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I have been contributing heavily to this open source project that aims to help out users of open source on the .NET platform by acting as a ruby gems or more importantly a gentto portage clone for .NET. There is a genuine need for this in .NET as the upgrade path for .NET oss is a painful journey fraught with danger. So morally this is a very worthy cause.
The project is not yet beta and I have no guarantee it will work. I am spending a lot of time on this. My girlfriend has openly stated how much she hates this project :-).
It is not yet beta and I have no guarantee this project will fill the void that is so needed in this space.
If it works out and becomes popular, is there anyway one get any money back from this outlay in time or am I just being completelly cynical by looking at it this way?
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Yes, as a developer you can make money with open source. I've met people making a living just by contributing to projects on GitHub, and CEOs completely relying on OSS projects to build billion dollars companies.
Ultimately, open source sustains itself through contributions from people all over the world, and that's bigger than any one company or location. Getting paid to work on open source is a rare and wonderful opportunity, but you should not have to give up your passion in the process.
It depends - if your open source project is a success, then direct financial compensation might be a bit hard to get, however, being associated with the project as a major contributor may give you a certain level of noteriety in the community. This can lead to you getting more / better contracts (if you freelance), and can give you an edge if you decide to look for another full-time job.
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One way to get paid for working on open source software, is to find yourself a company that uses said software. They might hire you as a developer to do custom development.
Another way is to make software that will provide a service to people, and then charge for that service. You then have to hope that you will be the best at providing the service.
But generally I would say that the best open source software get's built because the author has a daily problem that he wants to see solved. It sometimes turns out that others have the same problem and like the solution -- thereby forming a community around the software and contributing to make it better. Sitting down and trying to see a "marked" for an open source "product" rarely works, at least in my experience.
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