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The presumption here is that doing open source work does not open doors to employment – in fact, that's quite far from the truth. If you're a contributor to a

by wheels 16y ago

The presumption here is that doing open source work does not open doors to employment – in fact, that's quite far from the truth. If you're a contributor to a well known open source project there are lots of doors that are opened by being plugged into a network of other good developers that are often being pinged by people looking for work to be done. Prior to starting a startup virtually every job that I'd gotten had been either a result of or significantly influence by having done significant open source stuff and to this day, despite having been mostly inactive in open source stuff for about 4 years, I still regularly have people contact me asking if I'm available for contract work.

mattdeboard 16y ago
Oh, I don't dispute that whatsoever. I'm working on an open source project via a connection I made here on HackerNews. It's not an employment thing but I'm working with one of the (employed) team-leaders on the project. I know it looks great. But it would be nice programming to pay the bills in the meantime instead of whatever else I've got to do. (edit: I should say I left a career in another industry to pursue programming full-time, so I'm not complaining about having to do other things. I knew it was a gamble, but it was and still is worth it.)
codexon 16y ago
The presumption here is that doing open source work does not open doors to employment - in fact, that's quite far from the truth. It is in my experience that in large open source projects that anyone is impressed with, the people with commit privileges don't want more contributors. It is like Wikipedia where if you make an edit to their code or a replacement, they take personal offense to it and will fight you tooth and nail to get it ignored. Or in one case, just ignore me for over a year saying they will merge it and never do it. Or if they merge it, they don't give me credit.

by wheels 16y ago

mattdeboard 16y ago

Oh, I don't dispute that whatsoever. I'm working on an open source project via a connection I made here on HackerNews. It's not an employment thing but I'm working with one of the (employed) team-leaders on the project. I know it looks great. But it would be nice programming to pay the bills in the meantime instead of whatever else I've got to do. (edit: I should say I left a career in another industry to pursue programming full-time, so I'm not complaining about having to do other things. I knew it was a gamble, but it was and still is worth it.)

codexon 16y ago

The presumption here is that doing open source work does not open doors to employment - in fact, that's quite far from the truth. It is in my experience that in large open source projects that anyone is impressed with, the people with commit privileges don't want more contributors. It is like Wikipedia where if you make an edit to their code or a replacement, they take personal offense to it and will fight you tooth and nail to get it ignored. Or in one case, just ignore me for over a year saying they will merge it and never do it. Or if they merge it, they don't give me credit.