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> I'm waiting for the entrepreneur who will say he doesn't care how much money he makes or how many customers he has, only that it's worthwhile and needed doing

> I'm waiting for the entrepreneur who will say he doesn't care how much money he makes or how many customers he has, only that it's worthwhile and needed doing. This is literally all of open source software. The problem here is that you're waiting for an entrepreneur to say this, which is the wrong kind of person to expect this from.

Zelphyr 7y ago
> The problem here is that you're waiting for an entrepreneur to say this, which is the wrong kind of person to expect this from. I agree and can’t help but wonder if this is why we’re seeing more and more developers trying to make money from their Open Source projects.
- neltnerb 7y ago
  Is it not because rent keeps going up while "entrepreneurs" use their work with minimal attribution and certainly no financial contribution to get rich? The same "entrepreneurs" who then act entitled to free support from the same developer struggling to pay the rent? I think they're really just trying to solve the problem of "how do I afford to eat while still supporting software used by Facebook to make billions of dollars"?
ken 7y ago
Possibly. But for a little while, I did hear about "lifestyle businesses", i.e., the idea that you could be financially sustainable in tech without needing massive growth. And these days, I think most of the open source software I use was actually contributed by a corporation.
- ufmace 7y ago
  Be careful of believing what you hear. There are still plenty of lifestyle businesses, they just don't seek out or receive much publicity. The media buzz is dominated by mostly-not-very-good VCs and mostly-not-very-good startups trying to find and impress each other. The VC market is designed to seek out the "unicorn" companies whose value will grow 1000x, and so the companies that might be that and try to look like that get the most buzz. There's nothing wrong with starting or funding that kind of company, but it's not for everyone, and it certainly isn't all that's out there. It's still viable to start a smallish lifestyle business that produces enough money for yourself and doesn't take a ton of work to keep going, but will never grow to be 1000x the size. It's just fine if that's what you want to do too, but know that such businesses usually don't market too much, either for customers or investors. They don't want VCs, and VCs don't want them either.

Zelphyr 7y ago

> The problem here is that you're waiting for an entrepreneur to say this, which is the wrong kind of person to expect this from. I agree and can’t help but wonder if this is why we’re seeing more and more developers trying to make money from their Open Source projects.

neltnerb 7y ago
Is it not because rent keeps going up while "entrepreneurs" use their work with minimal attribution and certainly no financial contribution to get rich? The same "entrepreneurs" who then act entitled to free support from the same developer struggling to pay the rent? I think they're really just trying to solve the problem of "how do I afford to eat while still supporting software used by Facebook to make billions of dollars"?

ken 7y ago

Possibly. But for a little while, I did hear about "lifestyle businesses", i.e., the idea that you could be financially sustainable in tech without needing massive growth. And these days, I think most of the open source software I use was actually contributed by a corporation.

ufmace 7y ago
Be careful of believing what you hear. There are still plenty of lifestyle businesses, they just don't seek out or receive much publicity. The media buzz is dominated by mostly-not-very-good VCs and mostly-not-very-good startups trying to find and impress each other. The VC market is designed to seek out the "unicorn" companies whose value will grow 1000x, and so the companies that might be that and try to look like that get the most buzz. There's nothing wrong with starting or funding that kind of company, but it's not for everyone, and it certainly isn't all that's out there. It's still viable to start a smallish lifestyle business that produces enough money for yourself and doesn't take a ton of work to keep going, but will never grow to be 1000x the size. It's just fine if that's what you want to do too, but know that such businesses usually don't market too much, either for customers or investors. They don't want VCs, and VCs don't want them either.