Ask HN: Why you contribute or don't contribute to open source?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16108644

by ahacker15 • 9 years ago

10 9 9 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

aaossa• 9 years ago

I contribute by dedicating each friday or saturday to open source projects (not mine). I do this because in CS all of our work depends on another's, and each time we import a module, visit a website, or use a phone, we KNOW that another person dedicated part of his life to do that. My contributions are my "thank you" to every person that gave part of his time to create something that helped me, creating something like an "open source cycle" where I help other because someone helped me

drakonka• 9 years ago

I don't really know where to start and I also haven't found a project that has motivated me enough to really figure out where to start. I know there are some sites and twitter accounts out there that help open source beginners find issues to start with, but what I'd really like is a really interesting project to dig into that also has some good entry level issues I can help with. If it's not something I am very interested in I tend to just gravitate to working on my own non-open-source projects. OpenWorm is one that sounds really interesting. I've donated to the project a while ago and am considering seeing if it might be something I can contribute to.

billconan• 9 years ago

I contribute to open source a lot, but mostly to my own code bases.

I seldom fix other open source projects, because they are not well documented, digging other people's code is a pain.

Or some code bases are well documented, and their code is also structured nicely, but they have a quite complex or bureaucratic procedure to do code review and submission. I tend to give up in this case and simply file a bug and point out the problem to them.

I think I should contribute to open source, because I benefit from them a lot. Every single project I worked on uses open source libraries, frameworks. I should pay my open source tax to support them.

mbrock• 9 years ago

I only work on open source projects, mostly blockchain-related.

alborzmassah• 9 years ago

Why?

afarrell• 9 years ago

I only sporadically contribute because I can rarely block out the focused time to get myself ramped up in a new project in order to accomplish something unless it is part of an open source project my employer is maintaining or contributing to.

agibsonccc• 9 years ago

I'll chime in from the other side as a maintainer of a mid size project at a foundation (eclipse foundation, 8k stars, 4k forks)

We get a ton of drive by contributions of people scratching their own itch. That's most of the 3rd party open source contributions out there.

Beyond that, folks I've hired (we're an OSS company) have been grad student hobbyists that started (and stayed) remotely.

Those have also been my best hires.

I wouldn't feel "guilty" about not contributing to open source. These projects aren't built for altruistic reasons.

If you want to contribute, do it to learn something and get something out of it. Make interests align. That keeps it interesting for both parties.

I wouldn't feel "obligated" to do anything as a single developer.

There's only 24 hours in a day, people have kids etc..

djellybeans• 9 years ago

Disclaimer: most of my contributions for OSS have been on a paid basis. I choose to contribute to open source because the projects may have people that think similarly in terms of approaching problems. It's also a good way to learn and apply knowledge that impacts other peoples' work instead of your own.

My contributions are responses to issues that are clearly laid out and have a clear target spec. Vague issues that have a large number of unknowns are ones I would be more reluctant in approaching.

askafriend• 9 years ago

I write code professionally for 8-10 hours a day. 5 days a week, sometimes more.

When I come home and have time for myself, I don't want to write code.

It's as simple as that.

Ask HN: Why you contribute or don't contribute to open source?

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