Ask HN: How do you make a living contributing to and/or creating OSS projects?

I'm really interested in this discussion. I started an open-source project [1], and I've been working on it for the past 6 months full-time on my own time and money (savings + benefits). First I was part of a batch at the Recurse Center [2], now I'm alone at home. I'd love to keep working on it because I have a big roadmap and ideas, but I'm not sure if I will be able to. It's heartbreaking to have to stop at version 0.0.1 when I know that 1.0 could be so good. If I just had the time...

[1] https://victorpoughon.github.io/torchlensmaker/

[2] https://www.recurse.com/

Your project looks great. Have you looked at the "services" route?

Instead of companies or individuals paying you to build your software, that they may find useful, (and some companies may not feel comformatble funding a bit of software that their competitors could otherwise take for free), you instead provide - through a services company - integration support, customisation, hosted versions, or other tertiary elements of value (such as premium documentation) that keep you focused on your project (albeit via some diversification)

If the software is free (as in beer) then what else might potential users need, that you can monitise.

E.g. Documentation, installation scripts, advanced models don't "have" to be free alongside the code. Just a thought.