The reason why - DevLog #006

Is it possible

that I'm silly? What's the reason for me to spend most of my free time working on an open-source project like NumeRe? I'm not kidding---that's a serious question, because from an objective, financial viewpoint there's really no reason to do so. I mean, of course I'm learning interesting stuff during my coding sessions, but I also could have done so by programming some commercial application. And, in fact, if I would work for a company, which would sell self-coded applications, I would most probably not work on this project, although the reason is different: after 8 hours of programming, I'm simply exhausted and neither able to produce some reasonable code nor even think of possible solutions.

Well, the question still persist: why am I doing this? Is it possible that I'm simply bored at work during the day times and need some sort of compensation? Certainly not---I really like my daytime job, because it's challenging everyday. Well, is it then possible that I'm bored at home? Of course not! My wife and my cat (Every physicist should have a cat!) are very demanding and they don't like (however accept) when I'm spending hours in front of my computer inspecting code and smashing bugs.

The actual reason is most probably that I like the concept of open source software, because I can look at it, if I don't understand, what it's doing. I like the idea of being able to modify every software, to add or remove features. My major competitor is probably also one reason, why I code an application: I dislike many design decisions being done in this software and I want to build an application, which outclasses it in these aspects.

TLDR: I'm developing NumeRe, because I like the concept of open source software and I dislike silly, expensive closed source.