Offer HN: I'll work on interesting projects for free

Fine, but I was speaking to the offer from the OP. What if the OP doesn't find writing tests interesting? Someone else trying to pick it up later won't be so gung-ho to take up refactoring a pile of mess.

I'm not suggesting that the OP does write messy code, but that it could be if he doesn't think clean code is interesting.

I get the motivation behind the offer, I'm just not sure I'd take him up on it, even if I had a project. I do know people who have interesting projects and need help, and I'm not passing this on. I will be the one having to deal with the project when the OP doesn't find the work interesting any more, and I've no idea what shape it'll be in. I'd prefer to refer them to someone who will take on a project and see it past the interesting parts, commit to something longer term, and be prepared to deal with the uninteresting bits.

I'm leaving this here instead of contacting you through your site, that way if anyone else is interested they can take part, too.

I recently made a really simple Backbone.js extension (https://github.com/napoleond/localModel) that reduces load times and the number of HTTP requests an app needs to make by caching data in localStorage. It was built as part of a closed-source project, so I can't use that as an example and I haven't had time to port the standard Backbone example (http://documentcloud.github.com/backbone/examples/todos/inde...) to a version which makes use of my project. What we need is the server half of the example app. It will only take a few hours to build, but I am unlikely to get to it for at least a week so if you do it first I will accept your pull request and thank you at the top of the README. (The client side of the example app is exactly the same as the standard example, but with the modified Backbone.sync pulled out.)

It won't make you famous, but it would be a very easy and useful contribution to an open source project that you could use on a resume or something.

It's really easy, if you use open source software on a daily basis. There will always be something you'd like to improve about it and personal interest is the best motivation.

Found you one: http://bravoserver.org/ Bravo is awesome. It is the cat's knees, the bird's pajamas. It's fantabulous and extaliber. </plug>

Or, if you don't feel like contributing just because I'm plugging it, then find something that interests you. There's an awfully big list of things on OpenHatch. There's also a handful of projects that might interest you, given your current track record; considered contributing to Rails or Rubinius?

What it really means is that with each person you allow to "volunteer" for you are opening yourself up to liability that they could sue for back payment of minimum wage if they ever became disgruntled. Same goes for people who work for sweat equity. This doesn't mean a startup should never make such arrangements, it just means a startup should be careful and consider the risk (e.g hiring one key employee vs having an army of volunteers).

He's real alright. I seen his somewhat bombastic and voiced style several times on HN but only recently realized he's only 15 years old :) . He's a talented fellow actually, only a bit dramatic.

Yes that font is much better over the cursive one, both in terms of readability and cleanliness.

If you do use any cursive fonts, please do not bold the letters as everything looks mashed together.

Other than that, everything looks great and the offer sounds generous! Good luck!

I vote yes. Unless it's billboard sized or only a word or two, it sucks to read.

Why not come up with your own interesting project and work on it?