Why I can't recommend Arch or Gentoo

[Chris Brannon]

Karen Lewellen <klewellen at shellworld.net> writes:

> Perhaps I am an innocent,  but the individuals spending time on this
> software  freely by choice  are doing this so that someone other than
> themselves  can make use of their work.
> Is not this the case?
> Otherwise, you could perfectly well play with the programs at your
> house for your own use, and subject to only your own ideas of
> functionality.

Nope.  You're working under the incorrect assumption that all free
software is written out of a spirit of altruism by a bunch of nice
people who just want to give away free stuff.  Yes, sometimes that is the
case, but in fact, there are a lot of reasons why free software is
written.  I'd argue that one of the biggest is that it scratches a
developer's itch.  In other words, someone with the skills needs
something, so they write it.  It serves its purpose for them, so they
decide to share it, hoping that someone else will find it useful.  After
all, it's not nice to keep your toys all to yourself, is it?  Chances
are that if you've scratched an itch, someone else is going to have the
exact same itch.  Being a basically virtuous person, it behooves you
to post your work on the net, so that the next person can derive some
advantage from it.  None of this involves *pure* altruism.

Actually, that's how Talking Arch got started in the first place.  I
needed it, so I built it.  Since I went to all that trouble, I did the
next logical thing and put it up on the net.  I made it pretty clear
over the years that I was scratching a personal itch.  However, if
someone asked for something, I did my very best to give them what they
wanted.  Braille is a case in point.  For most of my life, I haven't
even had access to a braille display.  They're too expensive.  Right
now, I do have access to Deedra's, but it has a few broken cells on
it.  Anyway, when I added braille support to talking Arch back in 2010
or so, it was because somebody else asked me nicely and was willing to
test a pre-release image that I made for them.  Considering that I was
just "scratching an itch", I was by no means obligated to do it.  I did
it because of my personal philosophy.  Basically it's mutual aid.  Also,
sometimes I like to pretend to be a nice guy, when I'm not pretending to
be a bad boy.  I've rarely pretended to be a charity worker, even though
the world could use more charity.
I'm not involved with Talking Arch anymore, so I don't know what
motivates the current developers.  Maybe they'd like to speak up, or
not.

No, I'm not knocking altruism at all.  It's a beautiful thing.  I'm sure
there are very many developers who give their time and efforts to free
software out of the purest of motives.  They may feel a great sense of
obligation toward their users, but at the end of the day, they also have
to decide how best to spend their effort.  And sometimes, this means
that some user needs are going to go unsatisfied.

-- Chris