Thread by @slicknet

Mom: Dad said you invented a thing? ESLint?
Me: Yes.
Mom: What is it?
Me: It finds and fixes problems in JavaScript.
Mom: Huh. Do people use it?
Me: Basically everyone writing JS.
Mom: How much did you make on it?
Me: Nothing.
Mom: I don’t understand your industry.
Me: Me either.

The responses to this have been pretty interesting:

Some are saying, “see, some people do good things knowing they won’t get paid.”

Others are saying, “see, this is what’s wrong with open source, no one gets paid.”

Still others are saying, “knowing you helped a lot of people is the real compensation.”

And, “I’m sure you indirectly made more money by having your name out there.”

And, “you shouldn’t expect to make money for open source.”

Point being: attitudes towards open source are still very fragmented. As an industry, we need to come together to figure out how we value OSS and how we will support it.

And yes, this was an actual conversation between Mom and me. I only shortened the sentences to make it fit.

And as a result of this thread, the ESLint team is now discussing using @opencollect. Stay tuned!