A question for open source programming people

[defenestratos]

I got a question for you guys, but first I need to say, love your work.
Through what channels can you make a living as an open source programmer? As a highly skilled computer programmer, how do you make ends meet?
I don't understand the funding structures involved.

[hyper_ch]

there are variants...

a lot of projects exists because the author needed something specific... so he coded it actually for himself but made it publicly available... others contributed and the project advanced... so I see a lot of projects that have a give-donation option.

Others sell their support capabilities... who knows something better than the one who wrote it...

Even if something is open source you may sell it... just depending on what licence you choose for it to be open source gives more or less restrictions...

but I guess those highly skilled comptuer programmers have also a regular paid job and just create the things that they need themselves...

[sumguy231]

There's also the model where a large company pays you to work on open source projects because they rely on said open source projects.

[sandr-]

Look at the recent take-over of MySQL by SUN. Sun invests a lot ( I believe 1 miljard $ ) into this project, because they believe in the success it can bring to them. Open-source software is all about talented people with a vision, or the need for something specific, who create this solution and make it widely available.
They have acquired specific knowledge about the technologies used, and maybe created something that other people are willing to pay money for ( donation ) , or need specific support ( consultancy ).
I believe the openness of software contributes to the use of standards, the security of the application ( backports in windows for government, who knows? ) and the overall community associated with it. Look at this forum: it's all about sharing knowledge. And isn't knowledge power?

[az]

I got a question for you guys, but first I need to say, love your work.
Through what channels can you make a living as an open source programmer? As a highly skilled computer programmer, how do you make ends meet?


http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/ict/policy/doc/2006-11-20-flossimpact.pdf
Economic impact of open source software
on innovation and the competitiveness of the
Information and Communication Technologies
(ICT) sector in the EU
Final report
Prepared on November 20, 2006

Read that study. It mentions that the majority of people employed as software developers do not work for a software publisher that sells software. They work for in-house or otherwise non-proprietary software projects. So it's the small minority of software developers that work for shrink-wrapped software sold in stores.

You don't have to sell software to earn a living writing software. Writing software is a service. You pay for the service.


I don't understand the funding structures involved.

You pay for value. The value is not in buying software, but making the computer do something. More often than not, there is more value if choosing software that you can develop rather than buying a ready-made project.

For example, if Google, Ebay, Yahoo, or Amazon.com had to buy all their software to do business, would they even be around?

In fact, I reckon that the bigger software publishers spend more on lawyers than on software developers.