I maintain my own open source project. I do this because I am a manager now, therefore I no longer writing code during my day job. However I still love to code, so an open source project is a perfect hobby for me.
Ask HN: Do you contribute to open source? Why? Why not?
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Re: Ask HN: Do you contribute to open source? Why? Why not?
#22I contribute to open source at work and on my free time. At work I contribute because I want to improve something I spent my time on figuring out (eg. documentation, bug fixes, features) so I don't have to do it again later and hopefully someone else can enjoy it too. On my free time I contribute for the same reason I play music, skateboard or play video games: it's fun.
I have gained tons of things from contributing (experience and knowledge, connections) even if I don't expect to get anything from it. I have also faced the darker side of OSS: the angry users who haven't spent a dime, the "go kill yourself" messages, the dislikes, the time spent wasting time on things that wouldn't happen. At times like that I just remind myself: I am doing this for fun and I can stop when it's not fun anymore.
Re: Ask HN: Do you contribute to open source? Why? Why not?
#23I used to but now I don't, for the same reasons I restrain posting on internet forums like these
Re: Ask HN: Do you contribute to open source? Why? Why not?
#24I run a small software company, and I occasionally contribute to open source, mostly when a library is missing something that I want.
To be sure that my work won't go unnoticed, I file the issue first and ask maintainers if they'd be open for the pull request. If they respond within a reasonable time frame, I start working on it.
Re: Ask HN: Do you contribute to open source? Why? Why not?
#25At my company, engineers dedicate 10% of their work time to open source contributions outside of our core products. They are quite free to pick any project they want, as long as it benefits our particular community.
Why do we do this?
* It's a great perk for engineers. They contribute under their "personal" profiles, improving their own karma.
* Growth of the community we come from lifts everyone, including the company as a whole.
* We are grateful for what we get for free, and want to contribute back.
* It's a nice argument when hiring.
* It's a great way to skill up in the underlying technology.
* It teaches about collaboration and the softer skills needed to get PRs merged.
* It gives people to touch technologies they wouldn't learn on the job itself.
Re: Ask HN: Do you contribute to open source? Why? Why not?
#26I'm not contributing to any free / open source projects. I think that that FOSS is fueling the technology monopolies, despite originally aiming at the exact opposite. I think it has driven many software markets in the ground like for example tooling. I cannot believe that we use absolutely horrible software like GDB in 2020. I think there is a lot of left learning ideology behind hte FOSS development and also these t…
Can you elaborate on how foss fuels tech monopolies? I've never understood that argument and would like to hear more.
As a manager of a big tech company you are incentivized to increase profit and minimize cost. Might be slightly more painful to use a FOSS toolchain in your team, but your costs are zero. In comparison look at how much does a commercial IDE license like CLion costs per user.
It is a zero resistance environment. It gives the opportunity of the small to grow without any costs, but it also doesn't limit how big the big ones can get.
Re: Ask HN: Do you contribute to open source? Why? Why not?
#27Define "contribute".
If you mean "write code for", then honestly I make very few code contributions. In the 00s, my employer was suspicious of developers contributing to open source, to the point of banning it contractually. I've since changed employer, but I have a legacy of that early experience.
On the other hand, I contribute to open source projects in many ways - I give money to many projects I use, attend meetups, give presentations at conferences, coach people, write answers on StackOverflow.
Re: Ask HN: Do you contribute to open source? Why? Why not?
#28I'm not contributing to any free / open source projects. I think that that FOSS is fueling the technology monopolies, despite originally aiming at the exact opposite. I think it has driven many software markets in the ground like for example tooling. I cannot believe that we use absolutely horrible software like GDB in 2020. I think there is a lot of left learning ideology behind hte FOSS development and also these t…
There are many Indie projects out there who have very less likelyhood of being taken over by a big org.
Re: Ask HN: Do you contribute to open source? Why? Why not?
#29I'm not contributing to any free / open source projects. I think that that FOSS is fueling the technology monopolies, despite originally aiming at the exact opposite. I think it has driven many software markets in the ground like for example tooling. I cannot believe that we use absolutely horrible software like GDB in 2020. I think there is a lot of left learning ideology behind hte FOSS development and also these t…
Can you elaborate on how foss fuels tech monopolies? I've never understood that argument and would like to hear more.
I think he means what Google, Amazon, Microsoft are doing, they pick open source software, they hire programmers to extend the projects and they make it their own
Re: Ask HN: Do you contribute to open source? Why? Why not?
#30I do. It’s like torrenting, at least some people in the swarm have to seed to a certain ratio to keep the swarm going. It’s my way of paying back the benefits I’ve received from other people’s work on FOSS.