Unpredictable. Unfocused. Just like life.

Pito Salas wonders if the preponderance of free software is bad for innovation:

Whatever the reason, I worry about the chilling effect this can have on innovation in our industry.

How many great new innovations have died on the vine because there was just no way for the creators to pay the rent while building the Next Big Thing? Even after a year, two years of development, the prospects for getting users to somehow compensate for the value delivered were small to none.

So just what great stuff aren't we seeing? Well we really have no way of knowing. But we are seeing a lot of pretty cool applications. While some developers may not be able to pay the rent, a lot more seem to be doing stuff just because they can, or because they see a problem to solve.

And these free projects have paid off in other ways - reputation enhancement and jobs for the creators in some cases. In some cases that is the business model for the free software. And some of these free products seem to have had no problem getting funded.

I've been working away for the past while on a blogging client, because I wasn't happy with what was available, and because I could. It will be free too. And for me, it's just a cool project.

Via David Weinberger.