Free The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang Page B

on neural interfaces or nanomedical software. There are scores of genomic engines languishing in various states of incompletion on the open-source repositories, all in need of volunteer programmers, and the prospect of porting the dozen-year-old Neuroblast engine to a new platform may be the least exciting of them all. Only a handful of students are contributing to the Neuroblast port, and considering how little time they're able to devote, the Real Space platform will itself be obsolete before the port is finished.
    The other alternative is to hire professional developers. Derek has talked to some developers with experience in genomic engines, and requested quotes on how much it would cost to port Neuroblast. The estimates he's received are reasonable given the complexity of the project, and for a company with several hundred thousand customers, it would make perfect sense to go ahead with it. For a user group whose membership has dwindled down to about twenty people, however, the price is staggering.
    Derek reads the latest comments on the discussion forum, and then calls up Ana. Having the digients confined to a private Data Earth has definitely been hard, but for him there's also been a silver lining: he and Ana have reason to talk every day now, whether it's about the status of the Neuroblast port or trying to organize activities for their digients. Over the last few years Marco and Polo had drifted away from Jax as they all pursued their own interests, but now the Neuroblast digients have only each other for company, so he and Ana try to find things for them to do as a group. He no longer has a wife who might complain about this, and Ana's boyfriend Kyle doesn't seem to mind, so he can call her up without recrimination. It's a painful sort of pleasure to spend this much time with her; it might be healthier for him if they interacted less, but he doesn't want to stop.
    Ana's face appears in the phone window. "Have you seen Stuart's post?" Derek asks. Stuart pointed out what each person would have to pay for them if they divided the cost evenly, and asked how many of the members could afford that much.
    "I just read it," says Ana. "Maybe he thinks he's being helpful, but all he's doing is getting people anxious."
    "I agree," he says. "But until we come up with a good alternative, the per-person cost is what everyone will be thinking about. Have you met with that fundraiser yet?" Ana was going to talk to a friend of a friend, a woman who has run fundraising campaigns for wildlife sanctuaries.
    "As a matter of fact, I just got back from lunch with her."
    "Great! What did you find out?"
    "The bad news is, she doesn't think we can qualify for nonprofit status, because we're only trying to raise money for a specific set of individuals."
    "But anyone could use the new engine—" He stops. It's true that there are probably millions of snapshots of Neuroblast digients stored in archives around the world. But the user group can't honestly claim to be working on their behalf; without someone willing to raise them, none of those digients would benefit from a Real Space version of the Neuroblast engine. The only digients the user group is trying to help are its own.
    Ana nods without him saying a word; she must have had the exact same thought earlier. "Okay," says Derek, "we can't be a nonprofit. So what's the good news?"
    "She says we can still solicit contributions outside of the nonprofit model. What we need to do is tell a story that generates sympathy for the digients themselves. That's the way some zoos pay for things like surgeries on elephants."
    He considers that for a moment. "I guess we could post some videos about the digients, try tugging on people's heartstrings."
    "Exactly. And if we can build up enough popular sentiment, we might get contributions of time as well as money. Anything that raises the profiles of the digients will increase our chances of getting volunteers from the open-source community."
    "I'll start