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Open Source made me the man I am

cubiq.org

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Re: Open Source made me the man I am

#11

Post by qwerta »

Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #9
qwerta wrote: post #7

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.

That's the pressure of a start up rather than the specifics of the project though isn't it? Going it alone and giving up the security of a steady pay check is going to be hard whether you're setting up a software company or a sandwich shop. I suspect for every entrepreneur blogging about how being self employed has given them a great work life balance, I suspect there are 20 in the same position as you. It could be t…

No pressure, I have long runway and dozens of job offers to fallback to. And I just turned profitable.

This is not a rant, I love what I am doing and freedom it brings. I just want to point out that being OS nerd, does not always line up with being "better man".

Re: Open Source made me the man I am

#12

Post by madoublet »

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.

Re: Open Source made me the man I am

#14

Post by sovande »

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.

Re: Open Source made me the man I am

#15

Post by orenbarzilai »

sovande wrote: post #14

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.

imho if people are using your project you did good! and a lot of ppl are using iScroll.

Re: Open Source made me the man I am

#16

Post by krapp »

sovande wrote: post #14

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.

>Does a few weekend projects on GitHub and blogging about it really count as "developing open source software"?

Yes.

Re: Open Source made me the man I am

#18

Post by CodeGlitch »

borplk wrote: post #5
CodeGlitch wrote: post #2

Great article. I have only just started my own opensource projects (this year) and find it so much more satisfying.

if you don't mind what is your project? just curious

One of them is a security-camera system for Raspberry Pis, the other is me just messing around writing an artificial-lifeform type thing in Python.

Nether are ready for any kind of public exposure just yet ;) hackernews will be the 1st to know about it when I do though!

Cheers

Re: Open Source made me the man I am

#19

Post by munchor »

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.

Re: Open Source made me the man I am

#20

Post by simplify »

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.
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