I was oversharing pictures of dogs on Facebook, so I helped build https://puppy.pics where people can post as many dog pics as they want, because that's what people there want to see.
Ask HN: Projects that don't make you money but you're doing it out of sheer joy?
571–580 of 587 posts
Re: Ask HN: Projects that don't make you money but you're doing it out of sheer joy?
#572I have a largish open-source portfolio, including a markdown parser, a regex engine, some music synthesis, and some more researchy stuff like a font renderer and a prototype of concurrent text editing using CRDT's. I'm lucky to be working at Google where I get paid 20% time to work on this, but the motivation is definitely not money. The biggest item in my portfolio is xi-editor, and I confess I'm wrestling with some…
Went looking for it, and it's showing up as mainly developed/owned by the Google org on GitHub:
https://github.com/google/xi-editor
Kind of feels a bit weird to be considering if/how/etc to commercialise it personally, when it would potentially be considered Google's property (?). Even though you're clearly the main author as per its commits & README.md. Then again, I have no idea how Google looks upon that kind of thing, so you may be all good.
With the "it'll probably get a million users quickly" thought... hmmm... depends if you're thinking to leverage Google's reach in some way. If so, then yeah it might have a better than even chance to happen. :D
Re: Ask HN: Projects that don't make you money but you're doing it out of sheer joy?
#573Wario Forums and absolutely anything else associated with it: https://warioforums.com Yeah, I know it's not particularly fancy, nor does it involve any clever coding tricks or interesting features. However, it's literally the only community on the internet dedicated to the series, and one I've decided to run for a minimum of two decades to make sure said franchise finally builds a decent fanbase. Is it going to make…
That's cool. I can admire a dedicated Nintendo fan site. I ran Mario-Kart.net for a decade. In its most popular days it was #1 on Google for "mario kart". I let the domain expire recently since the site was outdated and I don't play anymore but it was a good long run. We had a dedicated forum base for a while too.
Re: Ask HN: Projects that don't make you money but you're doing it out of sheer joy?
#574Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does one need a marketing plan if it's not done for money? While I'd never heard of xi-editor before now, I'm definitely among those who yearn for a "better" editor for (first off) MacOS... and I think there are many others, based on my totally unscientific assessment of the currently popular editors. I'm still on TextMate for a reason. :-) So my point is, for certain things "build it and they will come" might work f…
I do a lot of blogging on topics where people need info. All the info I put out is available for free. The most popular page on one of my more heavily trafficked sites has around 40k page views. A million users are unlikely to just magically know your free editor exists. Things do sometimes go viral, but that isn't the norm for how you get to a million users. Maybe marketing isn't the best term. But, if the OP does n…
Right, I didn't write clearly. After a couple months of pushing to a 1.0, I'd expect maybe a few thousand users (this seems reasonable to me because it's the number of github stars). That's enough though that I'd need to start worrying about the product rather than just the technology, but that could all be done part-time.
My estimate of a million users is what might happen after another year or two of building out the whole vision, and with organic growth from numerous sub-communities (for example, I'd expect Rust users to be quicker to adopt it because it's in Rust). At that point, it's clear that the project would need at least a full time person to be its maintainer. And I don't see how to sustain that.
Thanks for emphasizing the focus on marketing; it is indeed a knob I can turn.
Re: Ask HN: Projects that don't make you money but you're doing it out of sheer joy?
#575Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do a lot of blogging on topics where people need info. All the info I put out is available for free. The most popular page on one of my more heavily trafficked sites has around 40k page views. A million users are unlikely to just magically know your free editor exists. Things do sometimes go viral, but that isn't the norm for how you get to a million users. Maybe marketing isn't the best term. But, if the OP does n…
Right, I didn't write clearly. After a couple months of pushing to a 1.0, I'd expect maybe a few thousand users (this seems reasonable to me because it's the number of github stars). That's enough though that I'd need to start worrying about the product rather than just the technology, but that could all be done part-time. My estimate of a million users is what might happen after another year or two of building out t…
Thanks for emphasizing the focus on marketing; it is indeed a knob I can turn.
I think my main point is that it is a knob that can be turned in either direction. It seems to actually be easier to dial it down if the attention you are getting is somehow problematic.
Best.
Re: Ask HN: Projects that don't make you money but you're doing it out of sheer joy?
#576I have a largish open-source portfolio, including a markdown parser, a regex engine, some music synthesis, and some more researchy stuff like a font renderer and a prototype of concurrent text editing using CRDT's. I'm lucky to be working at Google where I get paid 20% time to work on this, but the motivation is definitely not money. The biggest item in my portfolio is xi-editor, and I confess I'm wrestling with some…
Went looking for it, and it's showing up as mainly developed/owned by the Google org on GitHub: https://github.com/google/xi-editor Kind of feels a bit weird to be considering if/how/etc to commercialise it personally, when it would potentially be considered Google's property (?). Even though you're clearly the main author as per its commits & README.md. Then again, I have no idea how Google looks upon that kind of t…
The thoughts on commercialization are a hypothetical. As I said in my original comment, it's off the table (though I gave other reasons than being employed by Google). I'm just saying that if there were a revenue stream, then I'd be incentivized very differently (and more in line with what users need) than purely as a labor-of-love open source project.
And yes, if there were a good reason to, Google could bring considerable resources (including marketing) to bear.
Re: Ask HN: Projects that don't make you money but you're doing it out of sheer joy?
#577I have a largish open-source portfolio, including a markdown parser, a regex engine, some music synthesis, and some more researchy stuff like a font renderer and a prototype of concurrent text editing using CRDT's. I'm lucky to be working at Google where I get paid 20% time to work on this, but the motivation is definitely not money. The biggest item in my portfolio is xi-editor, and I confess I'm wrestling with some…
>xi-editor I read the github readme.md, and I'm wondering. 1. Why should want to switch if I already have a text-editor? 2. Reading through, there seems to be an emphasis on clean data structures and interfaces. Have you taken a look at Kakoune? Because your text editor seems to share quite a few design decisions with it. 3. So, there doesn't seem to be any mention of novel UI/control features even in the front-end.…
1. If you're using an Electron-based editor, I imagine you might not be entirely happy with performance. I can fix that. 2. Yes, have looked at Kakoune, and even have some plans to emulate its keybindings. It's an interesting project. 3. I'm not sure novelty is the main thing people need. I think we pretty well understand what people need, and there's something to be said for just doing a good job delivering it.
Re: Ask HN: Projects that don't make you money but you're doing it out of sheer joy?
#578Alzheimer password generator - Chrome extension for domain dependent password generation https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/alzheimer-password... https://github.com/viralpoetry/alzheimer-password-generator
Looks good, but that's a really terrible name for it. Please consider changing it to something less insulting.
You do realize Alzheimer is a family name? Stop trying the make the world a safe space.
Re: Ask HN: Projects that don't make you money but you're doing it out of sheer joy?
#579I built Cmdo, a command line todo list written in python. Still in its early stages, but it’s been fun to create https://github.com/Kaundur/cmdo
You are the devil. It's worse than pizza with salty pineapple and peas. Keep going :D
Re: Ask HN: Projects that don't make you money but you're doing it out of sheer joy?
#580Earlier quoted context omitted.
Servers are about $1200 per month. (I have about 12tb of SSD on 5 servers). Then there are some misc costs (business costs) that are maybe $200/month.
Wow, that's rather a lot of money for a non-profit project :-o
Indeed, damn. That is a lot of money to spend each month