Dana Blankenhorn and Paula Rooney's blog at ZDNet has a posting today about the metrics of success for open source. It succinctly describes why many of us pursue open source solutions and being providers of open source applications to needy industries. That is why I started Open Solutions for Education, to serve an education community that is under many different pressures.
Most of us chasing this path will never be rich and many of us write our own personal checks to get our business started, keep it floating and many times to avoid shutting the doors completely. While open source is a great movement, the reality is that products quickly become complex and require an organization to provide long term support to ensure that the market penetration occurs where widespread benefits can be realized.
So the next time you download that "free" application, consider that someone has likely spent thousands of dollars and thousands of hours getting that product to a point where you can use it. So give back to the originators. Click on their Google ads, donate some money, send them some code, help them get some customers, etc. It is all about community and if you truly like the product and consider yourself to be a community member, then contribute! Altruism and philanthropy are noble pursuits.
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