biohazel on Nostr: Although doing the work for free is part of the open-source ethos, there is no such ...

Although doing the work for free is part of the open-source ethos, there is no such thing as unpaid work.

Even when I volunteered 24/7 in Bitcoin FOSS to finish a vital book translation, I had to earn and save the money I was spending in my previous job.

The expectation of volunteer work implies that you can't be a pleb if you want to contribute meaningfully, as even small contributions require time, dedication, and countless hours of study. This, I believe, might exclude very young students and underrepresented groups right from the start.

My motivation for volunteering in Bitcoin open source was that I was the only person in the room with a command of Brazilian Portuguese, a deep curiosity about the topic, and an intuitive understanding of its significance for human rights. The weight of social responsibility was too heavy to ignore.

I wouldn't have been able to sleep at night, knowing that the book might still be untranslated if it weren't for me taking on and completing the task in 21 days with minimal breaks.

I think, and this is just speculation, we need to be careful not to purity-test the lurkers too harshly and risk losing them—and here I am considering the open developer communities that don't practice discrimination, of course. There should be a clearer path to how they can start earning Bitcoin in open source and understand how much they can earn. People should minimally aspire to a career in FOSS and view it as a viable, meritocratic option worth pursuing.

From my experiences, if anything is hindering Bitcoin development—aside from the small-minded bigotry among the plebs before they even join the projects—it’s *the mystery*. Many Bitcoin experts profit from this mystery, especially those who wrap it in some ideology and nurture parasocial relationships with their audiences to drive adoption. It's profitable outside of FOSS and a harsh reality within it.

I also heard stories about how taxing working in FOSS can be and how some of our current contributors are burnt out and on the edge of a mental breakdown. Even if they are well-paid, they are clearly overworked or a proxy for something unhealthy in FOSS.

Semantically speaking, if FOSS is to be this pure, magical, self-assembled entity composed of mysterious individuals united by their sheer passion for Bitcoin development, then from my perspective, I can say FOSS, or what it could be, is deteriorating, becoming insalubrious and unsafe over time. If ignored, this culture will continue to seep through and naturally undermine Bitcoin FOSS as a whole.

If you believe this doesn’t impact the quality of code and product output, then you’re undervaluing the human factor in producing science and technology. We must not repeat this oversight in the new social systems we’re trying to build to escape today's traps that were built disregarding human needs in the first place.

If my view is obstructed and my opinions are wrong, that is just another piece of evidence that the problem is not me, but how the information is being presented to actors who are doing my type of work.

And I’d rather not start on how a man in my position would likely have better access to quality information, community support, and opportunities to thrive. Let’s assume we’ve reached a near 50/50 meritocratic system already.

Sometimes, it feels like we’ve taken the 'anarchic cypherpunks write code' ethos a bit too far and even out of context. In our attempt to preserve the original character of open-source software development, we might be harming it instead.