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Comment on Ask HN: Would issue “bounties” make contributing to open source more appealing?parent

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I feel like this is a bit of a false dichotomy.

For example, my reasons for my (relatively insignificant, but still) FOSS contributions include everything from altruism to scratching an itch to satisfying my intellectual curiosity. If I didn't have bills to pay, I'd probably be making a lot more FOSS contributions, and a lot more regularly.

However, at the end of the day I do have bills to pay, so for better or worse the code I write ends up being the code that gets me paid. Right now this is from a day job. Bounties could instead position FOSS as the code that gets me paid. Maybe one of these days I'll have Patreon/Liberapay/etc. contributions sufficient to keep me afloat (or, for that matter, greater than $0), or my country would extract its cranium from its rectum and entertain the idea of a universal basic income, and then I can dedicate my time to whatever I wish, but today is unfortunately not that day.

That is: the "conflicting" motivations of "money" v. "fun" ain't mutually exclusive. These are both "compensation", in a sense. If I'm already making contributions because they provide "fun", then said contributions only need to provide as much money as I'd need to save up money and not starve; anything beyond that is just gonna go toward fun anyway, which contributing to FOSS already (hopefully) provides.

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