10 ms·

Offer HN: I'll work on interesting projects for free

55 points by goshakkk 15y ago

psychotik 15y ago
Why would you rather work for free than bid on projects you personally find interesting on freelancing sites like odesk.com? Just curious...
- goshakkk 15y ago
  Because I see many-many stupid or boring projects on freelancing sites. It's really hard to find a worthy one. And even when I found it, it's not guaranteed my bid (even free) will win. And I don't mind helping people for free, and building something great. So why not?
  - felipemnoa 15y ago
    Why not come up with your own interesting project and work on it?
    - goshakkk 15y ago
      The lack of ideas for now.
      - kiriappeee 15y ago
        what if I offer you some ideas to go work on it yourself. You are a developer with talent. I say go first with an idea you can make your own. Lemme know. I'm on twitter @area51research or mail adnan.issadeen@live.com
      - astartupaday1 15y ago
        Feel free to use any of the ideas from my "A Startup A Day" blog: http://astartupaday.wordpress.com http://astartupaday.wordpress.com
dmk23 15y ago
The offer sounds suspiciously similar to this one: http://teddziuba.com/2011/07/the-craigslist-reverse-programmer-troll.html http://teddziuba.com/2011/07/the-craigslist-reverse-programm... If you are real, could you tell us more about your background and where you are located? Links to your Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn/blog/etc would help. Do you do anything besides Ruby/Rails?
- goshakkk 15y ago
  I'm located at Minsk, Belarus. It's almost Russia. http://goshakkk.name/ http://goshakkk.name/ http://twitter.com/goshakkk http://twitter.com/goshakkk I can also do very-very basic node.js dev, but Rails is my primary tool.
  - clyfe 15y ago
    He's real alright. I seen his somewhat bombastic and voiced style several times on HN but only recently realized he's only 15 years old :) . He's a talented fellow actually, only a bit dramatic.
    - javadyan 15y ago
      That explains a lot
feralchimp 15y ago
Do I get works-for-hire ownership of the IP you create? Can I put you under NDA? What recourse do I have if you walk off with my source tree? Demand curves slope downward, but people (yes, in many cases wrongly) distrust 'free' as a bid amount. Update: For the record, I really like the tone of your offer, and the way in which you presented it. I hope you soon get to work on something really fun!
chops 15y ago
Just contribute to an open source project you find interesting.
- goshakkk 15y ago
  It's not so easy to find that project...
  - fooandbarify 15y ago
    I'm leaving this here instead of contacting you through your site, that way if anyone else is interested they can take part, too. I recently made a really simple Backbone.js extension (https://github.com/napoleond/localModel https://github.com/napoleond/localModel) that reduces load times and the number of HTTP requests an app needs to make by caching data in localStorage. It was built as part of a closed-source project, so I can't use that as an example and I haven't had time to port the standard Backbone example (http://documentcloud.github.com/backbone/examples/todos/index.html http://documentcloud.github.com/backbone/examples/todos/inde...) to a version which makes use of my project. What we need is the server half of the example app. It will only take a few hours to build, but I am unlikely to get to it for at least a week so if you do it first I will accept your pull request and thank you at the top of the README. (The client side of the example app is exactly the same as the standard example, but with the modified Backbone.sync pulled out.) It won't make you famous, but it would be a very easy and useful contribution to an open source project that you could use on a resume or something.
  - genieyclo 15y ago
    http://openhatch.org http://openhatch.org
  - javadyan 15y ago
    It's really easy, if you use open source software on a daily basis. There will always be something you'd like to improve about it and personal interest is the best motivation.
    - anjc 15y ago
jc4p 15y ago
I had to stop reading your page simply because my brain could not parse that font. Does it have a display issue on Chrome 15 or is it supposed to look like: http://i.imgur.com/01Mjq.png http://i.imgur.com/01Mjq.png
- goshakkk 15y ago
  That's "Lobster" font, it should look like that. It's a kinda vintage font I guess. Is it really so bad?
  - wmeredith 15y ago
    I vote yes. Unless it's billboard sized or only a word or two, it sucks to read.
    - goshakkk 15y ago
      http://goshakkk.name/dev-freebie.html http://goshakkk.name/dev-freebie.html (you may need to refresh several times)
      - jc4p 15y ago
        This font is a much better choice than "Lobster"!
- goshakkk 15y ago
  Would that be better? http://d.pr/IU3Q http://d.pr/IU3Q
  - hansy 15y ago
    Yes that font is much better over the cursive one, both in terms of readability and cleanliness. If you do use any cursive fonts, please do not bold the letters as everything looks mashed together. Other than that, everything looks great and the offer sounds generous! Good luck!
goshakkk 15y ago
Already got many emails. Everybody offers a kind of good project... But, that's crazy to get 40+ emails in total in 1+ hr. Actually didn't expect such a load of my inbox :/
epikur 15y ago
You advertise yourself as "a geek and fucking awesome developer who cares about perfect code, who can't live without learning new technologies and practices. Yep, it's me." While you may be a great developer, and it's neat that you are interested in volunteering your time, I see minimal published work on your personal site and github - it seems like you might be better off working on small, public projects on your own and then building up to an offer like this, rather than starting from scratch, so to speak. My five minutes of poking around yielded 1) you have a very large and active twitter presence 2) you have one blog post 3) you have an active github presence, but few public repos of your own. I am just stating my impression. I hope you find an interesting project that fits you.
phzbOx 15y ago
Why all the hate coming from the comments on this page? The guy is offering is time to have fun hacking on a cool project.
krosaen 15y ago
Thanks to employment laws it would be illegal for any US startup to let you work for them for free; there's no legal form of volunteering for for-profit companies (save a very clearly defined educational internship where the benefit is to you, not to the company in any material form). Good luck anyways.
- grannyg00se 15y ago
  This seems ridiculous and unenforceable. Has anybody ever been arrested or charged with working for free? Apparently Obama is working toward allowing people to work for free in Georgia, at least. I imagine there is some kind of slippery slope toward abuse that is of concern to some people.
  - krosaen 15y ago
    What it really means is that with each person you allow to "volunteer" for you are opening yourself up to liability that they could sue for back payment of minimum wage if they ever became disgruntled. Same goes for people who work for sweat equity. This doesn't mean a startup should never make such arrangements, it just means a startup should be careful and consider the risk (e.g hiring one key employee vs having an army of volunteers).
meric 15y ago
You like working with new and interesting technologies. Here is a open source text editor that hasn't had much contributions/work done in the past year, but involves many interesting aspects like a syntax-aware highlighter (made with a parser that runs continuously), a parser that is configured in a DSL (https://github.com/rsms/kod/blob/master/resources/json.gzl https://github.com/rsms/kod/blob/master/resources/json.gzl), syntax highlighting configured with CSS, tabs in Chrome style, node.js for handling events... Will you help work on this wonderful text editor? https://github.com/rsms/kod https://github.com/rsms/kod http://kodapp.com/ http://kodapp.com/
mgkimsal 15y ago
Not trying to be rude here, but what happens when the work is no longer interesting? You abandon it? Much of the work I find needs to be done - even on "cool" projects - is decidedly uninteresting (refactor XYZ, etc). While the offer is genuine, and I'm sure you'll get some offers, I just can't help thinking that a few weeks down the line the honeymoon will wear off. Nothing wrong with that, but everyone needs to prepare for that.
- mattm 15y ago
  What may be uninteresting to you could be interesting to others. I like refactoring.
  - mgkimsal 15y ago
    Fine, but I was speaking to the offer from the OP. What if the OP doesn't find writing tests interesting? Someone else trying to pick it up later won't be so gung-ho to take up refactoring a pile of mess. I'm not suggesting that the OP does write messy code, but that it could be if he doesn't think clean code is interesting. I get the motivation behind the offer, I'm just not sure I'd take him up on it, even if I had a project. I do know people who have interesting projects and need help, and I'm not passing this on. I will be the one having to deal with the project when the OP doesn't find the work interesting any more, and I've no idea what shape it'll be in. I'd prefer to refer them to someone who will take on a project and see it past the interesting parts, commit to something longer term, and be prepared to deal with the uninteresting bits.
suhastech 15y ago
Cut him some slack. He is trying to get out of the catch 22 phase which most frankly most of us, autodidacts experience. No previous projects = No future projects. Though my advise is, work on some cool open source projects instead. You don't have to be committed to all though the project. You can try getting into GSOC http://code.google.com/soc/ http://code.google.com/soc/
jaredsohn 15y ago
>I also wanna try AWS FYI, this can be done for free: http://aws.amazon.com/free/ http://aws.amazon.com/free/
fionabunny 15y ago
So did you find something interesting?
salmanapk 15y ago
"I also wanna try AWS" AWS has a 1 year free tier by the way.
- goshakkk 15y ago
  It doesn't accept my Payoneer MasterCard, and w/o a card verified i can _not_ use that free tier.
dsine 15y ago
Join us in our Fight as we Democratize Shared Living! http://angel.co/roomeo http://angel.co/roomeo Derek@TrailsVentures.com
derekreed 15y ago
I really like the "will work on interesting projects" idea, I feel the same way generally myself. Kind of surprised there's so much "do something besides this" feedback in the comments here, I can't see why this isn't an awesome way to find projects? There's some amazing ideas out there that people have, why not tap into that gigantic resource pool a little deeper, eh?

55 points by goshakkk 15y ago

Why would you rather work for free than bid on projects you personally find interesting on freelancing sites like odesk.com? Just curious...

goshakkk 15y ago
Because I see many-many stupid or boring projects on freelancing sites. It's really hard to find a worthy one. And even when I found it, it's not guaranteed my bid (even free) will win. And I don't mind helping people for free, and building something great. So why not?
- felipemnoa 15y ago
  Why not come up with your own interesting project and work on it?
  - goshakkk 15y ago
    The lack of ideas for now.
    - kiriappeee 15y ago
      what if I offer you some ideas to go work on it yourself. You are a developer with talent. I say go first with an idea you can make your own. Lemme know. I'm on twitter @area51research or mail adnan.issadeen@live.com
    - astartupaday1 15y ago
      Feel free to use any of the ideas from my "A Startup A Day" blog: http://astartupaday.wordpress.com http://astartupaday.wordpress.com

dmk23 15y ago

The offer sounds suspiciously similar to this one: http://teddziuba.com/2011/07/the-craigslist-reverse-programmer-troll.html http://teddziuba.com/2011/07/the-craigslist-reverse-programm... If you are real, could you tell us more about your background and where you are located? Links to your Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn/blog/etc would help. Do you do anything besides Ruby/Rails?

goshakkk 15y ago
I'm located at Minsk, Belarus. It's almost Russia. http://goshakkk.name/ http://goshakkk.name/ http://twitter.com/goshakkk http://twitter.com/goshakkk I can also do very-very basic node.js dev, but Rails is my primary tool.
- clyfe 15y ago
  He's real alright. I seen his somewhat bombastic and voiced style several times on HN but only recently realized he's only 15 years old :) . He's a talented fellow actually, only a bit dramatic.
  - javadyan 15y ago
    That explains a lot

feralchimp 15y ago

Do I get works-for-hire ownership of the IP you create? Can I put you under NDA? What recourse do I have if you walk off with my source tree? Demand curves slope downward, but people (yes, in many cases wrongly) distrust 'free' as a bid amount. Update: For the record, I really like the tone of your offer, and the way in which you presented it. I hope you soon get to work on something really fun!

chops 15y ago

Just contribute to an open source project you find interesting.

goshakkk 15y ago
It's not so easy to find that project...
- fooandbarify 15y ago
  I'm leaving this here instead of contacting you through your site, that way if anyone else is interested they can take part, too. I recently made a really simple Backbone.js extension (https://github.com/napoleond/localModel https://github.com/napoleond/localModel) that reduces load times and the number of HTTP requests an app needs to make by caching data in localStorage. It was built as part of a closed-source project, so I can't use that as an example and I haven't had time to port the standard Backbone example (http://documentcloud.github.com/backbone/examples/todos/index.html http://documentcloud.github.com/backbone/examples/todos/inde...) to a version which makes use of my project. What we need is the server half of the example app. It will only take a few hours to build, but I am unlikely to get to it for at least a week so if you do it first I will accept your pull request and thank you at the top of the README. (The client side of the example app is exactly the same as the standard example, but with the modified Backbone.sync pulled out.) It won't make you famous, but it would be a very easy and useful contribution to an open source project that you could use on a resume or something.
- genieyclo 15y ago
  http://openhatch.org http://openhatch.org
- javadyan 15y ago
  It's really easy, if you use open source software on a daily basis. There will always be something you'd like to improve about it and personal interest is the best motivation.
  - anjc 15y ago

jc4p 15y ago

I had to stop reading your page simply because my brain could not parse that font. Does it have a display issue on Chrome 15 or is it supposed to look like: http://i.imgur.com/01Mjq.png http://i.imgur.com/01Mjq.png

goshakkk 15y ago
That's "Lobster" font, it should look like that. It's a kinda vintage font I guess. Is it really so bad?
- wmeredith 15y ago
  I vote yes. Unless it's billboard sized or only a word or two, it sucks to read.
  - goshakkk 15y ago
    http://goshakkk.name/dev-freebie.html http://goshakkk.name/dev-freebie.html (you may need to refresh several times)
    - jc4p 15y ago
      This font is a much better choice than "Lobster"!
goshakkk 15y ago
Would that be better? http://d.pr/IU3Q http://d.pr/IU3Q
- hansy 15y ago
  Yes that font is much better over the cursive one, both in terms of readability and cleanliness. If you do use any cursive fonts, please do not bold the letters as everything looks mashed together. Other than that, everything looks great and the offer sounds generous! Good luck!

goshakkk 15y ago

Already got many emails. Everybody offers a kind of good project... But, that's crazy to get 40+ emails in total in 1+ hr. Actually didn't expect such a load of my inbox :/

epikur 15y ago

You advertise yourself as "a geek and fucking awesome developer who cares about perfect code, who can't live without learning new technologies and practices. Yep, it's me." While you may be a great developer, and it's neat that you are interested in volunteering your time, I see minimal published work on your personal site and github - it seems like you might be better off working on small, public projects on your own and then building up to an offer like this, rather than starting from scratch, so to speak. My five minutes of poking around yielded 1) you have a very large and active twitter presence 2) you have one blog post 3) you have an active github presence, but few public repos of your own. I am just stating my impression. I hope you find an interesting project that fits you.

phzbOx 15y ago

Why all the hate coming from the comments on this page? The guy is offering is time to have fun hacking on a cool project.

krosaen 15y ago

Thanks to employment laws it would be illegal for any US startup to let you work for them for free; there's no legal form of volunteering for for-profit companies (save a very clearly defined educational internship where the benefit is to you, not to the company in any material form). Good luck anyways.

grannyg00se 15y ago
This seems ridiculous and unenforceable. Has anybody ever been arrested or charged with working for free? Apparently Obama is working toward allowing people to work for free in Georgia, at least. I imagine there is some kind of slippery slope toward abuse that is of concern to some people.
- krosaen 15y ago
  What it really means is that with each person you allow to "volunteer" for you are opening yourself up to liability that they could sue for back payment of minimum wage if they ever became disgruntled. Same goes for people who work for sweat equity. This doesn't mean a startup should never make such arrangements, it just means a startup should be careful and consider the risk (e.g hiring one key employee vs having an army of volunteers).

meric 15y ago

You like working with new and interesting technologies. Here is a open source text editor that hasn't had much contributions/work done in the past year, but involves many interesting aspects like a syntax-aware highlighter (made with a parser that runs continuously), a parser that is configured in a DSL (https://github.com/rsms/kod/blob/master/resources/json.gzl https://github.com/rsms/kod/blob/master/resources/json.gzl), syntax highlighting configured with CSS, tabs in Chrome style, node.js for handling events... Will you help work on this wonderful text editor? https://github.com/rsms/kod https://github.com/rsms/kod http://kodapp.com/ http://kodapp.com/

mgkimsal 15y ago

Not trying to be rude here, but what happens when the work is no longer interesting? You abandon it? Much of the work I find needs to be done - even on "cool" projects - is decidedly uninteresting (refactor XYZ, etc). While the offer is genuine, and I'm sure you'll get some offers, I just can't help thinking that a few weeks down the line the honeymoon will wear off. Nothing wrong with that, but everyone needs to prepare for that.

mattm 15y ago
What may be uninteresting to you could be interesting to others. I like refactoring.
- mgkimsal 15y ago
  Fine, but I was speaking to the offer from the OP. What if the OP doesn't find writing tests interesting? Someone else trying to pick it up later won't be so gung-ho to take up refactoring a pile of mess. I'm not suggesting that the OP does write messy code, but that it could be if he doesn't think clean code is interesting. I get the motivation behind the offer, I'm just not sure I'd take him up on it, even if I had a project. I do know people who have interesting projects and need help, and I'm not passing this on. I will be the one having to deal with the project when the OP doesn't find the work interesting any more, and I've no idea what shape it'll be in. I'd prefer to refer them to someone who will take on a project and see it past the interesting parts, commit to something longer term, and be prepared to deal with the uninteresting bits.

suhastech 15y ago

Cut him some slack. He is trying to get out of the catch 22 phase which most frankly most of us, autodidacts experience. No previous projects = No future projects. Though my advise is, work on some cool open source projects instead. You don't have to be committed to all though the project. You can try getting into GSOC http://code.google.com/soc/ http://code.google.com/soc/

jaredsohn 15y ago

>I also wanna try AWS FYI, this can be done for free: http://aws.amazon.com/free/ http://aws.amazon.com/free/

fionabunny 15y ago

So did you find something interesting?

salmanapk 15y ago

"I also wanna try AWS" AWS has a 1 year free tier by the way.

goshakkk 15y ago
It doesn't accept my Payoneer MasterCard, and w/o a card verified i can _not_ use that free tier.

dsine 15y ago

Join us in our Fight as we Democratize Shared Living! http://angel.co/roomeo http://angel.co/roomeo Derek@TrailsVentures.com

derekreed 15y ago

I really like the "will work on interesting projects" idea, I feel the same way generally myself. Kind of surprised there's so much "do something besides this" feedback in the comments here, I can't see why this isn't an awesome way to find projects? There's some amazing ideas out there that people have, why not tap into that gigantic resource pool a little deeper, eh?