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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."
This is so untrue... Novell now certifies "Linux Experts"
That applies to almost any job if you want to do well. Remember all the faux-geeks that went to school during the dot-com-bomb for the money? Those are the ones now working the help desk in their late 20's/early 30's or doing crap work for a 5 PC shop (assuming they're still working in the geek biz)
Trolling is a art,
AFTER THE QUALITY GOES IN...
After all, paying people to write software hasn't exactly given us bulletproof and easy to use products...why NOT have people write code because they like to.
what am I saying? software is the only paychek I ever had!
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
I know several people who've got good jobs specifically because they had experience on OSS projects.
Slashdot: News for Nerds, Stuff that matters only to them
I don't see open source as an entire career per se, but rather as a sort of means to an end. Developing open source is a great way to augment your career, to get your name "out there", and to give something back to the community. Being an open source developer gets you recognition, and recognition can get you business from people, organizations, or businesses that need closed source software. That's how I see things, anyway. Not a whole career, but a viable part of a career.
Also remember that some open source developers are// paid and do make a career out of it.
Hey, do you mean the lusty robots?
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
[Site was already beginning to slow down. Text reproduced in case of full /.ing]
Open Source is Not a Career Path
"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.
That's the message Torvalds and several other open-source luminaries have for the next generation of programmers. "A career path is not a motivation," Torvalds said during Tuesday's Open Source Development Lab's enterprise Linux summit. A reluctant visionary, (he blushed a shade of bright red during an intro that mentioned his inclusion in Time Magazine's list of most influential people) Torvalds is nonetheless passionate about his life's work, an open-source operating system that has blossomed into a major force in the technology world.
The future of open-source software depends upon bright, motivated programmers filled with ideas and initiative rather than programmers promoting their own, or their employer's, self interests. It's a concept that has been embraced by many but is nonetheless counterintuitive to an entire generation of programmers conditioned to view code (rather than the code's problem-solving capabilities) as a competitive advantage.
Times are changing, and the developer community needs to get with the times, said Brian Behlendorf, who shared Tuesday's OSDL keynote with Torvalds, Mitch Kapor, founder and chair of the Open Source Applications Foundation, lead Linux kernel maintainer Andrew Morton, and OSDL CEO Stuart Cohen. Behlendorf, chief technology officer of CollabNet Inc. and a founder of the Apache open source project, pointed out that the traits that make for a successful open source developer are different from what makes for a successful proprietary developer.
"In open source, you have to be a better communicator and to be able to defend yourself," Behlendorf said. He added that a thick skin also is a requirement when laying bare one's work for all the world to see and criticize. "There's not a lot of room for prima donnas."
StrayByte.Net
When I went to uni there were a lot of people who were taking the IT degree to "learn how to program" so they could "make big bucks". Much the way law students take up law to join a law firm. Well sorry, software development isn't a summer training course. You need to actually feel some passion for the subject. I knew I wanted to be a computer programmer when I was 7 years old. I learnt to program in assembler when I was 9. That's the kind of drive you should have for your work, otherwise go do an MBA and become a manager.
How we know is more important than what we know.
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.
This is like saying that you shouldn't build model trains unless you are motivated to do it. Poppycock.
Doing anything for pay is a great way to guide your career. Here's the thing: You never know what the next step will lead to. That's really essential.
I was reading about a guy in Ohio who married a Japanese exchange student. They were dirt poor, he was only, through odd jobs, able to bring home about $100 a month. They lived in his parents' basement and it was really a terrible life.
So his wife suggested that he and she move to Kyoto, where she is from, and she could have better job prospects and he could work as an English teacher. They moved and actually did fairly well in Japan.
Then he decided to follow a "career path" and started his own English school. It failed, miserably. They were forced to move further out into the countryside of Japan.
Out in the country, there was less demand for English teachers, but the wife was able to make enough to survive on.
The husband was experienced in some carpentry since he worked a little with his father in Ohio building houses and furniture. So he built a house for the family out in the countryside of Japan. Very Western. Next thing you know, his neighbors are asking him to build houses and furniture and to redecorate homes in Western style.
Well, if he had followed his career path, then he'd be flat broke and living on the streets of Ohio or Kyoto. But because he was flexible, he was able to find a way to make money and support his family.
There is no such thing as a "career path" except for people with very narrow minds.
Ironically, the open source developers who developer "for free" in their spare time are, in a way, under-cutting their cousins who are getting paid to develop software for a living.
Like if a bunch of mechanics openned a garage after work and fixed cars for free, wouldn't that hurt the income of the mechanics who are open for business in their off-shift?
Just saying -- hopefully the effect will be to force companies to produce better and more innovative commercial software, but I feel sorry for the poor Borland employee who lost his job because his buddy is working on Eclipse after hours.
Just saying,
Sam
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
In fact it is a career path
Involvement with popular open source packages is very impressive. Being able to say to your employer "I added feature _______ to project ________" is one way to put something unique on your resume before you graduate college. It's worth double if the employer knows the product, and tripple if they use that feature.
IMHO that's important. It is a career path. It's not a career (except for a few lucky souls). There are a few who make a living off of it (Mozilla hackers for MoFo, IBM, SUN, Google, Novell), RedHat, etc. That is a career.
But to say it's not a career path... that's a boatload of BS. It's been a career path for many individuals.
Not to mention it's one of the greatest learning experiences. I think I've learned more from open source than any class. Much more.
So I've wasted my life?
You ask this on Slashdot? I think you already know the answer.
Programming open source, releasing your code, is something you should do for your own enjoyment. There have been a number of cases of developers becoming disillusioned because their open source project failed to generate them any money, or got forked off into something else that became more popular. As disconcerting as that can be, it is a natural result of releasing your code under a license that allows such things. If you want control, if you want to be guaranteed money, then you should license your code accordingly.
Open source code is about scratching your own itch, doing what interests you (and potentially no one else), and the pleasures of problem solving associated with writing software. Yes, some open source projects have resulted in success for their developers because it turned out that what that person was interested in writing was somethign that a lot of people were interested in using. In the end though, almost all the really successful open source coders are people who did what they wanted to do for their own reasons. People who are passionate and interested in what they're coding (an advantage an open source coder has, being able to code whatever interests them) are far more likely to write good code than those disinterested in their projects, which has helped make some open source projects highly successful, but it is no guarantee of success or popularity.
The advantage of open source from the developers perspective is that they have the opportunity to do exactly what they want to do, exactly what interests them. The disadvantage is that what interests you may very well be of interest to very few others.
Jedidiah
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
If your a unix geek and want to make money, write for Mac OS X.
Mac OS X: Unix with paying customers.
I agree that it's important to have open source programmers be people who really love the technology and want to innovate and contribute to the project. The thing about the article that confused me though was that it gives the impression that there are hoards of programmers jumping on the OSS bandwagon hoping to make a quick buck, but I don't really see that in my experience.
Still being in school, I see a LOT of people who went into computers just to make a quick buck, all of them are very strong microsoft advocates.
Are there people who go into OSS just to make a buck? from what I've seen, people who are primarily interested in money are also huge proprietary software supporters, sort of like if the only thing you care about is money, you can't imagine anyone else coding for the love of it, and therefore can't imagine F/OSS being any good at all.
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
In growing economies open source may be useful for getting you in the door after college. Once you're in the door or in a declining economy open source will cost you. Managers resent employees who are more visible than they are. Other programmers resent you for upstaging them in public. While everyone who programs free software in college can be considered doing it for the credentials, anyone still doing it after college
is probably doing it for themself.
...and by extension, business software is only as popular as it is easy to support. If it weren't for the people who don't code, the ones who just run the systems, and who do make some money at it, Open Source would not be as dominant in the server market.
So while I see his point, you're right -- it's from a narrow persective. Developers like Linus aren't the ones that get approached when the rubber hits the road, maintainers are. He may look at less famous developers than himself and see little chance of them making money off their work (or less chance of them developing something decent because they are expecting to), and he may be right. He's looking at the wrong group of people, though.
Someone had to do it.
Well, I used to be a graphics designer until the dot-bomb implosion. I was left with unemployment or entry-level in a new career. After a year and a half, I chose IT. My choices were Windows or Unix. I chose Unix/Linux because it seemed that there were too many MCSEs and A+ certifications flooding the market and I had been "playing" with Linux for a couple of years. I went back to school, got a Unix SysAdmin Certification.
Currently, I work for a commercial software company that creates Linux specific software. I make a good living, I enjoy my job and I sleep well at night.
The idea that choosing OSS or Linux as a career path has worked for me. If I didn't look at it that way and took the MS path, I would probably still be "playing" with Linux and have to spend all day removing spyware from Windows boxes. No thanks.
Flexible bare-metal recovery for Linux/UNIX
An old man was fired from his janitorial government job of 30 years when a new hotshot manager discovered he could not read or write.
Walking home through the city after his last day, he really wanted a smoke, but could not find a place selling cigarettes. So, he took what little money he had and opened a small cigarette stand on that street.
People bought cigarettes from him. He opened another one. And he opened another one. Finally, he had too much money to keep under his mattress and went to the bank.
The banker was impressed at all the money he had earned considering he was not literate. The banker says to the old man "imagine where you could have been if you knew how to read and write." The old man replied, "I don't have to imagine, I would have still been a janitor."
--- -- - -
Give me LIBERTY, or give me a check.
Sure, it's a great path, as long as you go in as a CONSULTANT ($$$). Otherwise, it will always remain as a part time job (unless you work at Sun or IBM though
Horsepuckey.
It all depends on what having an "Open Source Career" means to you.
I write database-driven weblications with Linux/Apache/PostgreSQL/PHP. I get plenty of opportunities to contribute to the OSS community, (and I do) typically by providing documentation.
I don't primarily make my living actually writing OSS code, but I frequently release libraries and codebases I consider "commodity". I help out other people.
I contribute to email lists, online forums, etc. and use Open Source software as a platform to provide services for small to mid-size organizations.
No career in OSS? PFFFT!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
I'm not objecting the the article, but to the fact that yet again, the submitter plaigiarized the article. You can write 'Larry Greenmeier reports' or 'according to the InformationWeek Weblog' then quote to your heart's content. When the submitter simply copies and pastes the article and includes no attribution, it implies that the submitter wrote that paragraph. That's plagiarism. Editors, get it together - this is unacceptable.
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
Utter horseshit. While not everyone can get to work for a Cygwin or OSDL, a savy OSS programmer will eventually pick up the skills needed to participate in large, complex projects. This is resume fodder of the highest order. Those who are project initiators or maintainers will get to apply for jobs like "Architect" and be taken seriously. It's a way of ganing experience without having any experience... and experience means more money and seniority when landing a new job.
SoupIsGood Food
Dear Slashdot,
My name is Rob, I'm 24 and I'm a professional open source programmer. I like my job, and I'm paid comparably to other programmers in my field. The difference between me and most, however, is that I'm a researcher and I'm funded by a grant. Our software is developed to be used by the research and academic community. Now I'm not saying I'm typical, but certainly I see jobs similar to mine forming. Its no longer okay to just submit a paper and call that research. People are beginning to demand the code to go along with the paper and granting bodies understand this.
The market is changing everyday. Companies like IBM are proving that software is a service and not a product, and competition from other countries is turning many software jobs to commodity jobs. Everyone in software reinvents themself. My father has reinvented himself about 6 times during his career and will retire within the next 10 years doing a job completely different from his post graduate training.
I'm not going to sit and preach, but in two paragraphs I was able to give plenty of personal basis to reconsider the crux of the argument.
Food for thought
"Great hackers think of it [coding] as something they do for fun, and which they're delighted to find people will pay them for."
The other part of it is pointing out that choosing to go into open source like you'd choose to work in a supermarket at uni, really wont work. In the open source world it gets you almost nowhere because being a good coder is something you can't fake. If you're doing it for the bullet point on your resume then it'll all seem like too much work the first time somebody rips on your code.
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
seriously, what is up lately that the people submitting articles can't even bother to write their own summary? i can't even think of how many articles on slashdot in the last two weeks have been just a copy/paste of the first paragraph of the page they were linking to.
Not that this is a new phonomenon or anything, but it seems to have gotten way out of hand lately.
If I don't put anything here, will anyone recognize me anymore?
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?
I think that Linus is really trying to say that he really agrees more with the Free Software Foundation's GNU Philosophy more than the Open Source Initiative's, though he continues to use the term "Open Source." This is where some of the confusion comes from.
I think the OSI has effected great positive change in making business aware of the benefits of Free/Open Source software, but I think they were pretty arrogant and short-sighted to try to 'dump the confrontational attitude that has been associated with "free software"'. The idea that freedom is important for its own sake may be confrontational to a lot of businessmen, but that doesn't make it any less true.
I think a lot of conflict could be avoided if RMS would admit that business cases are important for Free Software and ESR would admit that freedom of Open Source software is important in its own right.
The idea that the happiest people are those who have a passion for their profession is nothing new. Linus is just restating that old truism in the context of working with Free software. But in reality it applies just as much to the proprietary coder too and just as much to an advertising exec and even to a call-girl, or (dare I say it) lawyers (there are A LOT of unhappy lawyers out there).
Linus's statement seems to have brought out the latent belief in a lot of people that "you can't make money writing Free software." This belief is a falsehood and it only takes a few seconds of rational thought to discover that.
1) Redhat makes money, the employees of Redhat make money. Redhat works with 100% Free software, thus working with Free software CAN and IS profitable.
2) Last I read, IBM currently has over 600 engineers employed working on Free software, maybe even just Linux alone. Those guys are getting paid and IBM ain't doing it for charity, they are doing it to add value to the services and products that they sell their customers.
The way you personally can make money from Free software is not by selling identical shrink wrapped copies, that only works for old-school, copyright-cartel, value-sucking companies. Instead, you make money by ADDING value to Free software. In other words, custom development. This works for the 1-man contract developer as well as huge consulting organizations like IBM's Global Services. Take currently existing Free software and build on it to solve a specific customer's specific requirements. You get paid for that work and, depending on the contract, the effort either stays within the client company or is shared back to the rest of the world. The GPL is designed specifically for that kind of situation and it is no surprise given that RMS often worked on contract tweaking GNU software for individual clients.
So forget all this baloney that Free software "takes away jobs" and the like because it doesn't. Instead, Free software is about not having to re-invent the wheel so that business that USE software can do more for less and are thus even more efficient in the long run. That efficiency helps the ENTIRE economy, not just a select few members of the copyright cartel.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
A URL (Uniform Resource Location) is a specific type of URI (Uniform Resource Identifier). Two other types of URIs are URNs (Uniform Resource Names), and URCs (Uniform Resource Citations). More information at this URI.
Replace the words "open source" with "playing rock music", or "acting", or "joining the circus", then you'd get the idea. Linus is trying to play "mom". Mom told us all those things, but lucky for us guys like Paul McCartney and Marlon Brando did not listen to their moms.
Sun and Fun
Excellent analogy. I wish more people understood this point.
Seeing as I like to look at everything from an economist's eyes, I look at the OSS movement, and what I see are idealistic college students and Europeans whose welfare states enable them to live in meager homes with meager food and no job so they may sit at home and write code. As with any hierarchical structure (in this case, of recognition), a few get paid well (the Linus Torvalds' of the world, who can afford to live on the California coast and drive a BMW), but the rest get little, if anything.
As a hobbyist economist, I look for other fields in which the same sort of suicidal tendencies occur. Music? Arguably this is the best analogy. Musicians often play for free, in order to gain recognition (fans), and once they gain enough recognition, they begin charging for their work (to see live shows, buy CDs, etc.). Perhaps they even sign a record deal (analogous to joining Novell or Sun or IBM on your OSS recognition), and then get paid a decent living. But relative to the number of other musicians attempting the same thing, the number who succed in that venture is small.
So it will be with the open-source world: a few highly-skilled coders get paid while the rest find other work and code in their spare time, receiving only recognition to boost their ego and cock size as payment.
Musicians do this too. And they're (in)famously-poor...
I love OSS as much as anybody else and have happily been using Linux and FreeBSD and their associated apps for years, because it doesn't cost me anything, the code is generally of fast, usable, stable quality, and I can change the source if need be (which I've done in some cases to make a particular app compile). Insofar as I have the freedom to do almost anything I want with it and obtain it legally at no charge, it's wonderful. And anybody who is not a developer feels the same way: it's great feeling like you're getting "something for nothing."
But there ain't no such thing as a free lunch; you can't get your "money for nothin and your chicks for free." Nor is software really ever "free" as in economically-free. But leave it to the leftists of the software world to fail to realize this...
Open-source developers are collectively coding their way out of paying jobs, and unless it becomes as common as the GPL to use a license which does one or more of the following:
* charges money for the source
* charges money for the binaries
* requires a support contract for a fee
* prevents all for-profit and governmental use (thereby legally requiring the various businesses and governments to pony up for the software, even while allowing private individuals to use it for free)
-- I don't see how OSS developers will survive unless they get into another career and code in their spare time, unless they wish to live like musicians...
The OSS community really needs to look farther down the road and realize that OSS is a *development* model, not a *business* model. And anybody without a business model (even if your "business" is simply selling your time to some employer for 40 hours/week) becomes poor...
What we really need is a license that simultaneously allows and enforces a means of openly-available source to which all may contribute and work on, but which also charges a fee. I could almost see a system of micropayments coming into play here (e.g. developers get paid in micropayments based on how much work they're doing in accordance with the revenues of the software sold to non-developers)... Almost.
(Actually, might that be doable? e.g. by limiting developer access (and payment, obviously) only to those signed up as employees of the project? But then you'd get the problem of people signing up to be developers who would never develop anything but instead download and compile the code themselves, then release the binaries to "average" people. I suppose that could be included in the developer license though...)
The best co
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
There is nothing wrong with working help desk in general; it's an important job. But there is something wrong with working help desk in your 30's from your own point of view if you got into the field with visions of making billions instantly with only minimal knowledge of computers. The elitism here is the elitism of the people who chose a career in computers without the right preparation.
Not that all pure sciences get the funding they need, but if you compare OSS core developers to academic and non-applied research scientists, there are many similarities -- and one difference. There are a lot less of them that manage to get funding for their "pure" research.
The parallels between scientists who pay the bills and get their toys by developing applied science to OS core devs that get hired on by companies for research work are pretty strong, and in that case, I'd say the playing field is a little more equal, though I doubt it is fair.
I picture the heavy OS developers as sort of floating in between the two mostly -- what they want to develop has more of an applied nature, so they don't get the respect pure scientists do (when they do), but at the same time, the spirit of the developer is more aligned with that of the pure scientist -- they want to explore things on their own terms.
If software was truly considered an "engineering" discipline, rather than "computer science" then maybe that would make a home for developers as research fellows at engineering colleges. But even that third category (which I must fess up to belonging to) doesn't consider it really to be "hard core" enough to qualify for their accolades.
Someone had to do it.
While you're dead on about what Linus is talking about, I think people need to recognize that the support community play an important role. These are the people that find the bugs, and often send in patches. They only "develop" 1-5% of their time, but without their aggregate effort OpenSource would be nowhere... just a bunch of buggy programs that only get fixed enough to do what a few fanatics (good connotation desired) want them to do.
And if they can get paid doing it, more power to them. Not that I wouldn't like to see that happen for developers, too, but I don't begrudge the sysops.
Someone had to do it.
Remember the scene in the bar when the genius contemplates what it would mean if nobody went after the girl?
As far as I'm concerned, if you want to make the world a better place, pursue your interests. Do not pursue a position, power, fame, money, or even a living. As long as you pursue what you truly love, the rest will take care of itself. This is not spiritual mumbo-jumbo. Only the most jaded and closed-minded of folks lambaste the FOSS movement as a 'software industry destroyer' and ask superficial questions like "But how do you make a living writing free software?".
Do what you love. Do what you are passionate about. The money will take care of itself.
Sigh,
How many people just like to read the things they want to read instead of actually try to understand it.
If you want to understand Linus' reasoning i suggest you get your hands on a copy of Pekka Himanen's "The Hacker Ethic".
I consider myself "old skool" IT. I became an IT because i love the technology and it's possibilities. Around me i hear other reasons.. "the job opportunities were good and i saw a chance to get rich quickly" or "well.. i didn't know what to do so i chose this". Linus just asks people to question their reasons. Are you an IT worker who is just in it for the fun or are you one who wan't to make a big career but don't care in what? The first does not exclude the latter and in fact history has shown that the first often leads to the latter. However, of late, new FOSS developers became FOSS developers because they are looking for a career instead of having fun and/or creating art.
They don't care about FOSS, they only care about their career which happens to involve FOSS right now but that can easily be replaced by the "next big thing" come opportunity and chance. They have no real love for FOSS or it's possibilities.
You can have a career in FOSS. A good one in fact.. but please.. do it for the love it. If you create something in FOSS, be prepared to support and or develop it for a long time. Do not abbandon it when you decide to get a career change.
Some clarification, i'm not a software developer. All i know is out of what i experience and read about. Wish i had the drive and passion for software developing.. but simply put.. i'm scared of it... sometimes i'm just glad i can get a piece of software installed (be it on windows or Linux, doesn't matter).
In my country, we call people who do things for free yet magically expect to be paid somehow anyway idiots.
That's not to say that I'm against open source in any way -- I'm an open source developer myself, and it's really fulfilling making software that people enjoy. The thing is, I don't misrepresent what I do; If I wanted to make money, it wouldn't be giving away my work for free.
-Insert identifier here
Yes, my only tool is a hammer. And you're starting to look like a nail.
I'm 45 and got into IT from the factory floor 15 yrs ago, just as the web was starting and unemployment from manufacturing lay-offs was at its peak. I was always a closet geek and started with a second hand apple 2E that drove my Ex nuts. Someone told me you could make money from it. I decided to do a BSc part time, the nylon factory was not interested in my plans even though they ran a mainframe and leased time to other bussinesses. After using night shift to complete a year of corrospondence maths, I quit. I bought an Acer 256k XT with my severence pay and became a full time uni student and part time taxi driver.
The first thing I noticed about white collar jobs was the boss says please and thank you when you are just doing your job.
I cleaned toilets when I was sixteen, not as much fun as the floor polisher, worked as a brikies labourer, farm hand, fishing trawler, sawmill, nylon mill and a few others by time I was 30. I also had 2 kids during all this. EVERY job I have ever had has it's good and bad bits. If you don't rationalise the bad bits as delayed reward you will be seen as a snotty kid that nobody wants to work with.
I have been in IT for 15 years and was very well paid a few years back. Now my wage has dropped but is still well above the national average. I don't often write code for fun anymore, my latest thing is digital cameras and telescopes simply because I have the cash for the toys. The only way you can possibly endure working a drill press 12hrs a day is to practice the rythym, ignore the clock and travel somewhere else in your head. Incidently that is also how you loose fingers and thus the "foolproof" saftey gaurds.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.