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Unfortunately, I don't work for free (I have fixed a few issues in OSS projects, but that's kind of part of my job) > have positive social impact I haven't se

• bawolff 4y ago
  So as someone who contributes to an open source project i definitely don't reccomend doing it solely for the appreciation. You won't get enough to make it worth it. You should really only contribute as an end in itself, otherwise it wont be worth the frustration. However you do get some. its not solely demanding people wanting to freeload - some genuinely appreciation does happen. It comes and goes, and is usually for things you least expect. It is also often not porportional to effort. The most thanks i ever got in my life was fixing an i18n bug in bashkir (language spoken in russia by a minority group). It took probably half an hour. The things i spent weeks on, nobody gave a shit. Some random quick fix and it was the most appreciation i got in my life and made a local newspaper from half way across the world. So it does happen, but not consistently.
• rapnie 4y ago
  Well, that is what I meant with "sustainable". Working on free software doesn't necessarily mean working for free. Though in practice most free software is unsustainable when it comes to earning people a living. There are exceptions, e.g. companies like Plausible, some worker cooperatives that develop services around a FOSS project, or innovative projects that receive R&D grants. There's sustainable business models to explore.