Hoping for open source

[wgtdkp]

Your project seems very interesting, are you planning to open source it?
Cann't wait to learn the theory and proof!

[hnes]

Your project seems very interesting, are you planning to open source it?
Cann't wait to learn the theory and proof!

It is very nice to receive an issue about this repository from you, @wgtdkp :D

To be frank, the idea in this repository first came to me about at the end of 2016 and the detailed proof was written and finished at the end of 2017(yes, it has already been done). Now I'm developing a project related to Paxos (I'm working as a free and full-time open-source developer now, and it would be an open-source project too) and this repository we are discussing will be open-sourced when this project is beta released. It would not take too long to come, maybe about several months only from now. And besides this repository, there is also something really cool about Paxos would be open-sourced with this project too.

Thank you very much for your interest, @wgtdkp ;-)

[wgtdkp]

Thanks for your reply!

The things (geometric paxos & related project) you are doing are cool, but the way you do it is coooooooler.

I am always passionate about open source, but as a full-time distributed system engineer at Alibaba inc(working on paxos/raft), I have little spare time to devote to open source projects. I am planning to resign and return to Google Shanghai to get more spare time(in several months). Being a full-time open-source developer(FTOSD) is definitely the best work style for me and I am curious about how you can work as a FTOSD(What's your source of income?). Would you mind to share your experience with me?

Looking forward for more replies from you :)

[hnes]

The things (geometric paxos & related project) you are doing are cool, but the way you do it is coooooooler.

Personally, I agree with you too :D

I am always passionate about open source, but as a full-time distributed system engineer at Alibaba inc(working on paxos/raft), I have little spare time to devote to open source projects. I am planning to resign and return to Google Shanghai to get more spare time(in several months). Being a full-time open-source developer(FTOSD) is definitely the best work style for me and I am curious about how you can work as a FTOSD(What's your source of income?). Would you mind to share your experience with me?

First, I apologize to you that I have taken so long to reply. To be honest, your question interested me so much and I took a rather long time to write the reply which is a very enjoyable process. Thank you :D

Our experiences seem to have something very similar. I graduated from college in 2016 and started working at Baidu as a distributed system engineer too. As time went on, I'm no longer satisfied to develop the programs that the ownership is not under my control and could only be used by a single certain company although my programs have a very huge number of users. I just want to develop my own open-sourced project that could be used by all the people in this world - the project I had always want to do but due to the very little spare time when I'm full-time employed. Then, as you already known, I resigned and started the life of FTOSD. It has been more than one year past, and I'm just so glad that I made the right choice.

Here are some advice that I think may be helpful to you now:

1. Do you have such project want to develop:

   The project is so important (for yourself and also the users in the future) and completely seized your mind, and it also needs a long time (maybe at least several months or more than one year etc...) to develop wholeheartedly.

   If the answer is yes, then goto 2.

   Otherwise, I think you would better to continue your full-time job (Alibaba and Google is both good choice) until you find such your own project since many awesome ideas always come from the problems you encountered in the work itself. Or just use the spare time to develop it if the project does not take too long to develop.

2. If you have to keep a certain amount of the income every month to pay the bills for your family and do not have enough savings to sustain it during the period of your open-sourced project development, you would better to rethink about it carefully (maybe the best choice is to only use the spare time to continue your personal project, although it is harder, or find the capital and create a startup, maybe a even more harder choice). For me, such problem does not exist, at least not yet ;-)
   If this answer is "no", then goto 3.

3. Now, you already resigned your job and started the life of as a FTOSD. If you don't have too much savings and also couldn't solve such problem of living expense, maybe switch to the low-power mode lifestyle is a wise choice. For me, I'm living in the countryside of Shanghai and has a very low living expense.

   And there is no income, at least for me now :D

   Maybe I'm just too absorbed into the project I'm working on now and it is so much fun of it that I don't even have time to notice such income problem ;-)

   And because you may need more time to finish your project than you have planned, so try to reduce expenditure into your daily life is also a wise decision unless you have enough savings to sustain.

   Keep developing the project. Goto 4 if you finally finished the project.

   (I'm still at this stage now.)

4. Announce your excellent project to the world :D

   4.1. If the project is very successful, then create a technology startup and serve the companies who need your technical support or the customized enhanced edition of your project (like Openresty, Redis, Nginx, CoreOS etc). Here you finally have the incomes :D

   4.2. If you tried and maybe is not realistic to create a profitable startup and you still love this project, then you could ask the companies who are interested in your project and also may be deployed it in their production environment for help, ask them to employ you to develop this project full-timely but all the sources you contribute to this project later in this company would be as a part of your project and open-sourced too (like agentzh and the Cloudflare). If failed, goto 4.3.

   4.3. This step is a sad step, but still, you are the Champion! You finished your project! Congratulations! After sometimes rest, maybe it is the time to find a new full-time job and live a more relaxed life, at least a period of it ;-)

Thank you very much for this chance to let me write all this down, @wgtdkp. I would be very glad if this reply could be helpful.

[wgtdkp]

@hnes
Many thanks for your detailed sharing!

As time went on, I'm no longer satisfied to develop the programs that the ownership is not under my control and could only be used by a single certain company although my programs have a very huge number of users. I just want to develop my own open-sourced project that could be used by all the people in this world

We truly have so much in common. We both want to be a swordsman("侠客" in Chinese) other than a great soldier(or general) who fights for the king.

Your staged suggestion for becoming a FTOSD are so worthy that I can't help donating for it (By donating libaco, please don't thanks me for that, you deserve it). Inmy understanding, the most difficult stage would be the first: find the problem that worth solving.

I wrote(and deleted) something but there are two many that I'd like to talk with you, so I am asking If I could have your wechat. Please feel free to reject if it's a invasion of privacy to you.

Thanks again for your careful, kindly, detailed and valuable advice! 👍

[hnes]

We truly have so much in common. We both want to be a swordsman("侠客" in Chinese) other than a great soldier(or general) who fights for the king.

A very wonderful metaphor 👍

Your staged suggestion for becoming a FTOSD are so worthy that I can't help donating for it (By donating libaco, please don't thanks me for that, you deserve it). In my understanding, the most difficult stage would be the first: find the problem that worth solving.

:D

Yes, agree with you. "Find the problem that worth solving" may be always one of the hardest parts of it, perhaps also is true in our life ;-)

I wrote(and deleted) something but there are two many that I'd like to talk with you, so I am asking If I could have your wechat. Please feel free to reject if it's a invasion of privacy to you.

I have sent it to your email already :D

Thanks again for your careful, kindly, detailed and valuable advice! 👍

I'm just so glad that is helpful to you, it also means a lot to me ;-)

[n0ndual]

Nice conversation! I'm also looking forward to your Paxos project. Wish you guys good luck.

[navytux]

Any update on publishing the geometric Paxos interpretation? Thanks

[hnes]

Sorry for the rather long time leaving :-(

I have started to do it from a few days ago and it may take several weeks to come out. It is a subsection of my next opensource project which is a little big. So there is a lot of work to do.

Thanks a lot :D

[navytux]

@hnes, thanks for the update. Good luck with it.