It’s 11:43pm on a Monday night. My 6-week-old son is asleep in my office so my wife can get some uninterrupted rest for the first half of the night. He’s finally asleep now, and I probably should be also after a full day of work. But I’m not done for the day. Even though I’m a software engineer by trade, I’m also a computer programmer by hobby and passion. So I do what I’ve been doing for well over a decade now: I boot up my computer to write some code.
People who are motivated by money have been saying this for decades. And they’re still wrong because not everyone is motivated by money.
How many working people are doing it not because of the money but solely because they enjoy the work?
You’d be surprised
I seriously doubt it.
I work for money. While I enjoy my work. I wouldn’t do it for free. I have to eat, pay a mortgage, etc.
Hell even if I wont the lottery. I wouldn’t do this job for free and it’s a really good job.
I would (and do) work on my own projects for free.
You can do that now. Nothing stops you from doing free work. Most people can’t afford to work for free.
I think there should be a clause in most open source projects that you’ll donate time if used for corporate interest. That way companies would be forced to contribute which means the employee is paid.
I’ve seen many companies just take from oss. They need to give back as well.
Sounds like you don’t know the story of core-js. Any popular open-source is basically unsustainable without profit.
https://github.com/zloirock/core-js/blob/master/docs/2023-02-14-so-whats-next.md
I dare to say 0.01%. Most devs, including open source devs are payed one way or another.
Sure, there are labours of love. But most aren’t.