An study of cybervolunteer motivation by Viola Krebs has been published in FirstMonday.org, a journal devoted to Internet studies.

This will be a most interesting study. We have all heard or read stories about why people "crunch", including the wild bunch who use some WCG projects to race their computers.

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thank you for this link a great read.

Hi David... this really is an eye-opening study into the motivating / demotivating factors behind (excuse the invented word here, but...) "cybervolunteerism".

With regard to (and I quote from the paper...)

They found that enjoyment–based intrinsic motivation — namely how creative a person feels when working on the project — is the strongest and most pervasive driver for volunteers developing F/OSS. They also found that F/OSS volunteers highly regard intellectual stimulation derived from writing code as well as the possibility to improve programming skills.

...I sometimes wonder whether or not those folk who fall into the "extrinsic" category could be harnessed into developing commercial applications for the software / code they write, in a way that doesn't conflict with the technology they've brought to these current non-profit projects?

That study is so full of it.
The real and only reason for volunteering is the worshiping of computers but everyone is too embarrassed to admit it. The geeks love to see and feel the damn boxes working hard. If all the other crap like solidarity, noble causes and self-development were true then volunteers would be equally spread as occupational and school background not IT only. Also there would be 50-50 males to females not 87-13.
I'm so fed up with all this hypocrisy, for heaven's sake admit it: I'm a NERD and when I'm not playing Bioshock I like to know that the damn silicon won't have a break like me. Before discovering grid computing I forced my machines to run useless and demanding screen savers but now there's BOINC and that makes me feel less guilty.