On Wed, May 8, 2013 at 10:38 AM, Tim Caswell <[email protected]> wrote:

> But I like to experiment and do my own thing, so my latest strategy is to
> become an open source mercenary.  I'll spend all day writing open source
> projects that interest me, but allow people to sponsor various projects
> that they want me to focus time on.  This month I'm working full-time on
> the js-git project because my kickstarter for it was wildly successful.
>
> I'm inspired by people like Mike Pall (luajit) and Marijn Haverbeke
> (codemirror and tern.js) who seem to be able to work on their own projects
> and still make money.  There are no commercial licencing deals for any of
> their projects, rather companies sponsor features they wish existed and the
> result it donated to the entire community for free.
>

I've done both, and the unfortunate reality of it is that making money off
open source is significantly more work than making money off commercial
projects. Finding a project which is successful enough to actually give you
something back is extremely rare, and takes a huge amount of marketing. On
the flip side getting hired because you have done great work in the open
source community is extremely common, and has massively helped my career in
the long term.

But please don't think I'm trying to discourage you, Tim, you've found
something that people want and are willing to fund you to develop - that's
AWESOME. I just hope people realise how much work you had to put into
getting to that place.

Matt.

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