Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Getting paid to work on open source full-time?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 69 posts

Re: Ask HN: Getting paid to work on open source full-time?

#21

Post by HoochTHX »

icebraining wrote: post #18
HoochTHX wrote: post #15

Yes I would. With the recent revalations reguarding the total disreguard of basic human rights, I see no other choice except fully open ecosystem designed to empower the user, and keep them Free. I personally hate Stahlams politics but he was right, and as he was right early, he was shunned, but now his idea is right for right now.

If you agree that he was right, why do you hate his politics?

I think only externalities should be regulated by governments and not full and total redistribution. I see the push to systems that favor a total socialism as a push into the very thing he fears, as I do. When I hear him shout about destroying companies because they unfairly lock users into crapware, as well as use there Money/Power to do what anyone would do, what is in there best self interest, I cringe inside. No I am not happy that all the work TR did in busting the Trusts has been undone. But we should fix that in the system we have now, not destroy what little bits of the free market we have. Punishment for the sake of enjoyment is what I hear when I listen to his personal politics and that is what I don't like. Lets just be rational.

Re: Ask HN: Getting paid to work on open source full-time?

#22

Post by joshribakoff »

I created a closed source plugin for an open source platform. I did that 4yrs full-time then got a full-time job because sales were slow & I had a son on the way. I open sourced the code, which reinvigorated interest, and paid support is ramping back up to previous levels.

When I was closed source, providing support was my downfall. People would do stuff like install other plugins that conflicted with mine, and expected me to fix it. That was very time consuming. Now I give the code away, but charge for the support so I'm compensated proportionally for the time spent fixing that kind of stuff.

I'm also releasing a SaaS version of the product - it's the same thing as the open source code, but obviously the users don't have to install anything or fuss around with servers, and they won't be able to break things [as easily], because they're pasting javascript into their website instead of installing server side code. I'm hoping this will be a huge market.

Re: Ask HN: Getting paid to work on open source full-time?

#23

Post by rjurney »

I got into evangelism at an open source company after an injury prevented me from hacking full time (less typing). I was already promoting open source projects for free, so I was a shoe in. This led to a full time FOSS gig with a company that wanted to popularize its open source offering. Half coding, half promotion, aimed at removing barriers to entry, improving documentation and ease of use.

Fun gig.

Re: Ask HN: Getting paid to work on open source full-time?

#24

Post by jdreaver »

wcchandler wrote: post #12

I work for a community college in their IT department. My job is paid for by tax payer dollars, so it is my opinion that all my work should be publicly accessible. My boss agrees with me on this. As such, I've done very little that can actually be useful outside of our scope of work. Whatever I can though, I either blog about in the form of a tutorial/how-to or publish code on github (only 1 project so far). I like t…

That sounds awesome! I always bemoaned the ridiculous prices of textbooks and the price of school itself when I was in college, so I applaud the efforts of MOOCs and the universities behind them. I never really connected the dots to extend that spirit to school IT departments. Surely, IT departments at different schools share similar responsibilities that can be consolidated in this way.

Re: Ask HN: Getting paid to work on open source full-time?

#26

Post by potomak »

I'm sorry that I can't tell you how to get paid to work on oss but great question!

I suggest to watch the first part of Aaron @tenderlove Patterson's closing keynote at Rails Conf 2013[1], that touches upon this topic.

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kgUL_FfUZY

Re: Ask HN: Getting paid to work on open source full-time?

#27

Post by malandrew »

javert wrote: post #8

This is a perrenial question that (I think) is very important to a lot of people. I wish there were some kind of website or book that would answer the question, "Who is getting paid to work on open source, and by whom?" There is good data for the Linux kernel, for example. On lwn.net you can always see the % contribution of each company. Presumably you could mine the kernel git repo to find out how many people that a…

It would be awesome if we could add a new "Who's Hiring?" thread each month but an open-source edition. i.e. any company or startup, large or small could advertise the open source project they are will to pay people to work on, if it is part-time or full-time and whether it is on-site or remote.

Re: Ask HN: Getting paid to work on open source full-time?

#28

Post by dotBen »

This is an interesting question, because I'm in the process of looking to hire an engineer to work full time on contributing to WordPress. The twist is I'm looking for someone who is currently not part of the WordPress Community, which has made the search interesting.

I know WordPress has a mixed view here on HN, but that's kind of the point - we're (http://wpengine.com) looking to bring some "outside blood" with experienced with best-practice lower-level, heavy-lifting PHP experience that we can help inject into the WordPress Core project.

Interestingly, a lot of engineers I've spoken to don't want to quit a full time job at a company to work on Open Source.

So, my reverse question is where would you go to find folks who want to work on Open Source.

Re: Ask HN: Getting paid to work on open source full-time?

#29

Post by dkubb »

I don't know about full time, but sometimes when a client asks me to extend a piece of software I'll ask the upstream maintainer if they'll accept a patch for the change (with permission from the client of course). The client gets software with the fix included, where they don't have to worry about checking each future upgrade to see if the fix broke something.

Re: Ask HN: Getting paid to work on open source full-time?

#30

Post by vdaniuk »

dotBen wrote: post #28

This is an interesting question, because I'm in the process of looking to hire an engineer to work full time on contributing to WordPress. The twist is I'm looking for someone who is currently not part of the WordPress Community , which has made the search interesting. I know WordPress has a mixed view here on HN, but that's kind of the point - we're ( http://wpengine.com ) looking to bring some "outside blood" with…

Could you offer some insights why many engineers dont want to work full time on open source?
Post reply on HN