So I decided to continue it here. Please feel free to contribute.
A lack of free time is actually a requirement to contributing to an open source project.
Another important factor is a lack of money. I believe a wise man once said:
Verily, I sayeth unto you, it is easier for your mother to install BeOS on an XBox running Windows Vista through VMWare than it is for a rich programmer to finish an open source project.
Some programmers have taken this literally and intentionally blow their money on fancy computer hardware, cars, clever t-shirts and expensive foreign fancy-pants ales. That's missing the point. The verse is actually referring to the Universal Constant of Programmer Alcohol Demand. For some reason, open source programmers tend to constantly demand alcohol. It's that simple. Even a simple Google image search of "Linus Torvalds" the famous father of GNU/Linux shows several pictures of him drinking (one of which is shirtless).
Programming then, simplified for this example, would look like this in pseudo-code:
Code: Select all
while ( me.living )
var amt_bought := 0;
var amt_consumed := 0;
if ( me.money <= (life.cost_of_living + (life.cost_of_beer - 1)) && (amt_consumed >= amt_bought) )
amt_consumed := 0;
Code();
else
if ( amt_consumed < amt_bought )
amt_consumed := amt_consumed + ConsumeAlcohol(amt_bought);
endif
amt_bought := BuyAlcohol(me.money - life.cost_of_living);
amt_consumed := amt_consumed + ConsumeAlcohol(amt_bought);
if ( amt_consumed < me.alcohol_limit )
Code();
endif
endif
Sleep();
endwhile
Someone else should test this for me, if you have too much free time, begin working on an open source project. I didn't have a job until I started really working on the distro and other projects. Once I got used to the new schedule of work and sleep, I started fitting more time in for distro work, and once I got started with that I started working 50-60 hour weeks. Honestly, I'm a little afraid to open UltraEdit. If I even sync the distro I may end up staying 30 minutes later than usual.