[A more verbose, pretentious 'me too, I think' on graydon's sentiment]

If you write software (be it free, proprietary, good, bad, useful or utterly pointless), why do you do it? Do you do it to pay the rent, to get rich, to make the world a better place, to give something of utility to others, to gain the respect and recognition of your peers, to be virtuous? Surely some or all of these are important parts of the motivation but I hope that, in the end, many of you do it for the art, for the fun, to scratch an itch to create, because you have a passion and because you simply must. You do it for that moment around 3am when, amidst the hum of machines and glow of symbols, your mind and heart come in touch with beauty. A beauty that may be significant or even universal (should you be so smart and lucky) or simply (and more commonly) a satisfying glimmer in a corner of your brain, invisible, unknowable by all but you.

If that is why you write, then you and I have met. We can't and don't meet like that while shouting ourselves hoarse from the tops of moral spires, not even if we happen to stand on the same one.

I stole his title so I'll let the man say his whole bit.

In my Craft or Sullent Art

 
 In my craft or sullen art
Exercised in the still of night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms,
I labour by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or for the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
Of their most secret heart.

 
 Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Nor for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art

 
 Dylan Thomas