And how could one get paid to do so?
No it’s not. You just keep telling all your friends and colleagues how your operating system is superior.
The very few opportunities to be paid to promote open-source were all one-time events like hacker expo.
This might be something the linux foundation should invest in :/
I don’t think they will, there are thousands of people already doing it for free, you’ll likely find one such person in any mid-size business wiring up your network cables.
You’ll have much better chances to get paid if you provide some business model how to contribute to open-source software while keeping your profits flowing, because the business is all about competition and keeping things secret, and there are very few successful businesses based on open-sourcing their work.
I think the “for free” isn’t working out too well outside of servers. Desktop linux has minimal market share (even though it’s growing) and has grown a lot thanks to many users unknowingly using it with the Steam Deck - Valve hasn’t had ads for SteamOS or linux… ever?
And that’s just Linux. Opensource in general is basically unknown outside of somewhat tech literate folk. We need dedicate marketing and advocates to spread it in public institutions (schools, governments, utilities, etc.), make people aware that there are more options than before, get more branding, and definitely more awareness for those using opensource for the time to understand that a lot of it is made it free time. Many people see “oh it’s free” and still expect dedicated support with comments like “why don’t you just”, “I have this bug, I demand you fix it”, and so on.
Free advocacy leaves it in obscurity for most of the world and it will either stay that way or change very very slowly.
Look up “developer relations”. It’s kind of being an advocate for the software made by a company. Part of that job is to have respect so open source advocacy goes with it. Double goes with it if the software made by the company is open source.
Get a benefactor (or many) to form a foundation that pays for such advocacy or find existing foundations that fund advocates.
This is the closest job that I could think of to an open source advocate.
It is, for example, EFF has paid positions, and they’re huge advocates of FoSS. “Opensource Advocacy” is not the job/job-title, but it’s part of the job
Also there are companies that are FoSS at it’s core - but get paid by clients for consultancy work for support and implementation of their FoSS. They have paid positions for advocacy for their software
