Sure. But if your plan is to do all the work by yourself, for the benefit of companies who aren't contributing much beyond occasional bug fixes, then you will e

Sure. But if your plan is to do all the work by yourself, for the benefit of companies who aren't contributing much beyond occasional bug fixes, then you will eventually burn out like Mike Pall did. There won't necessarily be another sucker to take your place. For the project to have a healthy future you really need a community of user-developers who are supported by multiple organizations and cooperating and coordinating with each other. LuaJIT doesn't currently have such a community and bootstrapping one is a doosey.