What is your contribution to open source projects?

Question

I was always interested to learn about this seemingly utopian open source world.

Assuming that the vast majority of users here are professional software developers who need some kind of source of income, I believe that most of us have stable jobs.

So who are the key players in the open source community? Who are the people who devote their precious time to these projects? What are their benefits? Most people just see a mistake, correct it, obey and forget about the project? Or are they constantly involved in the product creation process?

How can you participate in open source projects?

Answer 1

I make a living with professional projects based either on open source careers or on commercial products, and is often a combination of them.

Many commercial products that I have used over the years end up becoming very expensive. Let's say you buy a single sign-on solution for web applications. When you are done with what you need to do, I and many others are faced with the fact that you eventually reprofiled 2 / 3ds, and sometimes there is almost nothing left of the commercial product that you thought you were going to use.

Thus, the problem with the purchase is that it never fits, and often the decision to buy is based on functional matrices that compare functions, although they do not actually take into account the suitability of these functions in your own environment.

I am trying to understand that mature organizations understand that there is no free lunch, even after you have paid a product license. The fact that you spent $ 1 million on a content management system does not mean that you are not going to spend another $ 2 million on 50% of planned and 50% of unplanned actions related to this.

So, we can, we will write patches for all OSS projects with which we are associated. Sometimes we recycle subsystems, and most of the time we send them back. Sometimes we decide that we want only 50% of the framework, and we are just for you. But we still want to stay with the frame for the 50% that we use. Try to do this with a commercial product;) In general, we try to stay on the "developers" mailing list, but we rarely try to get commit rights for projects.

Answer 2

My biggest contribution to open source projects did not help them in creating the code, but simply used them.

Philosophically speaking, this is probably as important as the health and usefulness of the project, the actual users who submit reviews and leave suggestions and comments in a daily conversation or on such sites.

Answer 3

Most people just see a mistake, correct it, imagine and forget about the project? Or are they constantly involved in the product creation process?

I definitely fall into the first category (focusing on a long-term project is not my business), but there are many people who are part of the second. Without them, we would not have a lot of viable ecosystem of free software. A significant portion of these people are paid to write and maintain open source software, but there are still many lovers who do this just for fun. In fact, most of the people I know who get paid to work with open source software will still contribute if they have to do it for free (I would do that). Deposits will be less frequent.

How can you participate in open source projects?

When I was a student, I played with the internal structures of various free open source programs (including gdb, OpenSSH, arping, some IRC clients, Snort, various Perl modules, some specific packages for Debian, ...) and fixed some errors , as well as the implementation of several functions. Nothing great from the SLOC point of view, and some of these contributions were rejected, but it was still fun and interesting.

I became a co-founder of the Free Software Users Group, which has been operating for over 4 years. In meetings, I sometimes give technical presentations about free software. We also try to regularly attend external events, invited by LUG / FSUG.

I also often buy t-shirts, sweaters and fluff from projects that I like to give them some kind of financial contribution.

Now I am engaged in technical support in an open source company, and therefore I report errors and regularly fix corrections. And they actually pay me for it. Why choose between contributing to Open Source and real work when you can do both?

Answer 4

It's a lot about pride in what you do. Also gaining confidence when the code you make is accepted by peers.

After this initial stage, much is associated with the ability to manage assemblies and releases of code, offering new ideas and practicing your skills.

Some people in open source projects do this because they feel that the freedom they don't get from work is free.

I personally try to contribute as much as I can, from documentation to bug fixes. This does not mean that I do a lot, but I like it when I can.

Answer 5

I started my project because at that time I could not find the application that I had in mind. I did this open source beacuse Sourceforge had an excellent infrastructure that I did not want to deal with personally.

I could barely make enough for Google adsense to pay for a domain name and hosting, and it was also a lot of fun over the years. And a refreshing experience is in complete control over what you are doing, which, of course, is not the case in my daily work.

Answer 6

I make money on my professional projects based on the open source web framework ( Aida / Web ), of which I am an author and an active participant. The same thing happens for others in our community. They earn money and at the same time return to the tool, which actually allows them to earn this money. Therefore, the loop is closed, in the interests of all. I am pretty sure that such a model is best suited for open source, and many other open source guys also follow it.

Answer 7

All of my OS projects started as real business needs that needed to be met. After the work is completed, I can release an applet or something else to the public through Google Code. So far, I have not had a single error report, and I doubt that I will ever do it. Most of the things I post are pretty small, but hopefully helpful. Personally, I do not believe that people who use OS software send bug reports at all: they just go and get something that really works.

Answer 8

I do both.

I am not the "main player", but if I can help a little in improving the project that interests me, I do everything I can, adding a little to the documentation, pointing out some possible improvements, fixing the error, providing a patch.

I helped a little to improve the PHP framework. Sometime I provide or improve French translations.

There is, at least, the project I was in (still, although I spend much less time now), quite involved, Scintilla and SciTE (I am at the top of the chronological list of participants in SciTE loans). Of course, my main interest is to have an editor that meets my needs and tastes. It is an open source spirit to get the input of people with great interest in the project.

I helped, but at the same time I learned a lot, so this is good for everyone.

Answer 9

I have been working exclusively on Open Source for three years now, in addition, before that I did FOSS as a “hobby project”. We use our Ra-Ajax to get consulting concerts. This primarily allows us to create OSS, which is very useful and fun! Secondly, he creates better tools for himself, in addition to this, because we know that tools inside and outside can often charge better prices if we work with some “random thing” that “someone else did” ...

Answer 10

How can you participate in open source projects?

I think that, like programming itself, this has a lot to do with your passion and interests. If you are working on a project or are interested in a topic, and find yourself a tool or module that makes X, look for it. Most likely, there is at least one other person who has released an open source project who is already doing this. Depending on what you find, you can:

• Use the product and help the owner make it better with bug reports / fixes and feedback.
• Improve the product and send your changes to the owner.
• Make your own product and release it as an open source for others to make the first two.

Most likely, when you first start with the fact that you will not become an open-source night rock star. Like the Internet itself, there are so many that you probably won't immediately notice. However, just going through this process will teach you enough to make it worthwhile.

This is where I am. I have not made a name for myself in the open source community. I found out the names of several key players by reading blogs and just using the code, but in fact there is not enough open source point. I found some really great tools and significantly improved my knowledge and coding, which is important to me.

In my experience, many people I spoke with open source in one or more of the following ways:

• Passion for super hackers.
• Something that people do for charity.
• Source of free code examples.
• Human right.
• A place to look for temporary solutions.

I see this as a great opportunity to learn, add tools to your toolbox, learn more about your industry and others in it, and have fun at the same time.

Answer 11

Well, I started the OS project on my blog to review some of the alleged process flaws / accelerations in the Visual Studio XAML process. At the moment, this is not a 100% open source, because I am the only active developer of the project, but I have people who contribute to the project, which was a fantastic incentive for me to continue its development.

In a slightly different note, I wrote applications and articles that were published in the Code Project, so users can download and use them for free at their discretion. My theory is that if I put it in the public domain, then it will be free for you, as you see fit; I do not want any money for this - this is not why I wrote the article.

Participating in open source projects is a great way to hone skills that might not be in your core set, so this is a really good way to improve your resume.

Answer 12

Reported errors. Written articles. Answered questions on forums / IRC. Even started my own OSS project (which I passed on to someone else since then)

Answer 13

I would really like to contribute to OS projects, but with three children and a full-time job, I never have enough time to do anything other than using the OS. I hope that this will change soon, but I believe that there are at least several developers who are in the same boat with me.

Answer 14

Honest answer: Not much.

I have written a lot for myself, but I really do not consider this contribution. Most that I gave to other projects are some bug reports.

Answer 15

• Using.
• Promotion
• Create a tiny open source project ( Natural CLI ).

Answer 16

I am quite actively involved in an open source project with the name:

JStock - Free Stock Market Software

I can improve my income (using JStock to make investments) and write code at the same time :)