
Why I turned my back on FOSS - risk
https://gist.github.com/ellzey/12e3f69d02790458875840ffa0209a72
======
dvko
I don't know anything about the actual story here and the writing does not
help either. Impossible to read, sorry author...

He got turned down for a lot of jobs (in shitty ways) despite having published
some reasonably successful open-source libraries? How is open source to blame
for him not getting a job exactly?

~~~
Veen
I wondered if this person had mental health problems. It reads like the
ravings of a schizophrenic. It's possible they need help rather than a
rational analysis of their claims.

Edit: Of course, I have no real insight into this person's mental state, it
just pattern matched for me with long circuitous paranoid emails a
schizophrenic friend of mine used to send me.

~~~
gspetr
This unfortunately reminded me of Ian Murdock's (Debian founder) final tweets
before he died under mysterious circumstances:
[http://archive.is/vBS6N](http://archive.is/vBS6N)

I just hope the author does not take his life, his thoughts are barely
coherent and this entire gist is disturbing.

------
_hao
I mean that was an interesting read, but if that person is even half as weird
as his writing I don't blame the companies.

Or the guy was drunk/high while writing this, dunno...

~~~
adiabatty
Then again, if all that happened to me I'd be four times as weird as his
writing. At least.

~~~
peatmoss
I appreciate this empathetic response. If you've never encountered a "brain
won't go" moment in your life, it's nearly impossible to understand how a
bright person can quickly go from presenting as such, to presenting as as a
train wreck.

In the past several years, I encountered a mild form of "holy shit, a lot of
stuff that was intuitive and natural just got hard for me because stress and
other factors." Circumstances changed, and I pulled out of it, but I could
have just as easily augered in.

It's probably going too far to wish that everyone here can experience a short-
lived, non-catastrophic, empathy inducing mental health scare.

------
i_have_to_speak
Author of libevhtp [1], used in Chromium [2]. He holds 5 patents [3].

[1] [https://github.com/ellzey/libevhtp](https://github.com/ellzey/libevhtp)
[2]
[https://chromium.googlesource.com/external/github.com/ellzey...](https://chromium.googlesource.com/external/github.com/ellzey/libevhtp/)
[3] [http://patents.justia.com/inventor/mark-ellzey-
thomas](http://patents.justia.com/inventor/mark-ellzey-thomas)

~~~
foo101
All patents in the 3rd URL seem to be the same patent.

------
gjjrfcbugxbhf
Sounds like she should dual license AGPL/custom licence her code, require
copyright assignments from contributes and charge companies for the custom
licence. Then they would be forced to pay her if the work were truely vital to
their bottom line.

Sounds harsh but what I'm trying to say is you have to take care of yourself
or no-one else will.

~~~
sreenadh
Kindly provide the details on how would one go about licensing the code. I am
a developer with no knowledge about the law. How can I license my code so that
non-profit & hobbyist can use it for free, while the ones earning money off
the code has to pay me.

~~~
gspetr
[https://choosealicense.com/](https://choosealicense.com/)

------
Tharre
I don't get what any of this has to do with FLOSS. Seems just American
Capitalism as usual?

~~~
falcolas
Reading between the lines here, so keep that in mind. Author wrote something
popular (libevent) in a permissive license. A company took libevent and ran
with it, refusing to hire the original author. Author is now in a bad place.

Sadly, that's one of the risks of releasing code under permissive licenses: it
effectively no longer belongs to you. You may think that you're OK with that
(like the author originally did), but human nature is likely to curb stomp you
when you do lose that control.

------
0x00_
I recognize this github from some fun c puzzles! The developer is intelligent.
What gives? I don't understand why it is difficult for someone like that to
find employment. Could someone from the bay area give some insight into this
kind of thing? The scene is different than that in Boston.

~~~
gcp
[https://www.linkedin.com/in/ellzey](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ellzey)

Summary seems to be that his open source libraries are very widely used but he
couldn't find a job in the Valley and became homeless.

~~~
pawadu
Had a good laugh reading his "skills" on his linkedin page.

I understand "Unicorn" and "Wizard", but what the hell is "Wheel Throwing"?

~~~
csixty4
It's a pottery technique

------
fareesh
The angst and passive aggression in that post is off the charts - near-manic
levels. Based on this alone I'd say the author is "not a good fit" for my
reading preferences, can't imagine what working with them would be like.

