Linus Torvalds: Linux succeed thanks to selfishness and trust

But there are also the priests and doctors, from whom we reasonably do not expect to hear "this is all about my interest, what's in it for me?" And likewise there are many enterprises where people are doing them for reasons which do not relate to turning a profit, a category which a great deal of valuable open source development falls into.

By the way, is it really true that France works (or that America works)?

Citation needed.

But this is a game of words because that's not what altruism is. Altruism can be based on kinship, reciprocity, ideology, self-image, sympathy, habit and other things which are active in normal people's minds.

IBM and Google are public corporations, meaning that turning a profit is the whole point of their existence, and that their leadership have a legal responsibility to shareholders. The same is not true of human beings, much as a few have decided that turning a profit is the whole point of their own personal existences.

I do agree about finding common ground and shared interests, but I don't think all of this is an end by itself - it's a means to achieve a fair world. This goes for the GPL, too, and indeed free software in general, and I think this is what Linus does not understand from his purely technical perspective.

Proprietary PostgreSQL vendors often contribute a heck of a lot of source code back for a reason that seems obvious when you think about it and applies to something like Linux too. The basic issue is that if you keep your own private fork and maximize what's not shared then you also maximize the work you have integrating what everyone else is contributing. By giving back as much as you can, you cut your costs down the road. That isn't to say that EnterpriseDB gives back everything but they back quite a lot.

When it comes to a proprietary vendor like Microsoft, it is much harder to get the QA done, and get updated drivers out to customers.

Something important is missing: this individual self interest must be "well pondered" and long term. If not, you get a McDonald-like catastrophic result.

I believe our virtues are built out of our vices. Selfishness can clearly cause harmful actions, but it can also be a strong motivator for building a common good as well, and these are not mutually exclusive. Indeed every vice I can think of can be built into a virtue.

In this view it isn't virtuous or not to be selfish, but rather the manner in which we are selfish (or lustful, or envious, or angry, etc) that creates virtue or vice. Order your vices and they become your virtues.

Also certainly talent matters, but inspiration (real inspiration) is important to long-term productivity. For example I have a friend who had serious issues working and typing due to old neck injuries. She became inspired to look into the connection of bows to Old Norse mythology and in the process not only typed a long written work (she's now working on a book) but took up bow-making and made several original contributions to my own understanding of some of the connections. None of this would have been possible for her if it were not for this inspiration.

Similarly when you look at people like Linus who can code all day every day there is a certain level of inspiration that's required to do this without burning out. I also know that when I am in an inspired mood even hard problems are easy, but when I am in an ordinary mood, hard problems can be hard......

A lot of people have this idea that inspiration means you come up with a bright idea and everything else kind of falls into place. I don't see inspiration this way. Inspiration is the ability to engage in work in a higher state of consciousness (described below) and having fun doing it. I don't think you can separate inspiration and perspiration. Inspiration makes perspiration not only possible but fun.

There is a state that I can be at for periods of time that I call "inspired." In that state, problems that come at me are ones where I can immediately see solutions or at least where I can look to find solutions. Problems are all surmountable and my productivity is very high.

In a normal state I may approach a problem methodologically and maybe a bit linearly. I may analyze it, pick it apart, take baby steps, etc. I do all this when for some reason I can't access my inspiration. But in an inspired state I approach problems non-linearly, my task queue seems to move in semi-random order but it is usually the right order, I don't analyze problems, and I move in strides, sometimes large strides. Large problems when I look at them immediately fall to pieces and I can map out what needs to be done fast enough I can usually just do it, and when that doesn't happen it's usually just faster to move on to another problem, let it sit, and come back to it with a different perspective later (they all fall to pieces within a couple of days). Everything just kind of flows. I can keep that state up sometimes for months before hitting a "normal" point. These aren't depressive episodes or anything (I don't feel worse off mood-wise for example, and I am not usually a lot less productive than many other programmers I have worked with in this state) but can be usually shortened by paying a bit more attention to balance in life.

Of course it's possible for some people to find inspiration in every day problems, to look for ways to be inspired in this way. Maybe that's what you are thinking of as talent. I see it as something that can be cultivated within oneself and transmitted to others.

I have seen this happen with so many other people I have known it's a wonderful thing to watch. Resistance turns to heat, and eventually the flame springs forth.