When running a free software project, you won't need to talk about such weighty philosophical matters on a daily basis. Programmers will not insist that everyone else in the project agree with their views on all things (those who do insist on this quickly find themselves unable to work in any project). But you do need to be aware that the question of "free" versus "open source" exists, partly to avoid saying things that might be inimical to some of the participants, and partly because understanding developers' motivations is the best way—in some sense, the only way—to manage a project.
Free software is a culture by choice. To operate successfully in it, you have to understand why people choose to be in it in the first place. Coercive techniques don't work. If people are unhappy in one project, they will just wander off to another one. Free software is remarkable even among volunteer communities for its lightness of investment. Most of the people involved have never actually met the other participants face-to-face, and simply donate bits of time whenever they feel like it. The normal conduits by which humans bond with each other and form lasting groups are narrowed down to a tiny channel: the written word, carried over electronic wires. Because of this, it can take a long time for a cohesive and dedicated group to form. Conversely, it's quite easy for a project to lose a potential volunteer in the first five minutes of acquaintanceship. If a project doesn't make a good first impression, newcomers rarely give it a second chance.
The transience, or rather the potential transience, of relationships is perhaps the single most daunting task facing a new project. What will persuade all these people to stick together long enough to produce something useful? The answer to that question is complex enough to occupy the rest of this book, but if it had to be expressed in one sentence, it would be this:
People should feel that their connection to a project, and influence over it, is directly proportional to their contributions.
No class of developers, or potential developers, should ever feel discounted or discriminated against for non-technical reasons. Clearly, projects with corporate sponsorship and/or salaried developers need to be especially careful in this regard, as פרק 5, Money discusses in detail. Of course, this doesn't mean that if there's no corporate sponsorship then you have nothing to worry about. Money is merely one of many factors that can affect the success of a project. There are also questions of what language to choose, what license, what development process, precisely what kind of infrastructure to set up, how to publicize the project's inception effectively, and much more. Starting a project out on the right foot is the topic of the next chapter.