piece of code and puts it on the net people say "you should open source it" and yet with nearly any other endevor people don't say "you should give it away"? Examples:

"Check out this house I just built". "Hey, that's awesome, have you considered giving it away to charity?"

"Check out this desk I just made on my own". "Wow, cool, have you considered giving it away?"

"I just finished writing my novel, it took 9 months. I'm so thankful my wife could support me".... "I just read it and it's great, have you considered make it availabe for free?"

Note: I'm NOT saying open source is bad or giving your code away is bad. In fact maybe people should give away their houses, their books, and anything else they work hard to create. I just find it interesting there appears to be a double standard, one for code and one for everything else. People are now trying to open source music but for the most part I believe the normal arguement is "Why don't you put this music up for free, it would help promote your band". The implication being that once you get that exposure your next music would not be free. No one makes that arguement with code.

Next time you ask some programmer to make her code open source ask yourself what you yourself are willing work hard to make and then to give away for free.

Comments
Open Source = Ammo for Terrorists
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