My open source projects have given me the opportunity to collaborate with highly motivated and smart people. They've made me well-known in my niche and have brought me great job opportunities. They depend on relatively stable APIs and don't require a lot of maintenance. Writing open source code has been a positive experience for me, even though it doesn't directly make me any money.
Quick read that showcases how you don't have to code to contribute to open source. In my own experience, I always felt like the open-source community was very accepting to newcomers—even if they didn't code.
The vast majority of open source projects are a volunteer effort. Either you contribute and better the software or support its community, or you don't. But if you choose the latter you can't complain about the software.
The really neat thing about being so excited about your own projects that you have to work on them is that no one has to pay you for it. (See the state of open source.)
I love open source: my two books are open source, I work in open source, and almost all of my hobby projects are open source.
But after spending all day coordinating with users and combing through the issue tracker, there's something very relaxing to me to have a little project where I don't feel "on stage" whenn working on it. It's good for me to get a social break.
I contribute to some FOSS projects with hundreds of thousands of downloads and it's healthy from several points of view.
On the one hand, I made some great "online" friends and feel great as I write code that I know people will use and appreciate. On the other hand, I've learnt so much and I know that some of the skills I've acquired during these years will help me when I'm old enough to get a job and start "actually" working. I feel like I can also say Open Source will make the man I will be.
To me, it's amazing how I can sit back in my desk and shape projects being developed and used by people from all over the world. I rarely have time to think about the awesomeness in that, but when I do I always feel so fulfilled.
People aren't asking them to go out of their way to provide support or develop anything. Only to be open with their already existing documentation so that those open source devs that want can without doing unneeded work.
Could not agree more, this exactly describes my motivation in publishing my own projects. I have benefited from the open-source ecosystem and I want to it to thrive into the future. My salary provides me with a comfortable life, and I doubt I could sell the kind of things I enjoy making.
It's a lot less work, with fewer ongoing demands on your time, to write a mildly popular open-source library and then get a job at Google than it is to support a micro-ISV.
Nothing it stopping you from writing a great article, building great software, contributing something amazing to an open source project, etc.
Your time would be better spent focusing on doing good work and sharing it. Assuming you do do good work and learn how to share effectively, the rest will come.
The OP is an article doing literally exactly what you want. And he's going above and beyond what's required–he didn't even need to communicate all this redundantly. It's already all in the open source license–willingness to work, level of commitment, etc. Just read the license. It's included in every open source project.
Let’s not put people on a pedestal. Being prolific at open source software doesn’t imply that somebody never procrastinates, or that they never just get an itch to make something that’s not driven by an immediate need.
Sindre Sorhus makes some amazing projects, but he’s still human.
I'd agree with that as well. Contributing to open source on your own time should be a choice not an expectation. It shouldn't be something that people do solely for the sake of advancing their career.
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