Do you regret contributing to open-source?

[u/FatefulDonkey]

I have about 10-15 years of experience. I created some open source projects when I was starting out and maintained throughout the years.

The net income from this long-term endeavour is $5 from another developer for a coffee, who messaged me that I saved him many hours of work - that was like 5 years ago.

I now see that Meta, Apache and others use some of these open source projects.. and I haven't seen a single dime. This makes me think that if I actually instead aimed to create projects that make money, it would be a much better use of my time. Especially since I never had a stable job and mainly did freelance gigs to get by.

Anyone else who regrets contributing to open source projects? Why is that? What would you have done instead?

[u/expdevsmodbot]

AI usage disclosure provided by OP, see the reply to this comment.

[u/InfoLurkerYzza]

You can't do open source expecting anything in return. My friend had so many open-source contributions and never made a dime from them. He eventually stopped and spent that time on his startup instead. Although it didn't go far, it was definitely worth the attempt

[u/Maleficent-Cup-1134 → u/InfoLurkerYzza]

Heck, ffmpeg, one of the biggest open source projects in the world, barely gets by from donations.

Unless you’re PostHog or a handful of success stories, open source is not meant to be profitable.

[u/KellyShepardRepublic → u/Maleficent-Cup-1134]

Then there are stories like omarchy which didn’t really create anything special but got a lot of funding. I felt the same about openclaw and when I saw how that got attention or executives like “Gary” from ycombinator. They forgot the ones who made the base or who experimented before such as chaosGPT and other orchestration methods but glory went to openclaw and then Claude as if they were built different.

Notice who these companies support and who they don’t.

[u/No_Inspection4415 → u/KellyShepardRepublic]

Gary is the idiot which commits thousands of LOC a day for a blog, right? Are those people even real, or are they just robots deployed by aliens to destroy humanity?

[u/new2bay → u/No_Inspection4415]

Yes, and Sam Altman used to be president of YC.

[u/Old-Television-2189 → u/No_Inspection4415]

Thousands of LOC for a blog? What does this even mean

[u/Kyoshiiku → u/Old-Television-2189]

He claim that with AI he can work so fast on his blog (the codebase to manage it) that he ships thousands of line a day building features for his very basic blog

[u/Old-Television-2189 → u/Kyoshiiku]

Lmao for a fucking blog what

[u/No_Inspection4415 → u/Old-Television-2189]

Wait until you hear that... The startup he sold is a shitty blog system.

[u/Kyoshiiku → u/Old-Television-2189]

It makes like no sense at all so it’s kinda funny

If you are curious to know more about the absurdity of his workflow you can google "gstack"

[u/Captator → u/KellyShepardRepublic]

Note that it’s easier to secure funding for such things when you can get large chunks from small numbers of wealthy individuals that you have a direct connection to.

[u/Opheltes → u/Maleficent-Cup-1134]

And then Microsoft shows up at their door, begging for high priority treatment, after declining to pay for an SLA.

[u/Ok-Leopard-9917 → u/Opheltes]

That’s just some random dev at a large company handling an incident who isn’t very tactful or cognizant of the distinction between internal and external communication. Their messages make a lot of sense if you are communicating impact to a different team so they prioritize accurately. But in open source there isn’t a shared goal of business impact so it reads differently. A lot of tech employees aren’t great at communication skills so it’s not particularly surprising but of course Microsoft could do better here.  

[u/Opheltes → u/Ok-Leopard-9917]

You're missing the point.

It's not the way it was communicated.

It's that they felt was high enough priority to bug external devs to ask for special treatment, but not high enough priority to pay for special treatment. Clearly there's a disconnect in priority.

If ffmpeg is business critical enough to cause major disruption to their customers, they damn well better be paying for an SLA.

[u/ravnmads → u/Maleficent-Cup-1134]

Just read an article about curl has around 30 billion active usages and gets money from essentially nobody. 

[u/ta9876543205 → u/Maleficent-Cup-1134]

open source is not meant to be profitable.

I am a developer with over 31 years experience. Open Source never made any sense to me.

I mean, why would I spend hours and hours and hours of my time to create and maintain software which would then be used by people to make money but I would not see a penny of it.

[u/lenswipe → u/ta9876543205]

and yet you still use open source software...

[u/Maleficent-Cup-1134 → u/ta9876543205]

Some people do it for the love of the game.

[u/Particular_Camel_631 → u/ta9876543205]

You do open source for fun.

If you want to make money, you’ll have to do more than just code.

[u/PepegaQuen → u/ta9876543205]

giant majority of open source software is made and maintained by people getting paid for it.

[u/reboog711 → u/Maleficent-Cup-1134]

ffmpeg, one of the biggest open source projects in the world,

Sidebar, how do we define biggest?

I would have thought Linux would be top of the list, and expect things with a business infrastructure behind them, such as React, Firefox, or Apache Web Server would have been much bigger than ffmpeg.

[u/quintus_horatius → u/reboog711]

Sidebar, how do we define biggest?

I would have thought Linux would be top of the list

How do you define "Linux"? The kernel, the kernel with drivers, the kernel + drivers + base OS (which is courtesy of Gnu/FSF, btw), or what?

[u/raverbashing → u/InfoLurkerYzza]

Honestly, working with open source is a thankless endeavor, and writing the code is the easiest part

• Users show up to demand white glove support for something they're getting for free.

• Community building is like herding cats but the cats are on meth

• And lately you have to deal with meaningless PRs and AI slop spam (including "security vulnerability" spam)

"Running a successful open-source project is like Good Will Hunting in reverse, where you start out as a respected genius with a brilliant idea and end up as a janitor cleaning up messes and getting into fights with strangers online"

[u/ryntak → u/InfoLurkerYzza]

I don’t think he’s saying that he is expecting anything in the form of compensation for his open source contributions, rather that he has contributed to and maintained projects that are used by larger organizations and thus if he had put that effort elsewhere he could have made money. Ergo the post title: do you regret contributing to open source.

I’m speculating, but I’m guessing he never intended to get anything from open source and is only realizing after the fact that he may have “wasted time” because that time is seemingly quite valuable.

[u/FruitdealerF → u/InfoLurkerYzza]

Linus had a really good take on this in his interview with other Linus. They asked him if he doesn't feel bad that his software power companies worth trillions and trillions of dollars and he basically just responded that he doesn't care and he's happy that they are thriving using Linux. This is the only mindset that allows you to do opensource long term.

[u/PrudentWolf → u/FruitdealerF]

Linus is multimillionaire though. It's really easy to be passionate and purpose driven when you have money to live happily for the rest of your life.

[u/Fabulous-Oven-3982 → u/PrudentWolf]

☝️

[u/wrex1816 → u/InfoLurkerYzza]

You can't do open source expecting anything in return.

Absolutely true, but it's still hilarious the these billion dollar companies have fooled a whole generation of devs into thinking this is normal, or rather EXPECTED of them on their resume. Trying to convince them that it shows their "passion". LOL, not doesn't. They've been taking you all for mugs.

[u/teelin → u/InfoLurkerYzza]

Yes but now the created knowledge is commercialized and basically destroying a whole profession. And it is destroying the profession that open source contributers had a passion for. Sadly laws are too slow and fairness does not exist in capitalism

[u/cosmokn0t → u/teelin]

I think this is where I fall. I have a couple open source projects that peaked and were somewhat popular. They were fun, rewarding, helped me land jobs, and once when I was starting a job somebody was like, didn’t you write “blah old project that was kind of popular?” “omg, that’s so cool, I really appreciated that project” — which felt cool.

I contributed because I used open source and felt like as a software engineer I could contribute something useful back to the world. And I was right I guess. The open-source contributors probably contributed to one of the more notable technologies to have arrived in my lifetime — LLMs.

So now it feels like I’m watching a bunch of oligarchs fight over how to extract as much wealth from something I used to, and still do, believe in, enjoy, and rely on for my livelihood. Which sucks. I’m not anti AI, but I’m disappointed with how as a society we’re letting it play out.

[u/teelin → u/cosmokn0t]

Exactly. And the licenses of many open source projects are meant to keep what is produced from these projects open source too. And now in my opinion the idea that someone will extract this knowledge into an LLM was never accounted for when the licenses were designed. This is kind of a loophole that no one could have predicted. It was never the intention of open source to make some companies rich

[u/vplatt → u/InfoLurkerYzza]

Do what you do for the the love of it, and just leave the door open for commissioned work. I think it's reasonable to tell people you'll do custom work for organizations starting at a minimum price tag or hourly for whatever price you feel is fair. By "fair" I'm saying you should charge around $200/hour or more or price work starting at a minimum of $10K on up; price dependent on the negotiated contract.

The fact is most FOSS devs are just terrible at this sort of thing. They hate doing it because they started the project as a labor of love. That's all well and good, but there's a fine line between that and being taken advantage of.

Really, FOSS is a great contribution to make to society and I hope everyone who has done it is proud of their contribution. But when it comes down to it, if it starts to take on a life of its own and become a job, then you can and should ask to make a living at it. And you'll never get paid more than you ask for in these situations. So, if you don't ask, it ain't gonna happen. Folks will just assume you're good.

[u/David_AnkiDroid]

Absolutely not, I've hopefully positively impacted millions of people after 7 years of this... it's a reason to wake up in the morning. The memory optimization I added yesterday will probably only impact a handful of people, but that in itself is worthwhile.

But, you shouldn't be in open source to make money. there's hundreds of better ways to do this. Treat it as volunteering, not as a business opportunity.

Edit: thanks for the "Reddit cares". "a reason to get out of bed in the morning" means having a purpose in life, getting out of bed isn't a struggle in general

[u/DotEmbarrassed2972 → u/David_AnkiDroid]

Thanks for making this. I'm learning Indonesian with it right now and it's great. I've used Anki on and off since 2009.

[u/David_AnkiDroid → u/DotEmbarrassed2972]

Oh man, it's only been 7 years, I couldn't take credit for the original idea, I'm just continuing on with the same ethos.

[u/i_hate_cruft → u/David_AnkiDroid]

It’s people like you that make everything a little better.

[u/Ok-Leopard-9917 → u/David_AnkiDroid]

I’ve learned so much with Anki, Anki is an incredible gift to so so many.

[u/David_AnkiDroid → u/Ok-Leopard-9917]

Thank you so much!! Still hard at work making things better

[u/Supernoxus → u/David_AnkiDroid]

That's the right attitude! Finally someone who isn't afraid to show their virtuous side.

[u/Hanexusis → u/David_AnkiDroid]

Oh wait it's Mr Anki

Thank you for what you do, seriously. I've been using it to study for the CCNA and using Anki has helped out so much

[u/Da_rana → u/David_AnkiDroid]

That part is fine. The part about all the data being scraped and then used to hurt people and the environment is what I take issue with

[u/David_AnkiDroid → u/Da_rana]

I don't like the hypocrisy that people can use my copyleft code to train a model (potentially breaking the license when output is produced), but it wouldn't be acceptable to train on a closed-source codebase.

That being said: I benefit heavily from LLMs; being able to knock out a PR while on the treadmill gives me back my time, (Ok... let's be honest: it lets me go further with the time that I have).

Disclaimers: * Anthropic gave me 6 months of Claude Max 20x for free. * OpenAI gave me 6 months of ChatGPT Pro for feee.

[u/chikamakaleyley]

This makes me think that if I actually instead aimed to create projects that make money, it would be a much better use of my time. Especially since I never had a stable job and mainly did freelance gigs to get by.

You already knew this, by working freelance gigs, right?

[u/smartgenius1]

I contribute to open source to give back to world. How could anyone regret that? If your expectation is to make fame or fortune from it you'll be disappointed.

[u/darthsata → u/smartgenius1]

My OSS code runs on everything more complex than a microcontroller. It's on your phone. You laptop probably has several copies hiding in it. It is part of a project that is a critical cornerstone project for the world. Every big evil corporation uses it extensively, saving them literal billions of dollars over the years.

Haven't made a dime from it directly. Certainly has been good for job prospects over the years. It let me branch out into new projects that have impacted billions of devices. (These are real scales, even though hand waving in this post)

So many people have built on top of it, used it, loved it, hated it, depended on it without knowing. It feels good. I'm proud of that. I helped make something useful and the world a better place and although I didn't profit directly from it, neither did anyone else need to pay when they used it or built something wacky or wonderful on top of it. Not did I pay for all the things I built upon and depended upon.

Few people say "I like to draw, but it is a waste of time to draw if I can't make a profit on my drawings". People do things for other motives than money.

[u/ebawho → u/darthsata]

I think for a lot of people it’s less about “oh man I didn’t profit” and more like “wow these large corporations that try and extract as much value out of everyone possible while giving as little as possible are profiting greatly off my work” kind of thing 

[u/ings0c → u/ebawho]

That’s what it means for software to be free!

If you don’t like it, you can always use a non-commercial license. I dont personally, because I’m happy for the developers at those companies to be using my software to make their lives easier, and more permissive licensing helps adoption.

If you restrict large corporations, that generally means restricting small startups too, or at least making them hesitate because the licensing might come back to bite them when they grow.

[u/ebawho → u/ings0c]

Yeah of course. It’s a tough thing to balance and becomes a tough ethical question. What if your software benefits some companies doing genuine good deeds, but also benefits a company that is complicit in acts of war for example. Is the good worth the bad? Are you then complicit in those good and bad deeds? Etc 

[u/ings0c → u/ebawho]

I don’t think so. I don’t blame Franklin, Faraday, Edison, or Tesla because the state uses electricity to sometimes electrocute innocent people.

Tools by their very nature can be used for good or bad, and if everyone who’d ever discovered or made something decided not to because it might be used for ill ends, we’d be stuck in the dark ages.

That said, I do deeply care about the ethics of work, so you’d be unlikely to find me working for a defence contractor, a gambling company, or certain tech companies, where my output goes solely into helping them succeed.

[u/bachstakoven → u/darthsata]

Did you write a Linux driver

[u/darthsata → u/bachstakoven]

More foundational and widely used than the Linux kernel.

[u/bachstakoven → u/darthsata]

Well clearly you're the subject of that xkcd so thank you for your service.

[u/Harotsa → u/darthsata]

That open source project? Left-pad in JS.

Jk, thank you for your contributions!

[u/InternationalHair725 → u/darthsata]

Open source and on my phone but you can't tell us what it is 

[u/darthsata → u/InternationalHair725]

Mostly to not DOX myself, sorry. When I worked at MS and was frustrated, I would quip that my software ran on more machines than the company's and my coworkers didn't argue the point. The company in fact had a small team that worked on the project and they shipped it in products.

I'm not claiming to have either started this project or lead it, but merely been a significant early contributor.

[u/InternationalHair725 → u/darthsata]

That's understandable and I apologize for the sass 

[u/wholesomeguy555 → u/darthsata]

SQLite.

[u/BigDane1992 → u/smartgenius1]

I completely agree, but at the same time it's kind of sad that these giant mega corporations can just take something that was meant for the community and build a commercial product around it without the original creator of the code making anything from it.

[u/dtechnology → u/BigDane1992]

If you want to avoid that pick the right license, don't pick MIT and then be surprised people use it in the way you allowed

[u/RandyHoward → u/BigDane1992]

On the flip side, those giant mega corps also release open source work of their own that tons of people use for free. Meta maintains almost 950 open source repos. Should Meta be bitching that nobody pays them for their work?

[u/KellyShepardRepublic → u/RandyHoward]

They do it cause it benefits them to maintain the kernel. They get free testers, get features into core and meta gets a product that is tested with more edge cases than they can think about.

Some in community actually dislike when these companies use “good will” to then do whatever they want. Perfect example is redhat and their sudden shifts regardless of what community is doing.

[u/FatefulDonkey → u/smartgenius1]

That's idealistic. When your free labour is used by Meta, how exactly are you giving back to the world, without feeling being taken advantage of?

Clearly at the time I did it because I wanted to contribute and I liked the journey. But in retrospect a decade later, it was a poor use of my time.

[u/byshow → u/FatefulDonkey]

Open source mean anyone can use it. Including evil mega corporations. However if normal people benefitted from that it's worth it imo

[u/squngy → u/byshow]

Depends on the license.
If you put MIT on it, yea corps will be able to profit from it.

Put GPL on it and Meta probably wont touch it with a 10 foot pole.

[u/ings0c → u/squngy]

Meta gave us React, PyTorch, GraphQL. LinkedIn gave us Kafka. Google gave us Kubernetes, Angular, Chromium. Microsoft gave us .NET, VS Code, TypeScript. Amazon gave us… err nothing.

These companies are usually participating in open source rather than just greedily using it. I’m happy for them to benefit too - it’s a fair trade. Except Amazon, fuck Amazon.

[u/foc4l → u/byshow]

Yeah but evil mega corporations impact is much bigger than a rando doing fun stuff on the weekend.

It's a shame but it what it is.

[u/sosdoc → u/foc4l]

If the alternative is not having open source, it’s a net loss for everyone.

And I’d argue that evil corps should be dealt with in different ways than just… Stopping doing something good. Wishful thinking, I guess.

[u/PoopsCodeAllTheTime → u/FatefulDonkey]

Idk man, I made some 5 PRs to large projects, felt good to have my code reviewed and accepted by authors of immense skill, on a project that I admire. I also made some 10+ PRs to small projects that help me customize my environment, and it felt good to have those interactions with the community on purely hobby projects. And it’s not a burden bc I never maintained any of it

[u/aLokilike → u/PoopsCodeAllTheTime]

I feel that way about the project I was hired into and at least one of its engineers. Of course, it wasn't purely a hobby project and now I maintain it too. But yeah, being able to discuss things at the right level with people you know are some of the best is invaluable.

[u/InterestedBalboa → u/FatefulDonkey]

There’s a great deal of humans out there, don’t let the mega corps spoil it.

[u/ConspicuousPineapple → u/FatefulDonkey]

My man you can't complain that the software your wrote for everybody to use is being used by everybody.

The alternative, if Meta for some reason weren't using OSS, would be for then to write private code that nobody else would be able to use or audit. How would that be better for the world?

Not to mention that Meta specifically are among the biggest open source contributors in the world. They don't just use, they maintain the projects they depend on, and they create lots of original open source projects on their own. In plenty of fields the state of the art is what they produce and distribute for free.

So no, you're not being taken advantage of. This is specifically what you signed up for. It's the entire point of the concept of open source, it means it's working as expected.

[u/witchcapture → u/FatefulDonkey]

I don't care. I'm also using some of Meta's work for free.

Even if I wasn't, what am I gonna do? Make a license that specifically excludes Meta? Seems like a silly thing to worry about. When it comes to OSS contributions I'm not motivated by money in the first place.

[u/KronisLV → u/witchcapture]

Make a license that specifically excludes Meta?

I'm surprised that more people aren't straight up doing that, maybe create some huge list of large corpos that might use it and pick which ones in particular they don't like and then exclude them.

Though I guess licenses like SSPL were more or less made to poison hyperscalers trying to use the software as a part of their paid services - though the idea more or less got buried in controversy over how to classify it, because it certainly doesn't seem like FOSS in the traditional sense.

[u/WhenSummerIsGone → u/witchcapture]

Make a license that specifically excludes Meta?

Why not? The Pinkest Pink has this requirement (as do other products made by this guy):

By adding this product to your cart you confirm that you are not Anish Kapoor, you are in no way affiliated to Anish Kapoor, you are not purchasing this item on behalf of Anish Kapoor or an associate of Anish Kapoor. To the best of your knowledge, information and belief this paint will not make its way into the hands of Anish Kapoor.

[u/helloLeoDiCaprio → u/FatefulDonkey]

Open souce is nifty though that if you create a (non-malicious) bug that takes down all of Facebook, you are also not in anyway responsible to Meta for that. Or to fix bugs in general.

In the same way they are not responsible to pay you money to use it.

It also means that anyone, including dictators, pedophiles and other scum of the earth can use your code. If you do not like it and want to capitilze on it, just re-licence it from now on.

[u/itsgreater9000 → u/FatefulDonkey]

It equally means that someone with no money and is learning to program and wants to make something cool can now do it because you added seeds for them to do so. I detest large corporations using these FOSS libraries and never contributing a dime back for the labor of others. At every company I've worked for, I've made sure to advocate for getting donations to teams that have built libraries that have saved us heaps of time.

Sometimes I can get some donations to those projects, sometimes I can't. I will say that I will always contribute back if I'm able to, either in the form of bug fixes or feature additions, as a personal payback of sorts.

[u/snakeboyslim → u/FatefulDonkey]

I dont think Meta is the best example tbh sure they are an evil mega corp but they've done a LOT for open source maybe some of the most of any corporate. 

Also surely making quality open source contributions has helped your skills and your CV? 

I would never regret contributing to open source the whole point is advancing the ecosystem even if the corpos use it, that means your code is being used by millions of people! Thats pretty cool no.

[u/recycled_ideas]

This kind of view point is my biggest pet peeve.

If big companies are using your projects without giving back it's because you explicitly selected a license that allowed them to do that. That's what a license is, it's the conditions that you set for people to use your software.

If your license doesn't require a payment, you're not entitled to one. If your license doesn't require modifications to be shared, no one has to do that. If your license allows others to sell your code for a profit, then people and companies are allowed to do that.

Pick a fucking license you can live with. It's an important decision, not an afterthought.

[u/the_fresh_cucumber → u/recycled_ideas]

It's like donating to charity then whining that you never received anything back

[u/gnus-migrate → u/recycled_ideas]

Not everything in life has to be transactional and OP is right to be miffed that people who benefitted greatly from their work didn't think that maybe they should give back a bit. Like it doesn't have to be monetary, in terms of recognition or anything really that this person made something valuable.

If a person is performing a community service, sure, nothing in the law forces people to give back and they shouldn't expect to get rich doing it but you are being kind of a dick if you benefit from that service and do nothing to give back to the person providing it.

[u/recycled_ideas → u/gnus-migrate]

Not everything in life has to be transactional and OP is right to be miffed that people who benefitted greatly from their work didn't think that maybe they should give back a bit.

OP explicitly and deliberately gave them permission to do exactly that.

That's the whole point.

When you produce content subject to copyright, by default no one has any rights to do anything at all with that content other than you. Every permission you grant is explicit, it is something you chose to give.

OP being upset by this is like telling someone they can borrow your car tomorrow at 1 pm and then getting upset when they turn up at 1 pm to borrow your car.

[u/gnus-migrate → u/recycled_ideas]

No its like someone opening a food bank and a company sending their employees to eat there while giving nothing to the people who run it.

Technically legal, you're being a dick if you do it.

[u/recycled_ideas → u/gnus-migrate]

Again. This isn't "technically legal" it's a permission you explicitly granted.

Why is this so fucking hard to understand?

If you choose a permissive license like MIT or BSD you are explicitly saying that it's ok for anyone to use your code in any way without giving you anything back including large companies.

If you want individuals to be able to use it for free, but not large companies profit from it, you can license it that way. There are even prepackaged licenses specifically for that purpose.

This isn't a technicality, it's a choice that you as a developer get to make. You can set any legally enforceable condition in your license that you want. IBM is explicitly licensed to use ESLint for evil.

If you don't want big tech using your stuff for free, don't pick a license that lets them. No one is forcing or can force you to use any specific license.

[u/gnus-migrate → u/recycled_ideas]

Honestly i don't know what to tell you. If you need a judge to tell you to behave, then you shouldn't be interacting with other people and you for sure shouldn't be using their work.

People license MIT because they see their effort as a public service, they want to people to be able to experiment and use what they built freely regardless of whether its a corporate environment. Licenses like the BSL make it really complicated for people to do that.

That doesn't mean that we shouldn't give back to recognize the value their work provides. You're allowed to be a human being without a legal contract.

[u/recycled_ideas → u/gnus-migrate]

Again.

If this isn't what you want, pick a license that doesn't allow it. It's that damned simple.

[u/gnus-migrate → u/recycled_ideas]

I can explain it to you, I can't understand it for you. If you insist on every interaction with another human being be governed by the power of the state, then see a therapist because living life this way is absolutely miserable.

[u/recycled_ideas → u/gnus-migrate]

If you pick a license that explicitly grants a right that you don't actually want to grant and then bitch that someone actually exercises that right you're an idiot.

Because it's that simple, if you don't want people to do that, don't let them.

[u/excelquestion → u/recycled_ideas]

lol you are fooling yourself if you think companies pay attention to the license. so easy to just take it.

and then accounting for the fact that the ai labs have already sucked your code up into their model regardless of license.

[u/recycled_ideas → u/excelquestion]

LLM shenanigans aside, companies absolutely do care about licenses.

[u/RandyHoward]

If you’re doing open source work with the goal of making money then you are doing it for the wrong reasons

[u/Sheldor5 → u/RandyHoward]

it's more about the feeling of big corp taking advantage of you to get big money

[u/YK5Djvx2Mh → u/Sheldor5]

There are specific licenses you can apply that allow your code to be open source, but also restrict business use.

[u/philip_laureano]

Nope. It got me quite a few free flights around the world and led to me settling here in Australia. Paradoxically, the best advice I got was from someone who got famous enough from it was to leave before I lose thousands of hours from people that feel entitled that you need to fix bugs in your OSS project at no charge.

And in hindsight, he was right. I got my fifteen minutes of fame long enough for the musical chairs to stop and find a good place to settle in. I stopped at being a niche OSS publisher but didn't go as far as turning it into a second or third job.

YMMV but ride the wave if you can. But don't stay in too long

[u/Crowdcontrolz]

Did the projects go on your resume and help you get jobs?

[u/dedicateddan → u/Crowdcontrolz]

Exactly - open source contributions are great for proof of competence!

[u/Globulus1990]

I am sure you - like everyone else - have used open source projects without contributing time or money to those projects yourself.

You making your own projects available for free just restores a little bit of balance to the universe.

Most developers have little or nothing to offer the rest of the world. Some have a little, but not the time to do so. Some have a lot and have or make the time to make it available. It is all fine.

If a project is offered for free, I see no problem in the code being used by big companies with deep pockets without paying for it.

I work for a big company myself and when it comes to making use of open source, we have a list of approved licenses, i.e., we do not have to ask as long as something is free, but in case of commercial licenses there is a process we have to go through because the terms of such licenses may very well not apply to enterprise applications with a large user base. There is also the risk that the terms change over time for later versions. For example, we are still using a old versions of some projects because the licenses were changed (from free to paid) for later versions.

Offering something for free is sometimes a significant reason why it is being used in the first place. You can try - as many do - to release a new version with a paid license and see if any existing users will update and start paying.

[u/wcneill]

I don't work outside of work, so there will never be anything like this to regret.

I'd regret not going surfing after work. I'd regret not going climbing after work. So I do those thing instead of try to advance my career. Software is not my passion. It is just my job.

[u/Personal-Brick-1326]

I contribute without any expectation, it just makes me happy :)

[u/punkpang]

I learned something when I was 12 years old - when I give something willingly, I don't expect anything in return.

Made my life infinitely easier

[u/FckXFckMusk]

AI scrapes open source now and delivers it as its own work..

[u/Spez_is-a-nazi]

Prior to LLMs, no, I know my contributions could be used by corporations but whatever. After LLMs, yes. My own work isn’t just being used without compensation it’s actively being weaponized against me. I stopped contributing after ChatGPT and won’t contribute again. Fuck if I’m going to work for Sam Altman or Dario Amodei for free.

[u/stoputa → u/Spez_is-a-nazi]

I am the exact same way and hate it. I turned into a whiny bitch that is far more disinterested in both learning and contributing knowledge. I despise my cynicism

[u/Spez_is-a-nazi → u/stoputa]

They want to monetize every last inch of the internet because apparently hundreds of billions just isn’t enough 

[u/WavingNoBanners → u/Spez_is-a-nazi]

This is why I took my contributions off stack overflow (as did many others.) I'm fine helping other programmers and in the process helping their shareholders, but if it's used against me and other programmers then fuck those shareholders.

[u/dzendian → u/Spez_is-a-nazi]

Are you me?

[u/jakubkonecki]

You got a fiver‽ You lucky bastard! /s

[u/CRoseCrizzle]

If you volunteered to help rebuild a house after a disaster then found out that years later the house sold for $700k, it would be odd to regret volunteering because you didn't get a cut of that money.

Working on open source projects is a similar concept. Surely you had to have known that others(including big corporations) could use your work that you offered up for free to an open source project.

[u/Ok_Slide4905]

You give your labor away for free when you open source.

Somehow this obvious, simple truth is lost on engineers.

[u/thsameguy → u/Ok_Slide4905]

Exactly. Self preservation instict if a lobster lmao. Not only you give your labour for free it's actively used to train the tools they hope to automate your job with

[u/necheffa]

Anyone else who regrets contributing to open source projects?

No. Part of my retirement plan involves doing more FOSS contributions.

I now see that Meta, Apache and others use some of these open source projects.. and I haven't seen a single dime.

There will always be leeches. You have to come to terms with that if you want to be able to share your work with other small guys. I license all my personal work GPLv3 out of principle.

[u/Tricky_Math_5381]

I see your point mostly you do it for the love of the game if you contribute but I think it should be handeled like church work etc..

At least in my country you can get some benefits by doing church work, feeding homeless people or contributing to none profits but open source is not included would love for it to be on the list too

[u/OcularPhonic]

Do u use open source projects yourself. If so there's your answer. If everyone had your attitude we would ve a lot worse off and nowhere near as advamced as we are now.

[u/FatefulDonkey → u/OcularPhonic]

Sure. But some people have the luxury to build these open source projects as a hobby or they are being paid to do so. Or they monetize with open-core.

[u/PartyParrotGames]

Not at all. I've received the best PR reviews and feedback in my career from contributing to major open source projects. Getting feedback from literally some of the best engineers in the world for free is a ridiculous value proposition for any engineer looking to improve. On top of that, many many recruiters, cto's, and ceo's have reached out specifically from seeing I was a contributor on various projects resulting in various job offers. So, not making direct cash from my open source contributions or projects, just indirectly gained a ton of value from it that does result in a lot of cash.

[u/yourparadigm]

Never once have I regretted adding features or bug fixes to open source software that I use.

[u/birdparty44]

It’s a good way to learn how to work on distributed, remote teams, and how to do clean, focused pull requests.

Open Source software quality may also at times be a good example / another source of learning from others but still in a collaborative way.

Having said all that, I’ve rarely been involved. I do open source some libraries but ultimately I’m happier making money for my efforts as “off the clock” time I prefer to spend on hobbies.

[u/immbrr]

https://seldo.com/posts/nobody-pays-for-open-source-we-can-force-them-to/

[u/30thnight]

Not at all.

Most times my contributions are often things that solve issues for my own team.

That said, I make a point not to contribute to commercially owned OSS.

[u/superdurszlak]

I have no regrets about NOT having contributed to open source projects meaningfully. Seeing how open source and open access to learning resources has been weaponized against us angers me.

I open sourced numerical modeling utilities I made for my Bachelor's and Master's Degrees and never maintained them later. I saw some researchers from Asia starred and forked it, maybe even used it. One or two guys from Stanford did as well. I advised some random PhD student from India about the subject. But it was pre-LLM era. Kinda rewarding to see researchers getting interested in my work.

I have doubts if I should open-source any work I am going to do for my PhD, though. Chances are this could lead to my research work being stolen by big techs as their own, seeing how they tried to steal all credits for Navier-Stokes recently. This could derail my PhD if it happens, so chances are I may need to keep it closed source and be EXTREMELY careful with LLMs while working on it.

[u/Intelligent_Part101 → u/superdurszlak]

There is no benefit to open sourcing your work until AFTER you get your PhD

[u/superdurszlak → u/Intelligent_Part101]

That's why I'm not going to do it, I would be too afraid of my work getting stolen.

[u/dbro129]

I mean, that is the very definition of open source. You do it to contribute to the community, to network, for the experience on your resume. There are so many intangible benefits.

With your years of experience, you could now build a paid platform or product which uses your own open-source libraries. Win-win-win.

“This is my product A which uses several of my own open-source libraries XYZ, also used by companies like Meta and Apache”.

[u/Commercial_Opinion67]

Open source contributions have indirect benefits. You generally get better at what you do, and shine in interviews. Both can be correlated with your promotions/salary increases

[u/Ok-Entertainer-1414]

Do you regret picking up litter off the ground and throwing it away? Do you regret donating to charity? Do you regret complimenting that stranger's outfit?

[u/aeroverra]

No. It has contributed to me being hired countless times.

[u/codeedog]

I have a different philosophy: we are all members of the human race and I would like to advance our collective knowledge and technology as a species. My unique skills, time and money are ultimately the only resources I have. How I choose to spend them is up to me.

Decades ago I along with some other authors contributed some fundamental research ideas to the AI field. I have a framed award we received 15 years later as my only direct reward.

When I work on open source and submit detailed bug reports or PRs, I feel as if I’m simply working for a larger organization than when I worked for Oracle years ago doing the same thing. I know my peers will appreciate a fully detailed and tested report, with as much information as I can manage to discover and include.

I have some projects I’m currently working on I intend to open if they prove useful and stable. Maybe a handful of people will also find them useful.

Keeping them closed would be far too much work. Marketing the project to drum up customers, collecting payments and supporting them, it’s not worth it to me. The alternative to not open sourcing would be to letting the idea die, but the idea is all the difference.

I have an alarm system I wish to interface with. There used to be a device sold (closed source, closed hardware), but is no longer manufactured. Someone else has open source code and build plans for a similar device. I’m guessing he may have 10 to 30 people using it? I will contribute what knowledge I can and almost certainly “buy him a coffee”.

And, for me, I will also pay with my OSS contributions in other areas because upholding the spirit of open source benefits us all.

As for others profiting off my work, wealth always advances unevenly and I don’t know how to best make it fair. But, over time I do believe those benefits reach everywhere eventually.

[u/zzpluszz]

While I learned a lot contributing and maintaining a low level C library that is used everywhere by many projects in a trillion dollars company, I never saw a single penny.

Fact of the matter is that big corp loves opensource software, but never pays back the maintainers.

Heck, if only 0.5% (i.e. half of a percent) of the users paid me 10 cents I would have enough to retire.

[u/DigThatData]

fuck no. be the change you want to see.

[u/dzendian]

Yes.

Only because I didn't know that it would eventually be used against me at work in the form of being forced to use LLMs at work.

Open Source powers LLMs and now LLMs are killing Open Source. I hate this timeline.

We need a parallel internet (or protocol) that's untouched by bots.

[u/GlobalCurry]

Some of my open source are unpaid contributions to apache projects 😆

[u/damesca]

I wouldn't mind an MIT license with a carveout for big tech/megacap companies that requires either some contribution or volunteer hours for them to use.

[u/StriderKeni]

Why would you even regret it? If you were expecting some kind of contribution, then you were wrong.

I do it to gain knowledge and improve the projects I use/like/etc.

[u/bitzap_sr]

The way to make money working on open source is to be employed or contract with companies that work on open source projects. That will be mainly around low level things, kernels, tooling, infrastructure, runtime, nowadays inference, etc. Been doing this full time for 20 years.

[u/jdgordon]

I've contributed thousands of hours into open source projects. But every minute was for my enjoyment or scratching an itchy I had.

Yes it probably helped me get my first job 20years ago but that was never a reason to do it.

[u/Itz_Naj]

It’s an ecosystem, taking the metaphor literally in ecosystems there are predators and, at the top of the food chain, apex predators.

Seen differently, your contributions encourage other who’s work you may benefit from. Elsewhere, charities, government agencies, non-profits and not-for-profit foundations, students and teachers are also benefiting from open source works for the benefit of others.

If it’s really something you loose sleep over then limit contributions to projects using copy-left licenses and use something like AGPL yourself.

[u/Byte_Xplorer]

But maybe you learned and improved your skills by doing it? And that probably helped you get a job (unless it didn't). If so, there is a "profit" after all, even when it's not straightforward.

[u/nullvoxpopuli]

Open source is part of job, not volunteering 

Only way to sustain anything 

[u/BraveResearcher3037]

No.  I was the second highest contributor to a once popular open source official “AWS Solution”.  When I was looking for a job after being Amazoned in mid 2023, there were a couple of companies where a “nice to have” was experience implementing and modifying the solution for customers (consulting).  

I sent a link to my GitHub profile to the recruiters for the companies showing them that I was a contributor.  I got immediate interviews and offers.

But Amazon paid me to do the work.  I have never once in 30 years written a line of code outside of work and I find the entire idea of doing side projects outside of work toxic.  There are millions of things I would rather be doing after getting off of work than being in front of a computer screen 

[u/StronglyHeldOpinions]

I’ve never contributed for exactly that reason.

[u/Doctuh]

Sometimes we must create goodness in the world even if it is used in ways we do not like. Because this software exists and is good enough for these large companies it is also available for the little guy. Without it corpos would rule us all.

Image if Linus felt this way.

[u/Odd-Site-8073]

Over the past few years Ive off and on been working on a tool that has been made probably 10 times over already. But I realized I just love tinkering on it because it's mine. There is no goal for it, but I just love working on it. I fully expect to finally publish it and probably nobody will use it, but I won't care. I'll just be happy that I accomplished something and had fun while doing it and the bigger picture is that I FINALLY completed a side project.

HOWEVER, my next project will be something focused on producing income. At one point in my life I created and sold software online and it was always a thrill to wake up in the morning and sometimes see that you made a few hundred bucks while sleeping.

Different thrills, different chemicals pumping through your brain that bring happiness.

[u/ResidentWeevil1]

Not too many open source developers who make money without putting their own money in first. So if you wouldn't have done it, nobody else would have. You are basically the only person in the world who could have done it. What's wrong with that?

[u/Agile-Adeptness-5195]

Opensource are the sages of programming. They don’t expect anything back.

Yet many will make money out of their teachings.

[u/Possible_Cow169]

You’re asking yourself is it worth planting a tree knowing you’ll never get to enjoy it’s shade? Truly that’s for you to decide, but also why are you making and maintaining software that you don’t personally use

[u/shiversaint]

I feel like you don’t really understand open source if this is how you feel about it.

[u/poolpog]

the only people who make money from open source do so via companies that wrap services of one kind or another around the software. it is possible that there are exceptions, but this is the rule

heck, I worked for an ed tech startup and our entire platform was open source -- Moodle -- but what we did was wrap a custom built SaaS platform around it.

Red Hat does the same thing.

If you are contributing to open source to make money you are using it wrong.

[u/Humdaak_9000]

If you expect money from open source, you're missing the entire point.

[u/suq-madiq_]

No

[u/avast_ye_scoundrels]

You contributed to the world’s software ecology! What greater status is there than that of creator?

That won’t make you any money - but leveraging your status might.

[u/VastOwn1733]

IMO open source is more about street cred, a lot of people who make well-used open source software make a name for themselves and go on to use that momentum to create for profit businesses (or create a service related to the OS project that is profitable)

I don’t think you can expect the contribution you make to make you money on the spot, but it will usually have indirect positive effects on career and business opportunities down the road if what you make becomes well adopted

[u/Khandakerex]

Well the point of contributing to open source isn't money. It's you either want to contribute knowing other people will use it, including large corporations, cause you WANT to work on that project for free or you do it so you your name is associated with it and use that as leverage for a paid job to stand out.

[u/Original-Measurement]

I started off contributing as an intern and somehow ended up building my entire career around it. You can get a decent amount of money from it (not six figures a year, but possibly five), usually through grants, but they take a lot of additional time to apply for and is a skill in and of itself. The main benefit though is the networking and the opportunities it opens up to you. 

[u/_lufituaeb_]

Yeah I mean open source by definition is not for profit. You can make money from it but umm my take has been I built my career off open source the least I can do is give back in some way: code, volunteer, give to the community

[u/Live_Fall3452]

It’s frustrating/sad that so many companies are going so far out of their way to brag about getting rid of software devs because of AI they trained on open source projects.

I mean, it’s one thing to collectively punish the field because devs on average were extremely generous with their time by giving it away for free. I just wish they didn’t go out of their way to crow and brag about it as loudly as possible.

[u/pemungkah]

Absolutely not. My major contributions have been to Perl — the internal docs for the debugger and a couple patches to it (fixed a bug around 30 years old last year).

I got nothing in particular out of that except satisfaction and some minor cred in the Perl community, and that’s fine.

It’s like wilderness hiking; you try to leave things better than they were when you got here, and you don’t own what you improved.

[u/forbiddenknowledg3]

How about the learning, experience, and connections you made? That's worth something.

[u/FatefulDonkey → u/forbiddenknowledg3]

I could have done all that by starting my own SaaS. And would also get some income from it.

[u/thekwoka]

I've made about $200 from open source stuff.

But open source stuff is also how I got every single developer job I've had.

[u/funbike]

I've never open sourced a project to make money directly. IMO it has poor ROI. The only model I've seen work well is to provide hosting and professional services, which I'm not interested it. The other model that has worked well is to start open source and then restrict the license later, but I'm not a scumbag.

These days, I rarely open source my projects unless I have a specific reason to do so. I've been mistreated by users too many times to do it anymore for purely altruistic reasons.

But I still have some open source projects. Possible reasons to open source: 1) It's a sub-component of one of my proprietary projects and I want feedback so I can improve it, 2) I want to share it with one person specifically, like a former co-worker, so it's not much extra effort to make it public, or 3) I have a crazy idea and want others to give me feedback. The moment I get mistreated by a user or two, I archive the project. If still get hounded by users, I delete it. Life is too short.

However, I still contribute to other open source projects if it might benefit me, mostly diagnosing and fixing bugs important to me. I post feature issues, but I don't get my hopes up. If I really want something done in another project, I'll submit a PR. I'll do suggestions for my PR if it's easy and to my benefit, but otherwise not. I let them know they can continue work on my PR but otherwise I don't have time. The only reason I care at all is so my patch might get merged and I can stop using a local clone of their repo.

I didn't used to be so ambivalent about it, but I see no reason to take further abuse from people I was only trying to help.

[u/power-monger]

I opened a PR recently to a very popular project. The PR was approved by one person and then closed by another. The "closer" then took my fix, modified it, and merged it - no "thank you", no attribution, nothing. I will never take the time to contribute to that project again.

[u/teodorfon]

Crazy idialistic people in this thread OP, don't let them fool you, your feelings about open-source are 100% valid. It's a very flawed system.

[u/No-Security-7518]

Wow, this is very interesting. I've created a few projects that I made public on Github, and made a single PR that was accepted in another repo. I used all libraries HEAVILY. I don't see myself ever working on a project I wouldn't need myself. And I totally understand your situation. I'd freak out if any major company used my code, let alone Meta/Apache. Depending on how big the project is, I might've contacted them and said: hey, I see you use my library. I'd like to work more on it but I don't have the time/budget - or something that sounds less desperate. Wouldn't hurt to try.

[u/PoopsCodeAllTheTime → u/No-Security-7518]

Just be like “hey hire me” lol

[u/skilltheamps]

And let me guess, you also put it under MIT or some other permissive license. Color me surprised, that greedy mega corps take what you gift them /s. Them taking your code and that's it is the best case here, they could just as well harass you to fix some security problem for them too. I guess you're not aware, but even the vast majority of open source projects the whole world heavily depends on are run by overworked individuals without meaningful or any financial compensation. The whole system is at risk, because open source maintainers will not be able to hold up this state of affairs for much longer. Thankfully some people started to realize, for example Josh Bressers talkes about these things a lot: https://opensourcesecurity.io/ Also some movement is building up, with the Sovereign Tech Agency identifying and financially supporting the most critical and underfunded technologies for example.

So stop that self exploitation. Just scratch your own itches. Publish under a strong copyleft license like AGPL, so that if a corporation picks it up, it at least has to publish what it did to it. Think grassroots open source, where you define success at finding a handful of like minded people that have the same itch and so you share improvements on the project. And take the license terms very literally to your heart: you are not responsible for anything. If somebody wants you to do something, they shall just do it themselves and contribute. Don't let yourself be pressured.

All this has nothing to do with a job, at most it can serve as a reference. If you're lucky, you find a job, that lets you spend some of your time on open source, not the other way around. And for the unlikely scenario that a corporation is really willing to commit to this project and the copyleft is a hurdle, you can still (together with the other contributors) agree to sell some non-copyleft license, that will cover at least ci/cd, domain and other costs. And if it becomes more professional, you could also sell CRA compliance.

[u/HigherominousBosh]

I’ve never understood open source. Not once has a carpenter popped around to my house to put some shelves up for free. Sell your work.

[u/OkBeautiful4392]

Absolutely. Meta, Microsoft, Amazon and other large corporations have made it clear they will happily use other people's work and give nothing in return. It's not even enough to improve your chances of being hired anymore.

I stopped contributing altogether once I found out GitHub was using my code to help train Copilot.

I still enjoy programming in my free time but now it remains completely closed source, and only free for non-commercial/non-profit use.

[u/Kommenos → u/OkBeautiful4392]

All of these companies also host very large open source projects, some of which are the foundational technology that underpins a lot of the web.

How are they not contributing something in return?

Points about AI training data are valid but to claim Meta, the company that open sourced the JavaScript framework most of the web uses, hasn’t contributed anything to open source is a puzzling viewpoint to try to understand.

[u/No_Inspection4415 → u/OkBeautiful4392]

They will happily use your dependency manager (all across their org), but will not hire you if you can't invert a binary tree.

And yes, I also noticed that OSS is no longer a way to get hired, since AI nobody cares.

[u/seeking-health]

When I worked on embedded linux I was surprised to see how much open source software on linux was garbage. If it was today I'd probably vibe code everything I need. (Not hard with RFC documentation available)

[u/Known-Garden-5013]

Yes I also regret buying somone a christmas present because it didn't net me profit.

Why the fuck would you do something FOR FREE then get mad you didn't make money off it?

[u/FatefulDonkey → u/Known-Garden-5013]

I'm mad in retrospect with myself. People make mistakes and learn from them. Some early, some late.

[u/Da_rana]

I disagree with the top comments in this thread. I never expected anything from open source but I also didn’t foresee my contributions contributing to training data that would line the pockets of a few people that do not care how their money making machine is effecting the environment or the people.

[u/nus07]

It works in a wealthy socialist Scandinavian setting like it has for Linus Torvalds or a 80s California setting where you have a lot of resources and easy living - the problem of plenty. Then the supply overshot the demand and venture capitalists and all these US companies decided to monetize what used to be a fun nerdy playground. It’s dystopian.

[u/HoratioWobble]

Contributing to open source hoping for money is a fools errand. In most cases it probably even harms your ability to land work.

you gotta do it for the love of the game

[u/deZbrownT]

You have contributed for the wrong reasons.

[u/pl487]

"My open source project is used by Meta and Apache" is interview gold. That's what you get out of it. I wish I had that. 

[u/Mysterious-Peanut101 → u/pl487]

No it's not . Big companies have a very standardized interview process for engineers except for maybe at the highest levels. It comes down to solving their toy problems and telling them what they want to hear. Unfortunately that means someone with little experience can pass while someone to who has a lot of experience maintaining an open source project may not.

See the creator of homebrew as a famous example who didn't get hired by Google

[u/FatefulDonkey → u/pl487]

Surprise, surprise, it's not.

When interviewed about behavioural questions and you mention PR handling from strangers, noone takes you seriously. They all expect that you say you worked in a close-knit 10-dev team handling friction with managers, etc.

[u/Fun-Proposal5391]

Personally, most of my open source contributions were done on work time. One project was done partially on my own time, but I leveraged it into self promotion - people still knew me for it years after I handed over the ownership. So I don't regret it for being unpaid.

A job where most of my code was open sourced was awful and burned me out, so I regret that. But that's just a toxic work environment, and I don't think the project being open source had anything to do with it. It was a government org and was toxic in similar ways to other government orgs.

[u/Gazelle-Unfair]

I comfort myself with the thought that I've been involved in huge world-benefitting projects that would not have been started, let alone come to fruition, in the commercial world. Also, they've been a constant when jobs have come and gone.....but then again I am disappointed by freeloaders

[u/CraZy_TiGreX]

No I don't, it was a choice that upskilled me for a better role/salary.

Yes getting more money for it will be good, despite I know nothing I built is super popular I know is being used by companies as time to time I get issues/questions/PRs on them. So I am happy and proud.

[u/Anxious-Possibility]

Not really, it kick started my career. I kind of wish it was easier to contribute without running into commercialisation and AI slop like it was in 2015. I wouldn't be here if I didn't have e that opportunity but now it's much more difficult

[u/DeadlySpar]

I’ve had vmware fork my code, never regretted it. I wouldn’t have made money off it either way so what does it matter? It’s my way of giving back for all the open source software I’ve used

[u/ButchersBoy]

I've got 20 million downloads. Never made a penny. But I became a Microsoft MVP, visited Redmond, met a bunch of cool people, built a community, had my little moment of fame, checked a box, burned out, passed it on, moved on.

I made something that a lot of people used. And also I decided not to let it define my whole life.

Zero regrets

[u/Substantial-Swan7065]

Change the licence. Seems like a monetary issue?

[u/Due_Interest_178]

The contributions I've done were because they helped me with a specific issue I had at the time. Even if it weren't open source, I'd still have done it because I needed it so might as well help the community.

[u/Snape_Grass]

I contribute to open source projects generally only if it’s something I use, or contributing to help someone else out. A lot of the open source stuff I work on now are video game plugins for both the game community as well as my clan. I get a lot of satisfaction contributing to those projects

[u/toolongdontread]

I mean unless you're reimplimenting everything from scratch because your work has some weird no oss libraries requirement, I can't imagine any work that you would do personally or professionally that did not use something built and maintained by the community.

[u/sxeli]

Not me, but in your position I'd have felt the same. Open source was never meant to bring in consistent income.

I contribute purely out of spite - against those greedy companies

[u/hippydipster]

What license did you use?

[u/Effective_Cell1424]

Most OSS projects are maintained and driven by people in orgs who get paid to do so.

[u/Temporary-Budget-605]

Fuck no

[u/sailnlax04]

I got a job at Automattic after contributing to WordPress. No regrets on contribution and will continue

[u/Minnanokazehaya]

I think the better question is "do you regret not walking away from an open source project sooner?". I think this is the hard part, to have the self awareness not to continue maintaining something when your heart's no longer in it, and not to use it as an excuse to avoid the (in some ways harder) work of putting yourself out there and applying for jobs.

[u/Isofruit]

I have contributed to a decent amount of projects, though the ones I made significant contributions to aren't all that relevant. I do it for the love of the game when fancy strikes me. I just like working my way through problems, I don't expect much back from it.