german_dong

The author is known in the community as a mere packager whose knowledge of the nitty-gritty derives entirely from hearsay. Perhaps he read the long-winded preamble to xdisp.c written in 1995 boasting of all manner of optimisations. But they were written so long ago, almost no one believes most of them matter anymore, what with thirty years of bitrot.

Profit motive is the singlemost powerful motivator for the pharmaceutical industry. Take that away, and let's see how many smart, hard-working people work their butts off to rescue sick children.

Pros:

* Guaranteed sex.

* No more time wasted seeking mates

* Potentially less semen wasted with bespoke receptacles.

Would you like to live in a city like this?

1. Internet has made distribution frictionless. So unlike giving out Uber trips, giving out code costs you nothing.

2. You have a real job. The "80% time" for which you're paid subsidizes the self-promotional work you do for free, and let's not kid ourselves: most of us write open-source not out of altruism but for the recognition.

3. Software is immediately useful. Lawyering is a lot like programming in that both involve putting pen to paper in just the right way. But pro bono legal work is a lot more painful than whipping up some code. Lawyers have to deal with people and all their bs.

4. Software is easy. I don't know why but the return on capital blows away the return on labor. Whereas Microsoft may have once derived most of their profit from software, they've now come around to the rest of the tech industry which is selling hardware and compute -- the software that comes with it is included.

Just as writing clarifies thinking, so does this. That's not a cost, that's a prudent investment.