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Never make OSS your full time job unless the company employing you pays you for it.

OSS is a strategy, not a business model, and it is certainly not a good lifestyle for developers.



I made OSS my full time job, and have a good lifestyle from it for more than 15 years.

I'm the exception that proves the rule, perhaps. Or maybe not. I don't know, and I suspect you don't know either.


I know plenty of OSS companies willing to pay for software engineers. Why shouldn't it be a good lifestyle choice for developers?


The lifestyle worked in a time that creating OSS was hard to make.

Now it has gotten cheaper and cheaper with AI, to the point that OSS software can now be vibe coded and rebuilt in hours.

Why pour all that money in an OSS developer when you can vibe code your own?




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