Not sure if this question belongs here, on the main site, or not on TeX.SX at all. Let me know if it belongs somewhere else.
I have recently made some leaps in my knowledge of LaTeX, in particular its packages. I am very impressed by projects like beamer and tikz, so I really wonder: how do package authors find the time? It appears many are in academia. Being in academia myself, I know how time-pressured it can be. When Knuth wrote his computer programming book, he got side-tracked and developed TeX for many years. On a smaller scale, there appears to be years of time in some. Do authors receive specific grants for package development, or do they really work crazy hours in evenings and weekends (where other academics would spend time on their science)?
Best Answer
I class my own modest contributions as structured procrastination. I also count my time on this site that way.