Quote:
Originally Posted by jharker
I haven't been around much recently, mostly because of thesis work. I should be away for another month or so, at which time I hope to have the thesis mostly wrapped up. In the meantime, it looks like the iLiad OS will be on the back burner for me, so some serious delays should be expected in the project. 
I mention this because I'm currently looking for a job, as all near-graduates are, and the options are pretty slim, given the state of the economy. I've been applying to job listings for months and not really getting anywhere.
Anyway, at one point in my search I seriously considered whether I could work on iLiad OS and related projects as a full-time job, supported by some combination of donations and advertising revenue. I'm a big e-book enthusiast and would love to work on it seriously, full time. And, of course, it would expand my resume in new (and potentially more employ-able) directions for the future.
Ultimately, however, I decided that it wouldn't be feasible. My reasons were roughly: - I don't want to step on anyone's toes. Many people are actively contributing to iLiad development, and I worry that trying to make money by expanding other peoples' work would offend everyone who works on it for free!
- Small user base. E-books are still a niche market, and within that market the iLiad is even smaller. Many major open-source development projects can only afford a few full-time employees. It's not realistic to expect to make even a small living working on such a (relatively) small project.
But to answer the original post: If a developer started a FOSS project for an iLiad-compatible e-book ContentLister, and if they made a home page for the project, and if they put up a tip jar on the home page, AND if I actually HAD $10 to spare, then yes, I think I probably would donate.  |
My advice to you is keep trying with your job applications. When I graduated it took over 60+ resumes over 2 months before I got 2 interviews. And once I got to the interview I got the job. Now that I am on the other side of the fence (hiring) I find that there is an incredible signal to noise ratio that makes it really hard to find who is actually worth the time to give an interview to. Maybe you can sign up with a recruiter in your area.
There are a lot of ways of making money without stepping on people's toes. First and foremost be upfront about the fact that the project is a community thing. You could take the lead on a lot of things as you would be the one with the most free time. Also a lot of times people pay for "support" as opposed to paying for a package/product. Maybe talk to the other contributers about what they think.
If you had your own blog you would put some advertisements up, write some howto's for the iLiad, maybe send it to iRex so you get a bit more traffic etc. I don't think anyone in the community will look down on you for doing that. What's stopping you from being that developer you mentioned in the post
Anyways my 2c