[gilgad13]

Just because you want something to have a viable business model doesn't mean it does. If you want to get paid to develop open source software, I think you have a couple of options:

1. Just don't. Work on open source on the weekends, etc.

2. Do it as part of a "commoditize your complements" strategy.

3. Work at a company that is so large they can fund open source development as part of their advertising strategy.

4. Gather together some expertise in existing open source projects and sell consulting. Crucially, you'll probably need to build on top of some existing open source install base or name recognition. Redhat didn't start the linux project or the gnu userland, Percona didn't write mysql, etc. In some sense you are now one of the leaches that posts such as this one complain about.

The fundamental piece in common here is that the open source bit isn't the main value driver for the business.