“Last spring, marketer and blogger Hugh MacLeod posted a
question on his site: If open source is such a phenomenon, where
are all the open source billionaires? His audience wasn’t amused.
Open source software relies on a community of volunteer developers
who tinker on, write for, or amend a program, then give it away
free. MacLeod’s site filled up with complaints that even to look
for billionaires violated the spirit of the open source movement.
‘There have to be rewards,’ one commenter wrote, ‘but they don’t
have to be financial.’ Another simply recommended that MacLeod
‘shut the f**k up,’ adding: ‘You don’t know what you’re talking
about.’“But not every open-sourcer has proven so averse to filthy
lucre…”