If you define altruism in an artificially stringent way - e.g. if you decide that actions cannot be altruistic unless they result in pain, cannot be habitual, have nothing to do with any relationship, have nothing to do with sympathy, have nothing to do with any ideology, have nothing to do with trying to be a better person... then of course you will conclude that it does not exist. Not because it is not a real thing, but because you wanted to determine that it does not exist, and therefore artificially ruled out all the ordinary cases.
But this is a game of words because that's not what altruism is. Altruism can be based on kinship, reciprocity, ideology, self-image, sympathy, habit and other things which are active in normal people's minds.
IBM and Google are public corporations, meaning that turning a profit is the whole point of their existence, and that their leadership have a legal responsibility to shareholders. The same is not true of human beings, much as a few have decided that turning a profit is the whole point of their own personal existences.
There is some degree of ambiguity in the common usage of the word vs. the term that evolutionary biologists use.
I don't agree with your definition -- altruism based on reciprocity is an oxymoron. altruism based on kinship, i.e. a mother feeding a child, is not altruism. It could be called "nice" or "heartwarming", but it's not altruism.
But putting the definition of words aside, what do you think is the most common motivator for open source? Do you think that most contributions to the Linux kernel are due to aligned interests, or due to altruism? (Whatever altruism means, I would say it is mutually exclusive from "aligned interests")
I think Linus probably has some insight into this question, having led the project for so long.
I think pure altruism is rare but possible. In fact I vaguely remember a story about a guy contributing drivers to the Linux kernel for old hardware that he didn't even own and never planned on using.
On the other hand, maybe he just had a different idea of fun than other people (in all seriousness).
>In fact I vaguely remember a story about a guy contributing drivers to the Linux kernel for old hardware that he didn't even own and never planned on using.
In the interview though, he says it started when he bought web cams for his daughters but there was no Linux support.
But then he realized that a lot of the code was shareable, so he generalized it to 235 cameras.
You could call the difference between making 2 drivers work and 235 "altruism". Or you could just call it "doing it a good job". Most people have the desire to do a good job.
I frequently do the same thing... I call it cleaning up dirty hacks, and learning the essence of a problem. Not necessarily altruism, but I won't object if anyone calls it that.
But this is a game of words because that's not what altruism is. Altruism can be based on kinship, reciprocity, ideology, self-image, sympathy, habit and other things which are active in normal people's minds.
IBM and Google are public corporations, meaning that turning a profit is the whole point of their existence, and that their leadership have a legal responsibility to shareholders. The same is not true of human beings, much as a few have decided that turning a profit is the whole point of their own personal existences.