[MaulingMonkey]

The fact that you can still squeeze in two-three hours a week to do some os dev is a really lame excuse for working that hard; there is more to life than work.

And there are those with more time obligations than what you've listed on top of struggling to make ends meet. Not everyone, granted -- and for some, lack of time will indeed be a lame excuse -- but it sounds like you're generalizing to everyone.

[mariusz79]

Lack of time is a lame excuse. Always. I often use it, but I'm not lying to myself, blaming stuff on something else. It's just an excuse. There is 24 hours in a day. If you sleep for 8 hours like I do, you still have time for 8 hours of work, and spend 3 hours with your kids, you still have 5 hours to do something productive. Even if you waste 3 hours on stuff like eating, commuting or watching television you still have 2 hours to do something productive.. And we should not forget about the weekend and holidays where you have eight hours that are usually spend working, freed up. And working hard? I'm lazy and I hate working hard, that's why I'm a soft dev. :)

[MaulingMonkey]

> 8 hours of work

So "only" one full time job with no overtime... but you've already said yourself you have more than that, with school and the startup?

> Even if you waste 3 hours on stuff like eating, commuting

I've had commutes which eat up more time than that on their own on a good day! And heck, I have a coworker who has a longer commute now than mine was!

Lets try the math again: Two full time jobs trying to make ends meet. I hear this is a thing that happens sometimes. Even the stereotypical easy mode "well off white man" runs into this sometimes with mandatory 80+ hour work week crunches at his programming job and is foolish enough to go along with it.

8 hours of sleep + 8 hours of job 1 + 8 hours of job 2 (or mandatory overtime.) We've already used up all 24 hours of every weekday before getting into commutes, eating, or grocery shopping! There's only the 32 hours of the weekend left (2x(24-8))

Let's give this unfortunate person a commute only as long as that coworker of mine... this seems generous considering my coworker only commutes to one job. ~20 hours / week. 12 hours remaining (32-20.)

They prepare and scarf down all three meals a day in 20 minutes each (I would choke on my food frequently at those speeds.) 5 hours remaining (12 - 7x3/3.) Grocery shopping takes me about an hour a week without clipping coupons or looking for deals: 4 hours. 9 minutes to shower, brush teeth, and use the restroom a day: 3 hours left.

Lets be generous and assume they don't have to fill up the tank (they take the bus?), pay the bills (they're all autopaid?), take out the trash, do the laundry, or take care of a single other chore. Their business is finally out of the way!

They have 3 hours left out of their entire week, including weekends, to spend with their friends, family, or FOSS before they need to start sacrificing sleep. If this person says they lack the time to work on FOSS, is that a lame excuse?