If a photographer is giving their work to a friend or a charity - especially a small one - then that is perfectly fine in every possible way. But if the photographer gives their images away to a business or organisation which stands to profit from that gift, then they are having the wool pulled over their eyes.
not at all, assuming they go in with their eyes open. Plus see my comments on software below .
Toby, the examples you give are different. They are people willingly offering their time to perform a task that benefits the whole community.
I am struggling to see the distinction. A council website is there to help the community is it not? If only to bring in more money to the area, create jobs etc etc.
Even if it wasn't though, see below....
I must admit I can't quite get my head around the case of software developers, though. I don't understand how it works.
Just my opinion but I think it works very well at a number of levels.....
1) People do it just for fun, they like doing it and get a kick from seeing other people using their software.
2) People do it for the kudos. Having their name in the credits and being know as the guy that wrote some cool code is enough
3) People think the publicity will get them known and get them something else they want, eg a job or contracting work
4) People/companies use it as a means of creating business, eg consultancy or support work based around the software or paid for enhancements or improvements
5) people give it away for free but have a donate button in the hope a subset of the users will give them some cash
6) Paid for advertising or pay per click income based around the software or product.
I am sure there are lots more business models.
In reality I think the majority of open source code started out using 1 or 2. ie no financial gain was expected. Often by kids or students in their bedrooms.
It was only later than people realised they could somehow turn it to their financial advantage. Some people have gone down that financial route, other are still happy to write code for free. They both exist happily along side each other. And anyone in the sw community how complained that someone was doing them out of a job by giving away software for free would be seriously ridiculed.
I really can only see one difference between photographers and software engineers. (some) photographers grew up in the old world where supply was limited and things like the ability use a darkroom and distribute your results was a skill the masses did not have. So the skill was believed to be worth being paid for. That attitude still persists despite the fact than nowadays anyone can get a decent camera, edit the pics and publish them from their bedroom. And a lot of those people are now better than some of the "pros".....
This was also the case for software engineers in the very early days (and I can just about remember those days) but the internet and PCs put paid to that a long time ago. So most are now very used to the concept of "free" software. I wrote software in my bedroom on my BBC micro as a student. I would have given my right arm for anyone (including a company) to actually notice and use my software for free. Unfortunately I never wrote anything of much use back then. On the other hand, my mate did the same and went straight from University to Microsoft and ended up retired as a millionaire by the time he was 40.......
Don't get me wrong, it isn't a bed of roses in the software world either. I work in a fairly niche area so our work (and hence income) is fairly well protected from this sort of thing. However, only recently we put in a quote for £12k for some work (and though that was a very reasonable price) only to be told a competitor had quoted £2k. It was fairly clear the competitor was basically getting some of the work done for free and just trying to get into the market.
Was there any point in us complaining? Of course not. All we could do was stress what came with our £12k - experience, quality of work, long term support etc etc. We didn't get the work but that is life
