I contribute to some FOSS projects with hundreds of thousands of downloads and it's healthy from several points of view.<p>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>I feel like I can also say Open Source will make the man I will be.</i><p>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.
Open source is one of those rare times when "build it and they will come" holds true. I built a testing gem for stripe, and with zero marketing I've had eight complete strangers come in and make useful contributions through the magic of github. Open source is truly fascinating.
I liked that, and open source has similarly helped my career over the decades (I write this wearing a FSF tee shirt :-)<p>One warning to the author: he might be more careful about posting his rate for specific customers. I am also contracting at Google and my contract says that remuneration is confidential.
Good article. If you looking for an idea for your next article I would love to know how you publish your open source code, how you introduce your projects to the first developers? any interesting hack there? or simple post in HN is enough?
Does a few weekend projects on GitHub and blogging about it really count as "developing open source software"? Isn't this more like using the Open Source term to promote oneself? Compared to guys like Igor Sysoev churning away year after year working on nginx and _not_ using time to blog about it.
It's nice to hear about such success stories. Unfortunately most OSS projects never gain such a user base to be able to make a living off of it.
I'm currently evaluating changing the license of our GPL-ed software to use something more restrictive or even dropping OSS and make it freeware only without providing sources.
Read these emails if you want to know why:
<a href="http://www.mail-archive.com/nxlog-ce-users@lists.sourceforge.net/msg00214.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.mail-archive.com/nxlog-ce-users@lists.sourceforge...</a>
<a href="http://www.mail-archive.com/nxlog-ce-users@lists.sourceforge.net/msg00215.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.mail-archive.com/nxlog-ce-users@lists.sourceforge...</a><p>Let me know if you have some advice.
I can echo a lot of what the author is saying. While I have seen less financial success, my project (respondcms.com, if interested) has taught me a lot about writing code, designing UI, and dealing with complexity. I am definitely a better developer for doing it, and at the end of the day, it is definitely a good feeling when someone finds value in what you are doing.
I am bootstraping startup which will turn my long time hobby OS project into full-time job. I am almost always tired, cranky and my social life sucks. I think it is safe to say, I would be better man with normal hobby and 9-5 job.
I write open source code — some stuff I'm tidying up before I release, since I just whack it on GitHub unusable for the 99% — but don't have much exposure? I have plugins built for Sublime Text which have around 4k downloads.<p><a href="http://github.com/jbrooksuk" rel="nofollow">http://github.com/jbrooksuk</a>
Cool. Stories like this are why I'm building a marketplace for freelance programmers that have contributed to open source.<p>Of course, it's open source- <a href="https://github.com/CodeDoor/codedoor" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/CodeDoor/codedoor</a>
Using and/or contributing to open-source software also means that you help society use its resources in a more economic and intelligent way:<p>You can invest the resulting savings in projects which will in turn advance society.<p>Also in <i>this</i> sense you become "a better man".
Open Source has been berry, berry good to me! (Anyone else old enough to catch the reference?)<p>It's really an amazing social phenomenon, something unexpected and unique, that seems to go against the grain, or at least usefully counter, the market-driven, proprietary, DRM, locked-in, control-freak sensibility that is so prominent today in mainstream high tech.
Open source is definitely the most amazing philosophy on software development.<p>Recently a guy at Facebook recruiting staff contacted me by email for a position inside the company saying that they liked what I've been building and publishing as open source.<p>I'd highly recommend to everyone that contributes with open source to attach their github/bitbucket/googlecode/etc accounts on their resumes.<p>I'm doing exactly that on my linkedin summary and it helped me a lot to introduce myself. <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/juan-manuel-garc%C3%ADa/29/4a5/214" rel="nofollow">http://www.linkedin.com/pub/juan-manuel-garc%C3%ADa/29/4a5/2...</a>
I feel a little apprehensive about sharing my code online, Im not sure if its an ego thing or from seeing some of the rude comments people have made over twitter about X pull request being made on github. Am I just being silly about this?
I only have one project[1], but the communications from its users (always constructive or requests for information) makes me proud of the way it makes the average Java Selenium user's life easier.<p>[1] <a href="https://github.com/elisarver/selophane" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/elisarver/selophane</a>
Perhaps it made him a "better" programmer but claiming to have made him a better "man" is a bit exaggerated.<p>I guess he's super excited about how far he's come and how programming helped him attain a certain level of satisfaction and happiness in his professional life.
"two weeks ago i couldn't spell open source, now i am one!" (kidding)<p>but seriously, open source certainly helped make me the person i am, as well. by working on open source projects, i got my first gig (in a field i'm not professionally trained in, either), and i have been fortunate to have been surrounded by generous, bright people who i have always tried to learn from.<p>my own story is why i recommend to people to get involved in open source projects in their learning.