Take a look through Github or Sourceforge. Many, many of the projects are people scratching an itch or just building something for fun. We can argue about the exact percentage, but it's definitely more than "very few bits".
Github and Sourceforge are supported via paying customers or advertising. =)
The point isn't that all software isn't paid for. Rather, that somewhere, it's costing someone money. And I think that was the point (or at least, that's what I got from it, which is the important part).
I was referring to the software on Github and Sourceforge, not Github and Sourceforge themselves.
Some software costs someone money. Lots of it is built for the sake of building it though. You could argue that time people spend building software could have been billable hours, but I think the author totally misunderstands the spirit of building software for the enjoyment of it.
> I was referring to the software on Github and Sourceforge, not Github and Sourceforge themselves.
So was I. And this software is being supported by SF and Github.
> I think the author totally misunderstands the spirit of building software for the enjoyment of it.
Which means nothing.
Consider Linus and Linux. Linux wasn't paid for directly, but don't for a minute think it wasn't supported by someone's cash.
In fact, I challenge you to find me software that didn't use someone's real money (not this billable hours thing you brought to the table for some reason) to get developed at some point.
I don't understand your argument that the software is being supported by SF and Github. Github and SF didn't spend a cent to develop any of those projects; they were created and then hosted there. If I hosted my open source software on my Linode account would you say that it's paid because I spent my own money to pay for Linode?
You picked one example in which someone gets paid to write software, but there are hundreds of thousands of software projects that were written in people's spare time, either for fun or to learn to code or to scratch their own (non-monetary) itch.
Here's a random one from the HN frontpage last week:
I found this comment to be quite insightful. An interesting way to look at it.