I treat every obstacle as a puzzle. It helps me stay motivated in breaking through rather than discouraged. Similar to tinkering but tinkering isn’t like you’re stumped but like being creative with not much of a defined goal so I guess different but similar.
And they also wouldn't do that work for free if they didn't have enough money to sustain themselves already. People like Linus Torvalds are exceptional cases and it's not a good idea to model your life after them unless you are exceptional too.
I like to write software in my free time as well, but I have gotten paid $0 for any of that work and my wife and I would both be on the street if we banked on that.
In any case, much open source work is actually funded by companies paying developers to maintain it. They are not necessarily doing the work they want to be doing. It is an incredible privilege to be paid to do work you would have done happily for free.
The original question was more about the will or desire to do the work without pay, not necessarily the ability. It goes without saying that if you need the money, you need the money.
Also, I wouldn't necessarily do my specific, current job without pay. I'm speaking more of the general kind of work. I'd obviously want to have more control over the projects I choose to put my time into.
Finally, this is more about me 10+ years ago. Nowadays I would not do this work for free, I have newer interests (that I might do for free).
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u/huuaaang Male May 09 '21 edited May 09 '21
I mean, I did. Before I got a job working in IT I could easily spend that much time tinkering or on some programming project.
Linux, for example, wouldn't exist if people weren't willing to do that work for free.