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>I certainly wouldn't be spending my weekends and nights writing an application if I didn't think I'd get some money for it, and I doubt that I'm rare

http://www.gnu.org/

http://www.linux.org/

http://www.freebsd.org/

http://www.apache.org/

http://www.mysql.com/

http://www.mozilla.org/

And Python, Perl and PHP...

I think enough people who spend their lives working for free to make it worthwhile!

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Indeed, money is but one potential reward. Social recognition is another.

Though I think most of free software is written for the 'finally this thing does what I want it to do' reward.

I'm curious - do you actually think that there are people reading Hacker news that don't know about these projects?

Obviously I, and everyone else here, is aware of them, which should have clued you in that you had misread me. I didn't say that no-one will develop software for free, I said that I don't do it, and that I suspect that I'm far from unique.

Besides, if you look, you'll discover that many of the developers on those projects are getting paid for it, one way or another.

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