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Living by the Code

First Edition ·

Before You Begin

Section 0: 2 chapters
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Community

Section 1: 14 chapters
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Getting to Work

Section 2: 17 chapters
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38. An Interview with Marcin Krzyzanowski
Written by Enrique López-Mañas

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Marcin is an eclectic developer with years of experience in mobile and desktop applications, as well in enterprise solutions. He is a 10x developer who likes to learn new things with a pragmatic approach to the art of programming. Occasionally, he speaks at conferences and shares knowledge. Active in open-source software development communities, he has published a wide range of iOS/macOS libraries and tools, such as CryptoSwift, ObjectivePGP and the amazing Online Swift Playground, capable of running Swift code interactively from a Web Browser. He’s currently working on SwiftStudio.app, an indepedent third-party IDE for Swift.

Connect wtih Marcin

Twitter: @krzyzanowskim

Website: blog.krzyzanowskim.com

Speaker Deck: speakerdeck.com/krzyzanowskim

GitHub: github.com/krzyzanowskim

Interview

You are an incredibly proficient open-source producer—maintainer of CryptoSwift, among others. From your experience, is it possible to make a living out of open-source software?

I think it’s very hard or even impossible. Lately, I saw a diagram showing that even the most popular open-source projects don’t receive enough money to provide a living for an author or team. There are a couple reasons why you cannot make a living out of open source or why it’s very hard.

It seems to be one of the problems in these platforms that, because they’re open to the entire world and we live in a time of globalization, there might be people from countries who are cheaper to employ. If companies are purely basing value on price, that isn’t great for developers trying to make a living.

Yes, definitely. I’ve never looked at this website again. Turns out you can be rejected for a job which uses your work.

In using resources yourself, are there any books that have had an impact on you or your career?

I don’t have a lot of specific titles. Currently, I’m listening to more audiobooks, especially autobiographies. I like learning about history, what happened, how things were built, how things were before, how people interacted with each other and what was the outcome. Everyone had something interesting in their lives. I also read a lot of reportages, which gives me a history lesson and some insights —how people work, how the world works. That’s the most interesting part for me—how other parts of the world work beyond my backyard.

Marcin’s Recommendations

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