Lots of people in thread are discussing about becoming a primary contributor to an open source product. I think there's an easier way, and it worked for me. I found a company that builds an open source product, applied, and impressed them enough to get hired. This seems far more direct.
edit: there is a downside. My job frankly isn't much different than many other software jobs; it just so happens that the output is open source. I still have a boss, we still have company priorities (though I help set them!) and strategic goals, etc. I don't get to just fuck around and work on whatever I want. So you should be careful: if what you want is the latter (work on whatever you want, get paid), you probably need to be someone like Linus. That said, the project I work on is damn cool and my job is better (for me; I don't think jobs are good but rather the tuple <job, employee> can be good) than almost anything else I can imagine.
edit2: I'm unfortunately not listing the company name because there are some real dicks on HN; you can probably figure it out if you're really interested but please don't post it.
edit: there is a downside. My job frankly isn't much different than many other software jobs; it just so happens that the output is open source. I still have a boss, we still have company priorities (though I help set them!) and strategic goals, etc. I don't get to just fuck around and work on whatever I want. So you should be careful: if what you want is the latter (work on whatever you want, get paid), you probably need to be someone like Linus. That said, the project I work on is damn cool and my job is better (for me; I don't think jobs are good but rather the tuple <job, employee> can be good) than almost anything else I can imagine.
edit2: I'm unfortunately not listing the company name because there are some real dicks on HN; you can probably figure it out if you're really interested but please don't post it.