[tacurran]

OSS gives me a chance to work with people I like, to learn, and to contribute to some great software projects. Most of what I do these days is either building or using OSS. Last year I quit my job to do OSS full time with a few friends. Since most big companies see OSS as „free“, it’s not simple to make a living from OSS only. OSS is creative like art. Somehow we need to think differently about compensating indie OSS projects (code, docs, examples, analytics, slack, community, and cloud services) for their work. Free is not so easy. GitHub offers people a way to contribute and there are other ways to donate. It’s usually not enough. We also do some commercial support, and that pays a little. But it’s difficult to get a regular revenue stream. Especially with cloud it’s time to rethink how OSS „works“ for the makers. Maybe there are ways to keep open, and still have some minimum level of money from commercial uses especially from established cloud companies? Still, I love doing OSS and working with so many others that share the same feeling.