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I guess theres the larger point about appreciation, with money being the biggest way of showing that. I've heard horror stories about OSS devs getting hundreds

I guess theres the larger point about appreciation, with money being the biggest way of showing that. I've heard horror stories about OSS devs getting hundreds of emails a day ripping into them for not working fast enough to fix an issue or implement a feature. It sounds like murder. When I was much younger, I used to be in awe of how OSS devs can do all this amazing stuff, put it with no expectation of compensation, get a wall of critiscm and demands back, and continue working on it stoically without burnout. As I got older, I learned that the burnout is very real and only getting worse. I'm still extremely impressed by any OSS developers ability to keep going [so you should know that at least someone appreciates you ;) ], but it doesn't seem right to me now.

ricardobeat 5y ago
It's been long known that having a career as an OSS developer is extremely hard. Most people just work on OSS on-and-off, as part of their day job, or a few hours every other day. I treat it as paying it forward for all the tools I use daily.
travisathougies 5y ago
> I've heard horror stories about OSS devs getting hundreds of emails a day ripping into them for not working fast enough to fix an issue or implement a feature. It sounds like murder. So... while I don't get 100s of e-mails a day, I do get a good amount per year demanding I implement a feature. I point out that my personal contact details are there (as well as my corporate entity) and that we can be contacted for custom commercial work. The way I see it... OSS is my past-time. The moment there are deadlines you need to pony up
- kelnos 5y ago
  Yup. It's been quite a while since I've maintained any OSS used widely enough for this type of thing to happen, but if I get into this sort of situation again in the future, my reply will be: "My consulting rate to implement this feature is $500/hour. I estimate this feature will take N hours, and I require 50% of that to be pre-paid before I start work. If you agree to these terms, I will send you a contract to sign and we can get started." Hopefully that will get them to go away, but if by some miracle they agree to that, at least I'll get a nice chunk of change for doing the work.

ricardobeat 5y ago

It's been long known that having a career as an OSS developer is extremely hard. Most people just work on OSS on-and-off, as part of their day job, or a few hours every other day. I treat it as paying it forward for all the tools I use daily.

travisathougies 5y ago

> I've heard horror stories about OSS devs getting hundreds of emails a day ripping into them for not working fast enough to fix an issue or implement a feature. It sounds like murder. So... while I don't get 100s of e-mails a day, I do get a good amount per year demanding I implement a feature. I point out that my personal contact details are there (as well as my corporate entity) and that we can be contacted for custom commercial work. The way I see it... OSS is my past-time. The moment there are deadlines you need to pony up

kelnos 5y ago
Yup. It's been quite a while since I've maintained any OSS used widely enough for this type of thing to happen, but if I get into this sort of situation again in the future, my reply will be: "My consulting rate to implement this feature is $500/hour. I estimate this feature will take N hours, and I require 50% of that to be pre-paid before I start work. If you agree to these terms, I will send you a contract to sign and we can get started." Hopefully that will get them to go away, but if by some miracle they agree to that, at least I'll get a nice chunk of change for doing the work.