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Comment by paulcarroty | Hacker News Reader

> don't write OSS for money

Why not? I'd prefer working with OSS for money over proprietary products.

Because you won't get money from OSS contribution for most part. If your priority is money, then OSS is not the best option unless you have a clear strategy of monetizing it.

One of which is finding a company that is a major contributor to OSS projects. It probably won't be the same as being simply a pure OSS contributor, but nothing that earns you money is likely to be.

That's based on a guy that just puts it out there on GitHub, doesn't have a side service based on his OSS stuff, doesn't offer support/commercial licenses, and so on...

Correct, and as that guy, I don't have enough time to build the side services and market it because of lack of time meanwhile maintain of job ofcourse (if you are planning oss without a job, tread carefully). Though I really want to so saving up for that.

I meant the original poster of TFA!

But still, it's something else to say

"OSS doesn't make money" (which is controversial, if not wrong)

instead of:

"OSS doesn't make money if you don't have enough time to build the side services and market it because of lack of time meanwhile maintain[ing] a job"

(which most can agree with)

I will tell you a secret: There are corporate and non-profit organizations out there which want to you to write open source software and they pay you for it (I know it's shocking).

Dozens of open jobs at VMware for professional / career Open Source positions: https://careers.vmware.com/search-jobs/Open%20Source%20Engin...

Big companies have an Open Source Program Office (OSPO) where community / OSS skills and licensing knowledge mean you can help the company both consume OSS and contribute back to it.

I think they're saying don't write it because you want money, rather than don't write it in exchange for money.

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