magnetHEAD's Journal: Opensource lacky losing faith

I figure that something akin to the topic of wasting time would be nice for a first journal entry, so I thought I'd begin to tackle the subject of lackluster enthusiasm over participation in opensource projects that don't pay.

So I'm no expert geek or anything, I often find myself whittling away the hours over at sourceforge in the 'Help Wanted' section examining calls for artists and high level programmers. I do java and all that but more to the point I'm an artist. I did the degree thing in it and I figure I should devote a little bit of hobby time to making some (because I'll obviously never get paid to do it).

Something I've noticed and I guess someone would have to force me at gunpoint to refute is that this whole thing is just a big clumsy creature. Project leaders often seem to make entries in sourceforge just to get the idea down before someone else, leaving an empty project that's going nowhere fast. Or any of the other multitudes of pitfalls that befall opensource (free) projects.

So today being a day like any other, I'm looking at my mailbox waiting for some kind of correspondance to drop from any of the number of projects I'm involved in. Waiting. Seems like I've been waiting for two weeks now for word on whether or not this or that element is approved for use, whether or not I should proceed with a certain design idea... There must be projects out there that receive constant activity, surely! I guess I'm just to 'new' to find em.