As to 2, If you code, it's a very hot job market out there right now.
You make a lot of what seem like handwavey notions that OSS coders should get paid or go on strike or something like that without really convincing why.
Most professional coders know what they use daily has some strong OSS roots (then there are other branches which have little involvement there). A subset of them do work on them.
The fact people make stuff in the evening that happens to be OSS is often a sign of they like to program not some economic crime.
OS kernels. Linus used to work for Transmeta (sorry if I misspelled the name) as a chips-and-assembly guy before they got enough charity funding to put him on full-time Linux kernel coding, remember? He started the kernel when he as a Master's student in Finland, too. It took until the late 2000s (after having started in 1992 or so) for the creator of Linux to be put on full-time payroll working on Linux.
>As to 2, If you code, it's a very hot job market out there right now.
It's a very hot job market but very, very specialized. I cannot tell you how many things I've applied to and never heard back, gotten interviews with and been turned down for having the wrong skills (ie: C, C++, Java, Scala instead of Ruby on Rails, HTML+CSS, iPhone, Android), been turned down from for no given reason whatsoever, been turned down from because I had admitted to applying to PhD programs (and that was simply the coolest company I ever loved interviewing with that turned me down like this, and a HN-featured start-up too!), and just generally not had offers forthcoming.
Honest to God, if you'd like to see my resume so you can tell me what the fuck's wrong with me that's creating this pattern, I'll send it to you, have at it.
Oh, and then there's the companies with broken jobs websites. There's nothing I hate more than trying to apply for a job I'd love and finding myself facing a page that says, "Oops, an unexpected error has occurred!"
