
Ask HN: Working on open source full-time vs at a fast growing product company - patient_hacker
Has anyone here left his job to work full-time on open source projects? How has your experience been?<p>Does one learn more contributing to open source?
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kjksf
It's probably much less awesome than you think it'll be.

The biggest problem working solo (open source or not) is motivation. Many
people find it really hard to do the work without the external pressure of
bosses and co-workers. Search HN for freelancing thread for some harsh truths.

It seems like you plan to contribute to someone else's projects, which is the
worst of both worlds.

When I do open source (e.g.
[https://github.com/sumatrapdfreader/sumatrapdf](https://github.com/sumatrapdfreader/sumatrapdf)),
the biggest advantage is that it is my project, I'm the boss and I make all
the rules. I get to decide what is done and how it'll be done.

Contributing when other people have a veto over what you do is like having a
boss without the benefit of paycheck.

For example, recently I noticed a few improvements I could make to libuv. But
then I saw how many PR are languishing for days if not weeks
([https://github.com/libuv/libuv/pulls](https://github.com/libuv/libuv/pulls))
and decided I'm not even going to bother. And this is a well known, active
project that is better than most at accepting people's changes. I could give
you examples of projects with many outstanding PRs without even a comment from
the owner.

Certainly don't do it if you don't have a project of your own to work on.

Possibly don't do it even if you do have a project to work on. You can start
by working on open source in your free time.

You also didn't mention anything about money - are you independently wealthy
to even be able to afford writing code without someone paying you? Roughly
speaking, there's no money in open source.

As to learning - how much you learn is more about how intentional you are
about learning and how you go about it rather than whether you work or do open
source. At the very least, you'll learn different things.

~~~
patient_hacker
Thanks for your reply.

I understand where you are coming from. Motivation is definitely a problem.
The way I see it is that I get to have mentors from whom I can learn in open
source(considering I choose the projects carefully) and not a boss.

I have enough money to sustain for 5-6 months. There are a lot of companies
which make open source software and are a business too, maybe I could work for
one of them in the future.

Another thing is that I have been doing web development now for two years, so
I was thinking that contributing to open source would help me learn how things
work. Yes, I am thinking of contributing to someone else's project.

Here in open source I can learn core server side technology(mostly in Golang)
which excites me rather than working on HTML/CSS at work.

------
mtmail
I agree with everything kjksf said.

If you can start contributing on the side first.

The majority of your users will be anonymous and only contact you if something
breaks or have special requirements. That doesn't mean they will pay for a new
feature. Instead you can expect cries for help, impatience and the occasional
blame. Your most well-prepared pull-request can be shot down by another
project if it doesn't fit their strategy and you will have to shoot down pull-
requests from your user once and a while (or forever ignore them).

