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Possible to make career in free software? (lemmy.sdf.org)

submitted 6 months ago by phpinjected@lemmy.sdf.org to c/programming@programming.dev

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I'm a computer engineering undergrad in my finals and I really don't care about applying for jobs, there's so much competition and I hate just about every one of my classmates. I don't want to spend hours making shitty bloated proprietary software but 99% of jobs seem to be like that. Is it possible to actually make a career in free software, should I just ditch out of tech and pick something else

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[–] RonSijm@programming.dev 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The month before Dwarf Fortress was released on Steam (and Itch.io), the brothers Zach and Tarn Adams made $15,635 in revenue, mostly from donations for their 16-year freeware project. The month after the game's commercial debut, they made $7,230,123

So about $16k on a 16-year project = $1k a year. He seems to be doing well after the paid release. So not really a success of "free software"

[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

I don't know how you read that and thought that 16k was in total over 16 years and not just in the month before the Steam release.

He was averaging about 10k/month, and the details of his monthly donations are posted on his blog.