As an open source developer, I’m often asking myself why the hell am I going through all of this pain in my free time to deliver quality software, when I’m already doing this in my office?? Sure, it’s fun, you can try out new things, deepen your knowledge in a specific field, it helps boost your career, etc. etc.

But every now and then, I’m reminded of another reason:

I believe in open source

This is just like other people saying

I believe in charity work
I believe in militia politics
I believe in volunteer firefighter engagement
I believe in helping that poor grandma across the street

They do, whereas I…

I believe in open source

All these things make the world go round, without most people noticing, as there is no big fame in it. Of course, there’s always that other point of view on open source. You can make as much money with organised open source, as with organised charity work, or organised militia politics (a.k.a. lobbying), and that’s perfectly fine – why shouldn’t you? But the driving force is always the same, regardless of the pay: It’s belief. Here’s another open source project I’ve recently re-discovered, that has a very nice reason of being, along the same lines. It’s EMMA. Citing the EMMA website:

Until recently, the world of Java development had been plagued by an absurd discrepancy: Java developers had excellent free IDEs, free compilers, free test frameworks but had to rely on code coverage tools that charged an arm and a leg in license fees. As a Java pro, I would like to use the same free coverage tool regardless of whether it is a massive commercial project at work or a small fun project at home. I’ve created EMMA to be that tool.

Beautiful!