Open source is communism

Why does that sound so bad? I have read the manifesto and it's pretty good! (for the record I am not a communist though)

Anyways I attended the Open Source Symposium at Seneca today and it was an eye opening experience. There were members from all over the continent speaking about their experience on their open source project. The most interesting speaker was Khalid Baheyeldin. His lecture was on 'Open Source: For fun and for Profit'. Obviously being a student I cannot help but be interested in working anywhere other than in a lousy cubicle! (I still believe in the american dream, even in the age of obama socialism!).

Essentially to earn an income from open source (and this also goes with what Dru Lavigne spoke about) you're going to have to pay your dues. Meaning to spend a year or two volunteering hours on an open source project you're passionate (to gain reputation). An interesting point to note is that you won't gain as much reputation if you did the same for proprietary software (such as if you worked at microsoft on some program) unless you've made the program yourself. Dru pointed out that you've known you made it when work starts finding you, and that you've really made it when you start rejecting work for other more interesting work.

There are a lot of people looking for freelancers, drupal.org has forums with people looking to contract. Also another enlightening moment was when the speakers mentioned that the community needs marketers, designers, and writers. So it's not just coders that are involved in it.

One thing I found surprising was that there were no speakers on open hardware. My passion is in electronics and I would love to meet and learn from people in that side of the community/industry.