4 ms·
> I release a ton of my work with open source licensing and I've never thought of it as a revenue stream. That's the problem - nobody treats being an independe
by kyledrake 7y ago
> I release a ton of my work with open source licensing and I've never thought of it as a revenue stream.
That's the problem - nobody treats being an independent OSS dev as a possible career, so we either get 1) extremely privileged people that have the significant amount of time and resources required to contribute substantially for no payment, 2) open source that serves to promote a corporate goal, and 3) less and lower quality hobby contributions because the rational people realize they're doing free work to get treated by garbage by people that feel entitled to free-as-in-beer software and choose not to do that.
Imagine how much worse any industry would be if nobody got paid for doing it. Now imagine how much better the OSS ecosystem would be if more people could make a living doing nothing but OSS on their terms. That's the goal here. We want to transform OSS from a starving artists realm for privileged people to a place where people can make careers. I'd be totally cool to see some dev-focused ads to make that happen.
- caniszczyk 7y agoIt is a sustainable career if you start a business. If no one wants to pay you for your project, that could be the market telling you something. At the end of, donations don't work and open source is being fairly well sustained if people seek employment or start a business: https://www.aniszczyk.org/2019/03/25/troubles-with-the-open-source-gig-economy-and-sustainability-tip-jar/ https://www.aniszczyk.org/2019/03/25/troubles-with-the-open-...
- pjmlp 7y agoFOSS as business only works for consulting and training, which don't apply to some domains, desktop and mobile for the consumer market as an example.