Developing Open Source Software

Open source is one of the greatest things that has happened in tech, you're telling me I can use this piece of software, for free, in any way, shape, or form, and still get access to it's source code to see it's inner workings and even do my own modifications? That's fucking cool!

I can't imagine loving tech and programming as much as I do if it wasn't for FOSS and it's community, but there is a huge warning sign that starts to show when you actually start getting involved on FOSS, and even though it's something I hate to talk about, I deemed it to be really important, and that is, financial support.

Its important to note that this sentiment may not apply to everyone, some people may enjoy working on FOSS without receiving any monetary support or they have a primary job that sustains.

Basically a lot of FOSS projects, especially ones made by individuals are either driven by passion or is a one time off project to solve a specific issue. However when a project starts to get traction, symptoms like fatigue will start to show up, not only that, a lot of the times FOSS development is just like voluntary work, you do it for the greater good, not because you want to get rich, but what if nobody gives value to what you're working on? It starts to get hard to keep working based only on your passion since at least in my case that passion will dry up (depends on the project but it's either because I lost interest in it, I don't find it useful anymore, or my goal is done). I'm not saying FOSS is a replacement to an actual job with salary and so on, but it would be nice seeing (some) people actually support what they use, especially with lesser known projects.

This applies even more when the developer uses its own wealth to support the project, like buying a domain or even paying monthly bills to host a service that where most users won't donate.

I'd like to end off this post by saying that I'm not telling you or anyone to donate to everyone, this is more directed to the people that have the means to donate, especially to projects you rely on a daily basis, if you can't donate, however you can still help with the project you love the most, and that is by contributing to it, you don't even need to know how to program since a project contains various areas where code is not required some of them include documentation, i18n (internationalization), and even moderation for bigger projects that have an active community.