So writing code is a very intimate thing. You spend hours and hours thinking very hard about a problem and then finally solve it. Once you do, you work out all of the bugs and such. After tons of hard work, you finally have something you're proud of that can be released or used with other code someone else has worked very hard one.
This is a special thing to me. I really enjoy this process. Everything about it is great. The problem solving, the perfecting, the design, everything.
I don't know how I feel about selling this. I mean, I just labored away on this code and I'm really proud of it. I understand that I can sell the rights to someone to use, which is fine. It just feels wrong to have worked on something for a really long time and then someone else owns it and I'm not allowed to do anything with something that I made. I know that the money is the trade off. It just feels like I made a baby then sold that baby.
I know that this is how I make money, but I don't like it. This is why I started open sourcing as much as I can so I, and the entire community, can benefit from my hard work.
I don't really have a conclusion, just that I'm going to try to avoid it as much as possible. There's a lot of inner struggle with all of this. Just thought I'd share my two cents.
So if you remember, I wrote a blog post about a year ago about life and such. I quit my job and then freelanced for a bit. After doing that for a bit and hating it, I started working at Tasteful Works. It's been a good ride here at Tasteful Works, but August 31 is my last day. Still friends with those guys. Quality dudes.
What I'll Be Doing
I'm already booked for the next 3+ months with a lot of iPad and Rails work. It's for a client or I'd say more. It's a really cool project. After that, I'll be doing looking for some contract projects and work on my own stuff.
I plan to focus more on fun open source projects now that I'm my own. I already have a bunch of stuff started on my GitHub account, but more on that later. It will also be good to have more time for music and life in general.
I've already gotten a few job offers. For now, I plan on sticking with working for myself, but who knows how long that will last. This seems to be a bit of a cycle: keep a job for a year-ish, freelance, new job, freelance, etc. I'm hoping to keep working for myself for a lot longer this time.
What About...
Double Shot - No idea. Tasteful Works owns all of that code. Hopefully it will get released eventually. It's some of my best work.
TWToolkit - Check out my forks: SSToolkit, SSOAuthKit, and SSZipArchive. The Tasteful Works versions will remain, although I won't be working on them anymore.
Countdown Maker - Countdown Maker and Stage Time will remain Tasteful Works products. Kinda hate to see them go, but oh well. Hopefully they will continue to be maintained.
People as me a lot what I do. I generally say "I write software" and get a blank look. I think I'm going to start saying:
I type a lot and make stuff happen.
That sounds cool, right?