Showing posts with label intrinsic motivation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label intrinsic motivation. Show all posts

15 June 2010

Are Software Patents Patently Dangerous Enough?

Earlier this week I wrote about a useful study of the economics of copyright, pointing out that we need more such analyses in order to adopt a more rational, evidence-based approach to drafting laws in this area. Of course, precisely the same can be said of patents, and software patents in particular, so it's always good to come across work such as this newly-published doctoral dissertation [.pdf]: “The effects of software patent policy on the motivation and innovation of free and open source developers.”

On Open Enterprise blog.

20 January 2008

The Joy of Code

Thankfully we seem to be moving beyond the simplistic idea that code written and given away for nothing is worth nothing. But not everyone has gasped the corollary: that the you get better code if you *don't* pay for it. Why? Because passion is a better motivator than pounds and pence.

If you're sceptical, trying this post that reviews the growing evidence that external rewards demage intrinsic motivations:

As many of you know, I'm really interested in the question of "Would you do it again for free?" If you take developers that are working on open source software for free and you pay them, if you stop paying them, will they still work on open source software? This was the topic of my keynote at GUADEC and will be the topic of my keynotes at LinuxConf Australia and SCALE - the story continues to evolve as I learn more. One of the things I started with was a search to see if there was any relevant data out there. I found the following five studies that explore how external rewards affect internal or intrinsic rewards

Those studies tend to suggest that rewarding people for doing something produces less good results than relying on their personal passion or altruism. Creating something and giving it away is not only better for those who receive, it's also better for those who give.