Mishi Choudhary wrote:

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On Wed, 11 Jan 2006 Krishna Pagadala wrote : Likewise Free Software developers will produce what they need for themselves, it just so happens that the rest of soceity also benefits. Also Free Software developers will develop whatever we pay them to develop, just like everybody else.

yes of course however most of the software developers or anyone >for that matter is paid monetarily for him or her to survive

This line of thinking is errorneous when it comes to thinking about Free Software. Out of necessity each one of us is partly a lawyer, a doctor, an accountant, or a software developer etc. The sum total of the knowledge that we have in those roles will dwarf any professional organisation and its output. The main problem with tapping such knowledge is transaction costs.

Let me give you an example. I have to do my taxes in a few months, and I am planning to do it on my own by reading the tax code. I am sure there are many more people doing the same. Now imagine that all the people who are doing this were to somehow able to put their knowledge in a very accessible way to everybody who wants it. That would pretty much be Free Accounting movement. In this instance none "of the accounting developers" need to be paid "monetarily for him or her to survive" because that is not their profession, however if some of them are adequately compensated by the public then they will make it their profession.

i wish to ask that who is this "we" whose paying the free software developers?

By we I meant the general public who consume free software.

and is the money being paid enough in comparison to what one can make by working for a proprietary software developing company?

This is not an issue because the expectation is that people will make a living by means other than proprietary software. Customization, selling services, or developing Free Software as a hobby, or because they want to make the product that they bought better etc..

I would recommend that you read FLOSS survey report http://www.infonomics.nl/FLOSS/report/ particularly free software developers motivations which can be found at http://www.infonomics.nl/FLOSS/report/Final4.htm

DEMOCRATIZING INNOVATION by Eric Von Hippel http://web.mit.edu/evhippel/www/democ.htm or atleast some of his papers at http://web.mit.edu/evhippel/www/papers.htm if you dont have the time to read the whole book.

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It has been estimated thatsourceforge alone is equal to 1 Microsoft.

whats is sourceforge

Sourceforge is a place where Free Software projects are hosted. http://sourceforge.net/

in what terms and manner is it equivalent to one microsoft

By the estimated amount of man-years spent on development of code.

pardon my very basic queries but i wish to understand every bit and am a complete novice in this waiting for a response

It is my pleasure to answer thoughtful questions like yours. Please ask anymore questions that you might have.

Warm Regards

Krishna

Mishi Choudhary

===================================== To Reflect, to Inspire and to Empower http://www.employees.org/~krishnap/

The great moral question of the twenty-first century is: If all knowledge, all culture, all art, all useful information, can be costlessly given to everyone at the same price that it is given to anyone -- if everyone can have everything, everywhere, all the time, why is it ever moral to exclude anyone from anything? -Eben Moglen --------------------------------- Yahoo! Photos Ring in the New Year with Photo Calendars. Add photos, events, holidays, whatever.