[auslegung]

> These always ignore the fact that a large chunk (maybe the majority?) of OSS development happens during working hours at an existing employer.

Do you have any sources for this? It doesn’t seem right to make a vague statement (a large chunk) which sounds bad, nor a somewhat less vague conjecture (maybe the majority?) without sources.

In my very limited experience, any developer who is significantly supporting OSS with code contributions is a high contributor for their employer, and if they don’t always do the agreed-upon number of hours/week for their employer, I doubt it’s far off. So I disagree with you anecdotally, which doesn’t matter much, and I question your sources, which matters more.

[ricardobeat]

Fair point, edited to be less vague. These statements are based on my own observations. Would love to see a poll in 'the state of X' style regarding who contributes to OSS or not.

[return_to_monke]

I think what they meant is that a lot of popular open source projects are maintained/created originally by companies. So, Facebook created React. FB devs are, i assume, paid for working on React, even though it doesn't directly benefit FB itself (they aren't writing a new messenger feature, for example)

[throwaway858]

For every React there are 1000 other open source projects run entirely by volunteers.

I am curious if there is actual data on the number of man-hours that are spent on open source per year, and how many of those are funded by corporations. My guess is that it is less than 1%.