The economics of free software work

Open source work is unpaid by definition, which means every contributor is running an economy of one. Mine includes no delusions: I can't pay rent with merged PRs. So what am I actually earning? An honest accounting.

The real currencies

Skills you can't buy. Review from a senior maintainer on your patch is a code review you could never schedule. Contributing compresses years of "how real software is run" into months.

Reputation that travels. A merged PR in a known project is a verifiable work sample — timestamps, code, collaboration style, all public. No interview claim can match that evidence.

Access. Contributors get into conversations — design discussions, maintainer channels, conference rooms — that outsiders don't see. Careers have pivoted on being the person who fixed an annoying bug thoroughly.

Leverage on tools you use. Every patch to a library I depend on is a patch to my own stack. Self-interest is a legitimate fuel.

The costs, honestly

Time — the obvious one. And emotional exposure: public criticism of your code is a real tax on beginners.

The balance I strike

Contribute where the four currencies overlap: tools I use, maintainers I can learn from, projects whose reputation I want to share. Everything else is charity work — good, but budgeted.