I've just finished a portion of a open source project, that's worth about $1,000-$1,500 in monkey labour, even at going wages for nublet programmers in these parts. But it's not a project I'm involved with for profit, so much as an opportunity to leave things better then I found it. It is cool however to know what ones time is worth \o/. On the upside, since the code I've written falls under a very permissive license, I can always put it to good work else wheres, hehe. The code should reach the git repo this evening.
Recently heard that my brother was involved in a car accident, sounded like it was on par with a "Jaws of life" or glorified can opener kind of situation. Either way, for the second time in 12 years, his cars totaled. Apparently, he is also pissed off that the guy who hit him, did it by serving to miss a dog, instead of running the poor animal over. I glad both my brother, the dog, and the other driver are all in one respective piece, even if it means a destroyed car. You've just got to love my family, don't you? It made me think a bit about how my father exited truck driving, by hanging the rig off a bridge, but sed -e s/missing a dog/missing a woman with kids in the car/g. Maybe it's just my brothers nack for driving like a Gran Turismo race track, but he seems to be good at totaling cars when he actually /does/ get into an accident.
As for me, I've been largely glued to a computer, working on various projects. Luckly, there has been one decent thing going for me, I don't have to get up before 'lunch time' on days off work :! Which kind of makes it easier to be up all day and all night working on crap, until of course, you've got to go back out to work >_>. I am that freako kind of person, when the project interests me (or I need to), you'll find me eating, sleeping, and breathing it. Until either it gets done, or I need to take a break before I have a stroke lol.
While I was being dragged across the super market the other day, I was contemplating very seriously, dropping support for FreeBSD from one of my upcoming personal projects. The time savings alone from doing that, would allow getting it done perhaps a year or two ahead of schedule. Delays involved from supporting FreeBSD are not a fault of the OS, so much as many third party assholes that make it more troublesome to support FreeBSD, but could like wise make life easier if the right software was available. Then I got to thinking, well if I could just purchase certain tools in the first place, the time savings in production would just be worth it (I'm only likely to be using the program under Windows NT anyway), and those tools would *ease* that platform support issue at the same time. A bit, at the cost that those tools would also mean closing the code base :(. Shortly after wards, it occurred to me: the possibility of forming a small company with some friends (or hiring them on as helpers). Having the extra dedicated assistance of a small team instead of going virtual army of one, would help speed up getting it done, keeping it professional, and between the lot of us, we could cook up some interesting projects to stay in business with. In due time, we could also upgrade to bigger and better tools for a more rapid turn around then a near non existent starting budget allows. The problem however, is even if we found a publisher for our products, our stuff kicked everyone's ass, and the publisher wouldn't simultaneously screw us out every orifice in the dealing, I doubt if we would reap enough profits in order to make it worth my friends efforts :-/. For me, any profit is still, well more then I had before, but if I'm going to get others involved, I would want them to get a fair share. I don't get involved with stuff in order to make a buck off it, I do it because I want to, but I can't expect the same of the rest of the world.
In all probability, that project in question will be produced virtual army of one, along with the help of a few people who've volunteered or given their services for a few parts. And the code base would stay open, and FreeBSD will likely be supported. Whenever possible, I do prefer writing code that supports Linux, BSD, general Unix, Mac, and Windows; but of course, since I don't have a Mac, I don't support OS X officially lol. I just don't burn the bridge of supporting a given OS, unless it's necessary.
When it comes to the questions of closed / open source, I'm a realist. I very strongly prefer open source, and under a *real* opens source license: not the GPL. (Zealots stop reading now and go fsck yourselves.) I will use closed source software when it is the superior or more suitable application. However, being able to read(!), and even hack at the source is a massive plus for me. When it comes to stuff I write, I prefer to keep it open source also, for just the same reasons I prefer to have access to the source code of programs I use.
In the end though, I expect a good quality program that is well executed, be it open source, closed source, free, shareware, or just costs more then a shiny new Lamborghini.
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