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TWiki.net Kicks Out All TWiki Contributors
David Gerard noted an interesting story going down with a relatively minor project that has interesting implications for any Open Source project. He writes "Ten years ago, Peter Thoeny started the TWiki wiki engine. It attracted many contributors at twiki.org. About a year ago, Thoeny founded the startup twiki.net. On 27th October, twiki.net locked all the other contributors out of twiki.org in an event Thoeny called 'the twiki.org relaunch.' Here's the IRC meeting log. All the other core developers have now moved to a new project, NextWiki. Is it a sensible move for a venture capital firm that depends on a healthy Open Source community to lock it out?"
Close_Source==Money, Open_Source==!Money
Fixed it for you. I'm a noob taking a software engineering class at a community college.
We had a consultant come in for show-and-tell and he made some very good points, but he told us to stay away from open source because(shortened version) if we wanted to be well-known in the open source world then we'd have to slog it out full-time, fighting amongst other egos working for free just trying to get our names known.
But how is that different from working on proprietary software? Working on proprietary software earns a paycheck.
Note that the above is not my personal opinion, but after I graduate I won't have any more basements to live in and I will be hungry.
Rule Number 1: NEVER get pissy with the majority of main core contributers. If the project has *any* significance at all, you WILL lose. And for very good reasons (and riddance) too. That's a fact. Learn it.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I will let you in on a little secret. I went to a division III college in a small town. The people I ended up graduating with in computing mostly had trouble finding jobs and those that did seemed bored by them, mostly working in insurance, accounting, etc. They were taught VB, Java, and Cobol in school, but not necessarily how to think like a programmer.
I ended up going back to school at a much larger school, and getting a degree in an analytical field, which has a piece of open source software that I use at my job regularly. I have contributed my time and efforts to improving this project because I use it and need those improvements, and it helps others. I do this during work sometimes, but often times at night. I do this because I *like* it. I have no conceptions of making a name for myself.
And now I've just switched cities and had to find a new job. It's tough for a lot of people. Guess what? During the interviews, it comes up that I actually enjoy programming, contribute to this project, and generally have a good understanding of programming. I've had three offers this month already, in a tough economy.
The point? It's much easier to find work when you are passionate about what you're doing, as many open source authors are. It's not cause and effect, it's correlation. Those who are working on open source tend to be those who really enjoy programming, and that is of course correlated with being good at it. I would not listen to anyone who told me to 'stay away' from it if I enjoyed it, that sounds like a pathetic person.