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>But why do people contribute their time in building it? Because they get paid a salary to do so. Because commercial companies poured millions of dollars into
by ksk 11y ago
>But why do people contribute their time in building it?
Because they get paid a salary to do so. Because commercial companies poured millions of dollars into the OSS projects. Specifically, the projects that people actually think about when they talk about successful Open Source Software - Linux, Firefox, Chrome, etc.
>as well as the ability to leverage involvement into actual cash like well paid consultant gigs, books or successful blogs.
That only applies if your project is already successful. And if its already successful, chances are high that you're already drawing a decent salary. And, books... Err.. Do you have any idea how little money authors make on those?
http://www.techrepublic.com/article/for-50-percent-of-developers-open-source-is-a-9-to-5-job/ http://www.techrepublic.com/article/for-50-percent-of-develo...
The vast vast majority of Open Source projects are just that - Source Code. No chance of money. No chance of glory. An itch was scratched. Someone just pasted a bunch of source code onto the Internet. And there is nothing wrong with that whatsoever. However, painting the entire OSS landscape with the success of the extreme minority distorts the picture.
- gaius 11y agoThe point of books is to leverage the reputation into high paying consulting gigs. Same with conference speaking.
- xchaotic 11y agoSo it all boils down to high paying gigs then, which you can wing without contributing to OSS
- mseebach 11y agoNo, "you" can't wing them in any generalizable manner (why isn't everyone doing it, then?). For high paying gigs (not merely well-paid ones), you need a reputation. There are several ways to build a reputation, and contributing to a popular OSS project is one such way. An interesting, tangential point is that OSS is probably the most pure meritocratic way to build a reputation -- it does not rely on gaining access to a powerful network (which relies on gaining access to a slightly less powerful network, which relies on ...) or other variations of more-or-less controlled luck.