I'm working on a side project now that will eventually be an open source project. I think it could benefit a lot of people.<p>My problem is that I have a full time job. When I come home at night I want to cook dinner, run, socialize, drink a beer with a friend, or work on an art project. I don't particularly want to configure Ansible or read the OpenVPN docs.<p>At most I can get 3-5 hours of productive work <i>per week</i> on this project before I start getting really irritable.<p>I'm not a terribly skilled web designer so I feel like contract work isn't really a feasible option.<p>So I'm stuck with a chicken and egg scenario. I could make huge strides on the side project if I got funding to quit my job, but I can't get funding without an already working product.<p>I've considered quitting my job and diving into it for a few months. I have savings but this seems foolishly risky to me.<p>Maybe I just need to be more disciplined.<p>If anyone has been in a similar situation, I would greatly appreciate advice.
I hope this question isn't too forward - but my main question is 'how did you afford to do this?'<p>I have had plenty of fun little side projects (some finished some not), but my main project is my salaried position. Aside from being independently wealthy, how can one create and maintain a long term open source project as a full time job. Consulting on the side? Donations? Something else?<p>P.S. Thanks for Redis :)
I have a full time job, and a 3y/o kid. Get up at 7am and take him to school at 8:30am. Get to work at 9:30am or so. Get home around 6pm. Give my son a bath, we all have dinner and my son is in bed somewhere between 8 and 9pm. I then spend ~2 hours on my side project, in bed somewhere between 11pm and 12am. I train twice a week so this pattern happens three days out of 5.<p>On weekends I can often negotiate up to 4 hours to myself. Progress isn't too slow, and I keep my sanity.
The site is not responsive for me, here is a cached copy: <a href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://antirez.com/news/86" rel="nofollow">http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...</a>
I'm a huge fan of LOAD81, its been a very interesting too for a few things .. one thing I've used it for is to view system statistics, akin to a poor mans gnuplot. Its also been valuable in teaching my 7-year old about computing - the ease with which you can bang out a program to draw stuff is very appealing. So count me as a LOAD81 fan, antirez .. its one of your side projects that gets regular use around our house!
Companies have long sponsored (or hired) individuals to work on FLOSS, but I think we could go a lot further. If we could make it part of the <i>culture</i> of (scaling) companies / funding ecosystems to say "when we reach X revenue, we're going to hire /sponsor 5 people to work on FLOSS stuff full time." Obviously, these companies will have more incentive to sponsor people who work on software they use heavily (which should stay the first priority, as it makes a lot of sense), but it'd be great to take it to the next level and have them hire people who work on useful / popular software that they don't use everyday (directly) or doesn't have much to do with their bottom line. This could include 'adjunct' software work like package repository maintainers and writers of documentation for these projects.<p>If it wasn't one-offs and outliers, but just something that companies did as part of getting big, we'd have a lot less need for periodic emergency fundraisers, and fewer stories about "important software X that's about to lose its sole maintainer(s)."
My situation is getting bad enough that even my wife is complaining that I don't spend enough time with them (her and my son). I have a full time job with SAP, I also have regular consulting work on my own which I have been doing since I graduated from university, and lately I've started working on a number of products that I strongly believe in.<p>I've started applying a bit of scrum in my own work where in I have a Trello board with my backlog, my plan for the current sprint, what is done and what is deployed (for demo). This allows me to focus and not jump around developing endless streams of features. I set a side a chunk of time (w/ adequate negotiations with my wife) where in I blitz through my tasks for the current sprint. It also helps that my wife is a project manager in her day job so she understands my Trello board.<p>I find that this setup is the most effective for me, of course YMMV. For my consulting work I normally have 1 ongoing project at a time and usually a few in the RFP type of stage where in I'm still in discussions with clients.
I would like to highlight dump1090, the ADS-B encoder. It has become a "must-have" for RTL-SDR enthusiasts.<p>It is small, simple, and works great.
I have a hard time focusing on side projects for very long. At any one point in time I'm usually working on 3 or 4 different projects. Then I get burned out and do something that isn't programming instead, like write a book.<p>Ironically, the only "side-project" I've finished is a book and not code (<a href="https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/M0X7KAS29H5Q" rel="nofollow">https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/M0X7KAS29H5Q</a>) Makes me wonder if I'm cut out to be an entrepreneur or even an developer if I can't dedicate all my free time to coding.
Does anyone have any suggestions for promoting an open source project? I hate mentioning my side project on various forums, even if it is topical -- it makes me feel spammy. I thought about taking out some ads once I add in a few more "enterprise" type features, and was hoping that some open-source focused sites would have a discount on advertising open source projects using unsold ad inventory. I'd also like to find someone to work with that can point out deficiencies in the project web site, or general improvements/features I should add.
I'm another believer that focussing in 1 thing is overestimated.<p>"There’s a myth when it comes to what we’ve been taught about focus. Doing only 1 thing isn’t focusing. It’s essentially just doing 1 thing. Following a course of action until completion is FOCUS" - Hodan Ibrahim<p>Interesting related read: <a href="http://www.psychotactics.com/blog/psychological-marketing-myth-focus/" rel="nofollow">http://www.psychotactics.com/blog/psychological-marketing-my...</a>
I've got a side project. And chances are it will never make any real money. But I opted to do it because I know its a pain in the butt to make, and if I don't likely no one else will (or at least do a good job).<p>Nicely edited, free, organized CS videos. I'm opening sourcing my education: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nyzl3pVXp4" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nyzl3pVXp4</a>
I think the key is that you have to dogfood your own side projects. I have a project that I've been building over the last, oh, 9 years. I haven't worked on it exclusively during that time, but I keep going back to it and tweaking it, making it better, etc., because I actually use it in just about everything.
I am curious whether it gets more and more (legally) tricky for employees of large tech-companies to have side-projects.<p>For example, if I am working at Google/Amazon/Microsoft. What side projects won't get me into legal problems?<p>Can I work on search, email, virtualization, etc. without being in conflict of interest?
I agree with his sentiment. Working on side projects keeps this career interesting. During the most boring, most soul-sucking projects of my corporate jobs, being able to accomplish projects on the side reminded me of why I am excited to be building software in the first place.
You're spot on about using side projects as positive distractions. When you are working alone on a significant project, at some point you're not going to be as motivated to work on it, that's where other side projects can be helpful.
Every major source of my income over the past ten years has started as a side project. Not a single one came out of a deliberate effort to build something big but began as a mere experiment for the fun of it.
For those interested, Salvatore will present Disque at the next dotScale conference in Paris, on June 8: <a href="http://www.dotscale.io" rel="nofollow">http://www.dotscale.io</a>
I need some advice. How other great people find the ideas for side project? I would greatly appreciate if any one help me to know how other get some cool ideas.
IMHO if you are not hacking on a few side projects you are missing out on learning new things. I love side projects they keep my work and personal life super fresh.