I'm sure his children don't see his worth as a father improved by the time he spends coding open source instead of interacting with them. A similar thing can be said for every other non-programmer he interacts with. Perhaps he won't leave the programming legacy that you or he would like, but that doesn't discount the value of the other legacies he may create in the meantime.
(Apologies if my gender bias above is incorrect.)
I think that the 501 argument at its core is that we shouldn't judge a programmer's personal value solely by their programming. Programming is the one thing that everyone in this argument has in common, so it's easy to turn it into the only metric by which we judge people. Any other metric might not apply to all of us, so it would be of limited use.
I think 501 developers are tired of being scorned or feeling guilty for not dedicating themselves to programming all the time when other segments of their life need attention too. But let's face it - if they weren't passionate about programming, they would hardly take the time out to make the argument.
Don't get me wrong--I'm not saying, "Hey, to hell with your kids, we've got commits to make!". I actually got hammered pretty hard a while back for defending the stance of fathers telling VCs/bosses/etc. to fuck off when asked to choose between family and code. That's the right thing to do.
But, there is a real problem, right? We can't really judge a person by anything other than their programming value--and the vast majority of us, here on HN, are only somewhat qualified to do that much.
Even in a seemingly simple case such as whether or not we should ascribe personal value to somebody who has had kids, we can't assign value easily. Do they support their kids? Do they beat their kids? If yes, is it for good reason? If yes again, how often do they beat them? Even something as seemingly clear-cut as that is a transparent as mud.
Are they homosexual? Are they polyamorous? Are they racist? Are they sexist/genederist? Are they a fan of classical music? Do they play an instrument? Do they like the Yankees?
All of that is stupidly subjective in terms of valuation. Why bother?
Programming, though--and more particularly, how they contribute to the community of programmers--is something that we can at least try to reason about. Something we can attempt to quantify (and yes, you can game lines of code, you can gain commit counts, etc.).
Lastly, note the attitude of the ancestral post:
"I'll never put in 80 hours in a week for you. I'm sorry, but there are more important things in life than programming. Maybe I'll never be the best programmer, but I think I'll be a better person."
That's a little high-and-mighty, yes? Didn't even bother to qualify "more important things in life than programming". There are, but that was an unsupported statement that we can't expect anyone who values programming above all else to agree with. The "better person" bit, too--better than whom? Themselves having chosen to value programming more? Us, the hapless codemonkeys who see a chance to make progress for everyone? Who?
I don't begrudge people that are punchclock coders. If you ignore what I do outside of my day job (which admittedly is secondary to my startup efforts), I qualify--and I come in late and leave early!
What I cannot stand, however, are people that make unsubstantiated claims, that come off as holier-than-thou, and that seem to be unable to grasp that they can insult a whole group of people without meaning to.
It is definitely still a problem. If we discard the programming-centric judgement metric, we are left with essentially no common ground on which to form opinions, so that's clearly a non-starter as well.
I don't have an answer for all of this, on either side. It seems to be rift-causing issue from both directions. I think that rift is something of a false dichotomy, which is my main problem with this issue. The people in this debate are all actually on the same side - they care enough to debate it. What they care about may differ, but that hardly seems to matter in my eyes, as long as they do care.
(I dislike all the downvotes you've received out of disagreement - it was a thought-provoking comment that has continued the discussion. I upvoted, for what it's worth. Playing devil's advocate seems to have gotten you singed a bit. :) )
That's just an awful way to judge someone. Just because he chooses not to give away his work, or do any side projects at all does not mean he is "no good". There is more to life than writing open source code you know!
Where did I ever say that I didn't do those things? I'm railing against the people that think that just because that's not what you do with every day and every hour of your life means that you're not passionate about it.
"Where did I ever say that I didn't do those things?"
meet
"Just because I don't do these things, it does not mean I'm not a passionate programmer."
I apologize if I incorrectly read your statement.
As for passion:
I mean, a lot of people are passionate about Jesus, and are passionate about the Chicago Bears, and are passionate about Jersey Shore.
That doesn't mean that they're doing anything genuinely useful.
The problem here is that it isn't enough to be passionate. You have to be doing Good--and if you look at my original wording, that was very much what I asked (albeit with poor capitalization): what Good are you?
Again, if all you do is dump code into the maw of some proprietary system without writing about it or trying to share your knowledge or give away your tools, well, you haven't really helped anyone who isn't a user of your project, right?
If you don't contribute to the projects, if you don't spread your knowledge, if you don't give away your source...
...what good are you?
What have you done?
How are you anything other than a consumer of other people's work and knowledge?