Tell them, my song.

All Free and Open Source zealots on this planet will burn me at the stake for this, but I do not have any ideological issues with proprietary and closed source software, and I find it perfectly acceptable when developers want to get paid for their work.

I pay the hardware engineers at Intel when I buy a new CPU, and I pay the engineers at BMW when I buy a car. I also pay Z.A. Recht when I buy his latest book.

Now why all of a sudden is it so bloody wrong to pay software developers by buying a license to a closed source product?

I know that bullshit argument that once the software is written, its production costs go to zero because it can be copied infinitely. Well, so can a digital copy of a novel or the latest Iron Maiden album in mp3 format or the new Harry Potter movie when it’s ripped to mp4.

Strangely, I have not yet heard anybody scream and shout that Joanne Rowling should “open source” Harry Potter, or that Steve Harris should “open source” his new album and put it under the GPL.

So why should programmers open source their hard work and give it away for free while seemingly everybody else is entitled to a salary?

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