I don't think "most" people produce their best work while working on something in their spare time. That simply doesn't make sense. Your work is something you'r

I don't think "most" people produce their best work while working on something in their spare time. That simply doesn't make sense. Your work is something you're paid to care about and do well with all your attention, while most open-source projects are like hobbies that you practice semi-randomly in your spare time. For every open source project that's polished and well-tested and well-maintained there are 1000 which are hastily written, simply without any tests, abandoned, etc. I don't doubt there are people who put their soul into fantastic open-source projects instead of any code at their work. But then it's a question why they're still in their day job in the first place, if they don't like the job or don't want to care about their job. Sooner or later the best course of action would be to quit and either work on their own project full-time and try to monetize it, or find a job they're actually passionate about or at least OK with caring about. I understand that the author himself made redis big, but then it also pretty much became his full-time job and I doubt his understanding reflects that of most other developers out there.