This argument appeals to equity as well as economic commonsense, and finds sympathizers even in the Open Source community. Certainly, we would all like to see programmers being compensated for their contributions. There are several business models that are being attempted. The SourceForge and Collab.Net method of raising contributions from users to pay developers is an innovative one, but its success is as yet unproven. Programmers could also try and make money by supporting their creations, maybe selling copies of it as well, providing consultancy and professional services, etc. But we still don't know of a foolproof business model for this sort of thing. There may not even be one. In the absence of a good system coming along pretty soon, Open Source will perhaps continue to be written by volunteer programmers who have day jobs writing commercial software. It could also expect contributions from hardware or services companies with a stake in its success.

But even in this worst case, does it mean that Open Source will stop being written? As long as Open Source programmers have alternative sources of income (i.e. day jobs), they lose nothing by working on Open Source projects in their spare time (a win-neutral transaction). With the increasing number of people being exposed to Open Source, the pool of contributors is in fact growing larger by the day.

"Are Open Source programmers writing themselves out of their jobs?"

But that leads to what may seem the ultimate argument against the economics of Open Source: How long can programmers work day jobs at commercial software companies and write software at night that puts those same companies out of business? Writing Open Source software is not just irrational, it is positively suicidal. 'Tis an ill bird that fouls its own nest, (not to mention an extremely foolish one).

Indeed, this appears to be a very powerful argument. However, Eric Raymond comes to our rescue with this statistical nugget: Only 5 percent of all programmers are actually engaged in writing "for sale" commercial software. The other 95 percent actually write and maintain custom-built software for in-house use. Open Source doesn't threaten custom-built software at all. It only competes with packaged software that is sold as a product. And so, in the worst case, Open Source programmers are only going to put 5 percent of their own kind out of work. That's an acceptable level of collateral damage, as the generals might say.

"But free isn't natural. There's no such thing as a free lunch"

But this entire idea is crazy, somewhat like producing something out of nothing!