Terrible digression: There are really three factors that keep me from active development, which may or may not be important here in a discussion of freeloader vs. contributor. First, there's the fact that I have no academic background in software development. This restricts what I can get involved in. Second, there are my interests, which lean towards the integration side and away from pure dev; for reasons unknown, I have some meager talents in integration. Third, there's my job, which is usually about 60 hours/week.
To sum it up, there's one's background, which restricts one's ability to contribute. There's one's interests and aptitude, which restricts what one may be motivated to do, and the plain old opportunity.
I would consider myself a net contributor, though, since I do contribute in my way. I evangelize; I instruct. I suspect you do the same in your way. We don't all have to recreate LBO to contribute to it (as Jordan succinctly said, "publish or perish").
Were Doug to free LBO I'm sure that he could be assisted in a hundred different ways, from cash money to gifts in kind (software licenses, for example, or web hosting or site maintenance) to assistance with the business of creating LBO, such as spending a small amount of time tracking down leads or evangelizing for more readership and thus more contributors. This would also be incredibly inefficient for Doug to manage or delegate, but at least as a thought experiment no huge obstacles present themselves, so long as the consumers also become producers.
If the consumers, however, do not become producers, and become freeloaders, I give LBO about a week. :)
Marco
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> Marco Anglesio | We think in generalities, <
> mpa at the-wire.com | but we live in details. <
> http://www.the-wire.com/~mpa | --A. N. Whitehead <
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