Bang Book - Why do people develop free software?

This was an interesting article that gave a few reasons why people develop open source software.  One of the primary reasons is the lack of a piece of software to do what they need to do.  In other words they develop free software to solve a problem.  The second reason that people develop free software is that they do not like paying high prices for non-customizable software or buggy software.  Some software that was developed in response to high priced software was StarOffice/OpenOffice in replaced of Microsoft Office, Gimp in replace of Photoshop, and Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox in replace of Internet Explorer.  All of these replacements offer the open source to the public, giving everyone the ability to customize the program.  And best of all they are free.  

One piece of open source that I use is a fan controller for my laptop.  I find that my laptop runs too hot if I let it manage it's fans.  So, I use this small app to run my fans a little faster and keep the laptop a little cooler.  This is a great example of someone solving a problem with open source.