[kde-community] Does KDE attempt to attract experienced contributors?

[Eike Hein]

On 05/13/2016 07:06 PM, Laszlo Papp wrote:
> I apologise if I had not expressed myself correctly. I do mean working
> on some free software for money compared to working on KDE free software
> for free. So, free software does matter, yet you can get (potentially
> well-)paid in return elsewhere.

So it's down to making more useful/interesting stuff you can't work on
elsewhere, or fostering more employment opportunities around the stuff
we make. We've tried both, succeeded sometimes, failed sometimes; we'll
likely do more of both.

I'm actually not aware of any free software project similar to, say 
Plasma with more paid developers, BTW ...

Speaking personally, I'm an experienced engineer who's worked on KDE
stuff both for free and for pay, each for years at a time, and I do it
because:

- It's really neat to go to sleep at night knowing what I do all day
   doesn't screw anybody over.

- It's even neater to go to sleep at night knowing what I make can't
   be easily erased/hidden from existence, and is trivially discoverable
   as my calling card.

- Very few among the total population of software engineers get to
   work on the types of products I work on, or with the level of input
   I get into fashioning those products.

- What I make enables others and generally gives them more options.

- I'm very fond of the people I work with.

In this industry, it gets a hell of a lot worse almost always, and
rarely much better.


Cheers,
Eike