After dealing with the products of people writing either "just for fun" or "just for profit", I think I'm ready to meet someone who's willing to try something a little in-between... because here we are, decades later, and Brooks' assertion about the cost of Programming Systems Products remains valid, and everything written either "just for fun" or "just for profit" seems to be little more than a Program, with all the attendant lack of sound engineering that comes with it. I'll happily pay for good programming systems products if someone is willing to actually write them. I just hope someone will get past this false fun/profit dichotomy so we can actually get there.
No, I want "it should exist and should be paid for"... even if that amount winds up being quite small, and only a one-time payment... but I know I'm in the minority that believes nobody should work for free. I'm willing to tolerate a one-time payment knowing that good programming systems products are not going to fall out of the sky because of the amount of work required to hatch them in the first place is apparently beyond what both individual hackers and paid corporate developers are willing to put into their works, so I can't just sit back and wait for someone to write something good... if I don't pay someone who says they'll do it, it's not going to happen at all.
I'm not going to copy-paste paragraphs from The Mythical Man-Month for you. I will say that my definition accords with Brooks's definition presented therein.
