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Ask HN: Do you contribute to open source projects?

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Re: Ask HN: Do you contribute to open source projects?

#31

Post by DyslexicAtheist »

csben wrote: post #13
DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #5

I use FOSS in my personal computing needs which heavily intersects with my professional interests. Using 3rd party (FOSS) exposes me to bugs, issues with documentation, problems running things on esoteric hardware, security issues, eventually performance issues. Because of this I often need feedback from maintainers and I'm at their mercy for how fast my issue is resolved. Supplying a patch, giving feedback for issue…

The idea that senior engineers need public commits to be even considered for a job seems a little extreme to me. There are myriad reasons why an extremely competent senior engineer might not have public commits. The lack of public commits does not signal whether or not someone is a competent senior engineer.

I guess if the rest of the CV was a really strong match, I'd give them a chance but they'd have to do a "technical interview" same as any other junior. I can only speak for myself that I haven't seen many CV's in my environment where 98% of the stack is built on FOSS and 100% of the tooling uses FOSS that an expert in that field has never contributed anything to a FOSS project, has never asked a question on an issue or created an issue (and also lacks any other public facing work like personal projects, talks, blogs, etc). I'd also interview them if they were recommended by a colleague.

Re: Ask HN: Do you contribute to open source projects?

#34

Post by azemetre »

I like to contribute to open source! Mostly in the form of documentation and guides. I find writing proper how-to tutorials very rewarding and a good way that I can contribute to any given project.

Everyone appreciates guides about integrating various tooling with other tools, and there's a lot of decent work to be done in this area.

I also like to use the opportunity to hone my writing skills. I haven't written too many guides, but the most popular one is a POC on using playwright to create simple tests. It still gets a modest amount of views per day, 20-30. I also get a kick out of seeing my work linked within a Microsoft project. Always brings a smile out of me.

Re: Ask HN: Do you contribute to open source projects?

#36

Post by the_common_man »

yahn00 wrote: post #18

Yes by using them thereby giving the developers reason to get out of bed. More seriously; no. The license gives no warranty for the software, or potential issues I encounter. If the developer would take more professional responsibility there, I might feel like funding or contributing somehow. But if their approach is this is free stuff no strings, my approach is freely take and provide no guarantees in return.

Which is fine but why be so mean about it? Do you have the same attitude to benovalent people in real life?

Re: Ask HN: Do you contribute to open source projects?

#38

Post by DyslexicAtheist »

lnsru wrote: post #16
DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #5

I use FOSS in my personal computing needs which heavily intersects with my professional interests. Using 3rd party (FOSS) exposes me to bugs, issues with documentation, problems running things on esoteric hardware, security issues, eventually performance issues. Because of this I often need feedback from maintainers and I'm at their mercy for how fast my issue is resolved. Supplying a patch, giving feedback for issue…

Big corp I work for will not allow me to write single line of code for open source projects. I might leak something confidential this way. The reality is not black and white like you try to paint it. Heck I had problems with leaking confidential information when supplied electrical diagram with mechanical drawing for one of the suppliers.

how much does your employer benefit from FOSS? if they do use it but prevent their own people from giving back it sounds like they're terrible people but also pretty dumb because they're losing out on building knowhow about those systems among their own workforce (I'm obviously not shocked if that is the case).

Re: Ask HN: Do you contribute to open source projects?

#40

Post by andrew_ »

I've been involved in FOSS since '99 and have been a prolific contributor since 2012. It's a hobby, a passion, something to keep my skills fresh and the edge sharp. It's also fun for me to put my stuff out there and see how others might use it. I'm on a few core teams of some major projects. I usually time box open source to 4-6 hours a week, unless sponsored by my employer.
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