What are the benefits of contributing to open source projects? [closed]

Question

A year ago I was a big fan of .NET. I was developing custom applications on demand and it was not hard to understand how you can live by doing this kind of job - the customer asks you to make a custom application, you arrange the price, do the job and earn money.

Now I hear more and more people talking about open source projects and collective intelligence which seems a great concept to contribute something to the innovation. But of course as a full-time employee it is hard to find time to work for free and I don't understand what are other benefits of contributing to open source projects beside personal satisfaction.

I would be very thankful if you could explain how the contribution to the open source project could be paid off.

Thanks.

Answer 1

There are a few benefits to working on open source projects. I'll be brief here and allow you to work out the detail as you go.

1. Experience. You'll get to use some stuff you probably won't get to use in your day job.
2. Fun. It will be a project you've chosen, so you can enjoy it a bit more.
3. Freedom. There will probably be less rules about what you can use and how funky you can make things (within reason)
4. You Need It! You'll probably choose a product that you have some need for but you want to contribute to the features.

Just because something is open source, doesn't mean it isn't "commercially viable". For example, you might charge for the service of installing, configuring and guiding a client who uses the application and the fact that the software is open source is a big selling point. You don't make money from license fees, you make money from consultancy.

Answer 2

As far as employability is concern? Street cred.

Peer-interviewers often take (varying degrees of) stock in a fellow programmer's contribution to open source projects, especially if you're at a junior level. It shows self-motivation, proactive-ness, ability to work in distributed teams, proof that you've actually used some sort of version control, etc.