It’s ultimately a question of money. Older guys with software engineering degrees and fancy salaries can spend their weekends doing free community service in the form of open-source development. Younger people have to worry about job and rent and bills, they simply don’t have that kind of free time.
Add to that the growing complexity of the software. Something that could be done by an university student before, like writing an OS from scratch, won’t be nearly as useful as it would in the '90-s, because it was already done before, now you have multiple OSes to choose from. And joining an existing software project is hit-or-miss, some are inclusive and some are an old boy club where you need to know the secret rules.
One aspect of FOSS that most people don’t appreciate is how it’s funded. Like how it’s actually funded.
Once you put a dollar value to the hours put into it, it fairly quickly becomes apparent that most FOSS projects are basically only possible because super rich software engineers (relative to the average person) have the relative luxury to be able to dedicate a ton of free time and effort to building something they think should exist.
It’s why there was a huge FOSS boom after the dot com crash when a ton of software engineers suddenly got laid off but were relatively wealthy enough to not have massive pressure to immediately start grinding a 9-5 again.
Yup. I did a fair amount of FOSS in school to build a resume, then I started a career, got married, and had kids, so now I don’t do much. I plan to do more when the kids get older, but I currently have other priorities.
It can be really hard to get that motivation back. I said the same thing way back. However now I’m a a solid career point, my kids are in college, and I’m divorced. I have to reinvent my life according to only my priorities. This is my opportunity. Yet I’m doom scrolling. Time flies with useless crap and the motivation to create is not as strong
I feel that. I spend a lot of time doing stuff for myself (playing games, watching videos, and some doom scrolling), but I keep telling myself it’s because it’s inconsistent in frequency and duration.
But at the end of the day, it’s largely an excuse. I contributed to Lemmy a bit when I switched, and I could totally find a few hours a week to help with something. I just don’t, because it’s always a tradeoff with other things I’d like to do, some of them also productive.
So I guess we’ll see what I do. In the next 5 years, my kids will be transitioning to being more independent, and I’ll have more and more time available. My current plan is to get more involved in FOSS, but we’ll see if I actually do.
It’s ultimately a question of money. Older guys with software engineering degrees and fancy salaries can spend their weekends doing free community service in the form of open-source development. Younger people have to worry about job and rent and bills, they simply don’t have that kind of free time.
Add to that the growing complexity of the software. Something that could be done by an university student before, like writing an OS from scratch, won’t be nearly as useful as it would in the '90-s, because it was already done before, now you have multiple OSes to choose from. And joining an existing software project is hit-or-miss, some are inclusive and some are an old boy club where you need to know the secret rules.
One aspect of FOSS that most people don’t appreciate is how it’s funded. Like how it’s actually funded.
Once you put a dollar value to the hours put into it, it fairly quickly becomes apparent that most FOSS projects are basically only possible because super rich software engineers (relative to the average person) have the relative luxury to be able to dedicate a ton of free time and effort to building something they think should exist.
It’s why there was a huge FOSS boom after the dot com crash when a ton of software engineers suddenly got laid off but were relatively wealthy enough to not have massive pressure to immediately start grinding a 9-5 again.
Yup. I did a fair amount of FOSS in school to build a resume, then I started a career, got married, and had kids, so now I don’t do much. I plan to do more when the kids get older, but I currently have other priorities.
It can be really hard to get that motivation back. I said the same thing way back. However now I’m a a solid career point, my kids are in college, and I’m divorced. I have to reinvent my life according to only my priorities. This is my opportunity. Yet I’m doom scrolling. Time flies with useless crap and the motivation to create is not as strong
I feel that. I spend a lot of time doing stuff for myself (playing games, watching videos, and some doom scrolling), but I keep telling myself it’s because it’s inconsistent in frequency and duration.
But at the end of the day, it’s largely an excuse. I contributed to Lemmy a bit when I switched, and I could totally find a few hours a week to help with something. I just don’t, because it’s always a tradeoff with other things I’d like to do, some of them also productive.
So I guess we’ll see what I do. In the next 5 years, my kids will be transitioning to being more independent, and I’ll have more and more time available. My current plan is to get more involved in FOSS, but we’ll see if I actually do.