This engaging video about motivation explains exactly why highly skilled people create open source software, like Linux, on their spare time, and then give it away for free.
When you make something not for money, but because you’re excited to start working on it first thing in the morning as you spring out of bed like a child on Christmas morning, isn’t it better than something you make because you think someone out there might buy it? Linux is free because the people who make it are passionate about it! They do it for the challenge, not the money.
As mentioned in the video, people are looking for autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Working for huge software companies provides little room for autonomy and mastery, but working with a small, dedicated community that always needs new bright minds provides an endless supply of autonomy, mastery, and purpose to the people working within them.
“Code monkeys”, programmers who are expected to pump out large volumes of code, have no autonomy. This model leads to massively bloated software, which is why even the lightest modern versions of windows need 1GB to function at all, while Linux can run off a single floppy disk with 1.4MB of disk space (That’s 0.13% resources used!) When programmers get autonomy, they want to build the most efficient software possible.
Everyone is good at something, everyone wants to improve at and eventually master something. Developers working on the Linux Kernel (The basic foundation of the operating system) set out to build the most stable, fast, and functional operating system on the planet. They’ve done that and achieved mastery. And, they’ve made a huge contribution to our world, since most of the internet is run on Linux. The same is true of Ubuntu, the worlds most popular Linux distribution, which set out to build a free operating system that everyone on Earth could use. Through an enthusiastic community of thousands of developers working for free, in a flexible and adaptable environment, they have succeeded.
Linux is better than Windows because the people who make it do it for free. They don’t do it for money, they do it because they want to have purpose, and to contribute to something greater than their wallet.
For more details on Linux, check out the Wikipedia page
