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Open Source is Not a Career Path
codermarc writes ""If you're getting into open source because you see it as a career path, you're doing something wrong." It's not that Linux creator Linus Torvalds thinks open-source programmers should work for peanuts (he doesn't), but rather that they should be properly motivated. Call it software with a soul, if you like. Only the truly passionate need apply."
The only reason to get into this game is because you like to play. If you are looking to advance in your career or make a lot of money, you have got the completely wrong idea. If that's your goal, go to school and get an MBA and then work on becoming a business person. Otherwise, play, rock, compute!
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
I think there is plenty of "career path" in Open Source if you approach it as a "service industry." Well, basically I think that software development is dead as an industry, OpenSource or no, except for the "service industry" angle. People who try to make software into a "invention" that pays out long after it has been written are IMO fooling themselves.
Anyway, there are other good reasons to do open source. My current one is perhaps a little more "real world" than those I have had before:
USCVprogs
Someone had to do it.
Fact: Both space organizations used pencils at first, but pencils have problems because if you little bits of graphite floating in the air, you've got a problem.
And space pens were, in fact, not developed by NASA, but were instead developed by an independent developer.
Source.
(I suppose I shouldn't reply to this, but whatever. It's always good to get the truth out there.)
"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." -- Hanlon's Razor
See another reply I did. What I meant was getting into it for the money and a hot career backfired on those without the real love for it. I know people working help desk that love the work they do. Those are the geeks. The ones that hate every moment of their waking life are the ones that gambled and lost. Those are the ones I was directing my comment at.
Trolling is a art,
Linus is really talking about OS developers, and people who tikner with the source code. Not so much the sys admins and sales people. I think it's a fair enough comment. Only those with a passion for coding will motivate themselves to excel at it.
In my experience, all the money motivated people that got into IT want to desperately jump on the Microsoft bandwagon. They saw how software licencing could be a total money rort (thanks to the MS experience) they wanted a piece of the pie.
When they failed to get into MS, they turned into IT sales managers.
I've met good sales managers, and bad ones of course. The difference is that good sales managers do their job PRIMARILY because they gain satisfaction from helping people.
The bad sales managers are only motivated to sell the product as fast as they can and wrangle as much money as they can in the deal. And they're also a pain to be around.
I won't ask "who makes more money?" because the answer is misleading. I will ask "Who enjoys their job more, has a happier less stressful life, and plenty of friends?" and the answer is quite clear.
Who sleeps better at night? Bill or Linus?
That's the real question.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
Look, any field you get into is going to say "don't do it for the money, do it because you like it!"
Computer geeks say it about IT.
Lawyers say it about law.
Doctors say it about medicine.
But what about the fields NOBODY likes? Did you ever hear Joe Toiletscrubber say "don't clean toilets for the money, do it because you like it!"? Highly doubtful.
The truth is, people do go into fields for the money -- including the computer geeks, the lawyers (especially corporate and IP lawyers), the doctors, and so forth. People take up jobs as garbage collectors, NOT because they're passionate about it, but because it's a job few other people are willing to do -- and it pays well because of that fact. Garbage collectors do it for the money.
So do strippers. And prostitutes (indeed, prostitutes in Nevada have been known to work for about 3-4 years, then retire for life with over $1 million in income for their time in bed).
There are people who get PhD's in the natural sciences NOT because they enjoy their academic field of study, but because they know they will make more money with a PhD than a lesser degree.
Telling people to "do it because you love it" is a nice ideal. But ultimately, all things revolve around money, and people will work in IT because there is decent money to be made there (yes, even now with the offshoring and the lack of dot-bombs to leech from, IT is still a relatively well-paying career path).
Be honest: are YOU passionate about processing business reports? How about maintaining 25 year-old COBOL apps? I sure as hell am not (though the theoretical side of "computer science" does interest me).
Are you even passionate about writing code for other people in general when the project is not one of your choice or even really particularly interesting? I'm not -- but I do it anyway, because there are far worse jobs (waiting tables, shoveling shit in Louisiana) that pay far-less too, and I can find ways to trick myself into liking the work I'm not interested in.
Anybody who says "do it for the love of the work" probably enjoys their work so much that they're at the top of the pack -- and Torvalds is probably the best example in the world. If you love your labor, more power to you.
The rest of us, however, will work at what we do because we're competent enough to get paid for it and we enjoy it just enough not to do something else we enjoy more instead -- but we're mentally-balanced enough not to revolve our lives around our work.
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?