[QD-Filosofia] Open Source is Not a Career Path

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http://blog.informationweek.com/002186.html

Open Source is Not a Career Path

"If you're getting into open source because you see it as a career path, 
you're doing something wrong." It's not that Linux creator Linus Torvalds 
thinks open-source programmers should work for peanuts (he doesn't), but 
rather that they should be properly motivated. Call it software with a soul, 
if you like. Only the truly passionate need apply.

That's the message Torvalds and several other open-source luminaries have 
for the next generation of programmers. "A career path is not a motivation," 
Torvalds said during Tuesday's Open Source Development Lab's enterprise 
Linux summit. A reluctant visionary, (he blushed a shade of bright red 
during an intro that mentioned his inclusion in Time Magazine's list of most 
influential people) Torvalds is nonetheless passionate about his life's 
work, an open-source operating system that has blossomed into a major force 
in the technology world.

The future of open-source software depends upon bright, motivated 
programmers filled with ideas and initiative rather than programmers 
promoting their own, or their employer's, self interests. It's a concept 
that has been embraced by many but is nonetheless counterintuitive to an 
entire generation of programmers conditioned to view code (rather than the 
code's problem-solving capabilities) as a competitive advantage.

Times are changing, and the developer community needs to get with the times, 
said Brian Behlendorf, who shared Tuesday's OSDL keynote with Torvalds, 
Mitch Kapor, founder and chair of the Open Source Applications Foundation, 
lead Linux kernel maintainer Andrew Morton, and OSDL CEO Stuart Cohen. 
Behlendorf, chief technology officer of CollabNet Inc. and a founder of the 
Apache open source project, pointed out that the traits that make for a 
successful open source developer are different from what makes for a 
successful proprietary developer.

"In open source, you have to be a better communicator and to be able to 
defend yourself," Behlendorf said. He added that a thick skin also is a 
requirement when laying bare one's work for all the world to see and 
criticize. "There's not a lot of room for prima donnas."

Posted by Larry Greenemeier on Feb 2, 2005 at 12:42 AM |

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