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jiggy2011

In that case project selection is important. Unpaid work towards a project who's main effect will be to reduce licensing costs for fortune 500 companies is very different to working on something to (say) improve educational outcomes for low income children.

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This is a very narrow perspective.

Hacking on open source does increase the education improvement for low income children. Example: Poor kids in Africa now have android phones and have access to open source education materials made possible via open source web technologies.

Android is developed mainly by paid engineers, not people giving their time as "civic duty".

What is Android based on? Linux.

Linux kernel development is also primarily[1] done by paid engineers

[1] http://www.linuxfoundation.org/news-media/announcements/2012...

Linux wouldn't be where it is today without the work of full time engineers paid to work on it.

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