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..sort of. I'm sure I could make time if I were determined enough, but it's hard to feel good about spending 8+ hours working in front of a screen, then spending more hours working in front of a screen for free. It's probably more of a mental + physical health concern than anything else.
Now that I'm working full-time on open-source and my own company I can contribute more easily to projects like upgrading SQLite source in a few bindings libraries [0], [1], [2] when 3.38 came out.
If anyone is interested in contributing to open-source and wants a bit more guidance though I have a number of good "first timer" projects related to data tooling for [3]. Only expectation is that you have some experience with Go. Join discord.multiprocess.io, go to the #dev channel and say hi!
[0] https://github.com/mattn/go-sqlite3/pull/1019
[1] https://github.com/mapbox/node-sqlite3/pull/1550
Ask your employer if you can submit documentation or a patch to a project if you notice a bug. It's unlikely they would say no as long as it contains no proprietary information. You can give them a whole pitch about how open source is free software that somebody else maintains, and that you contributing a fix is much cheaper than you having to maintain your own private patches and apply and fix them every time the software is changed upstream. It's saving them time and money. It also gives your company a better reputation among hackers, making it easier to hire good people.
The idea is to put together a project that gives an overview of how to set up a minimal viable web application from scratch via all the different frameworks.
For each framework the project features a self-explanatory shell script that builds a web app with routing, templates and user accounts. So there is no ambiguity of how to reproduce the results. And it is even possible to just copy&paste the steps into a fresh Linux installation, see the framework in action and build your own application on top of it.
The scripts have one part for every aspect like routing, templates, accounts. So if you want to compare how the frameworks do templating, you can look at the "Let's use templates" part and have a quick overview of how it is done in Django, Laravel, Flask, Symfony, NextJS...
So far, 5 developers have joined and contributed. Django and Flask are complete. Laravel and Symfony have routing and templates but no user accounts yet. I wonder if this distribution of contributions across the frameworks is somehow telling about their ecosystems?
Here is the repo:
I've just recently started doing it, and I only put in a few hours each week. Slow and steady wins the race. My motivation is three-fold: First, it's gratifying to give something back to software I love using for free. Second, I learn a lot. Third, if I ever want to work with one of the companies who are stewarding these repos, it gives me a leg up in the application process.
0: https://github.com/owid/owid-grapher
Earlier quoted context omitted.
nitpick: 30 or so years later, can we still call Open Source a "movement"?
Yes
It is in my best interest to send my changes to the library maintainer so that i do not have to maintain my own fork of the library.
It is not always in best interest of maintainers to merge my changes because it is either more work for them or their purposes for the library are too different from mine.
Maintaining an open source project is a lot of work and i would also like to hear more from maintainers about their motivation to do it.
I've used open source whenever possible for a long time but never "gave back". It was a matter of finding the right thing to contribute to. When I found and used SolveSpace, I loved the tool but found it a bit limited in capability. Looking at the dates on the repository I found that the areas I thought needed work hadn't been touched in at least 2 years. Then I realized if I wanted it to be better it's my job to make it so. It's still the only project I really contribute to, but there are a couple others I may get involved in at some point. I no longer have a lot of time for programming as a hobby, so I view this as me doing volunteer work. It's a bit of responsibility I've decided to take on at least as much as it is a fun thing.
Your reasons for doing and your choice of project will be your own.
I use Linux and most s/w I've installed are free and open source. Also, not software as such, but I've benefitted a lot from free programming learning resources.
So, I try to pay it forward similarly by answering questions on stackoverflow/reddit/etc, giving away free copies of my ebooks, open sourcing s/w I've written, promoting open source, etc.
See also: https://opensource.guide/how-to-contribute/ - section 4 has handy links to find projects