Open Source Programmers: Why do you participate?

Question

What is the main motivation behind why you contribute to an open source project?

Possible reason I have identified:

• Freedom to express your ideas
• an environment where you can develop new ideas
• Relationships, Teamwork and sense of community
• Professional skills development, including for your resume
• Employed by an open source organization
• Pure fun (You enjoy coding, graphic designing etc)
• Ideological reasons - Open source philosophy

Please state your reason below or vote for the comment which you feel most describes your reasoning. Comments may be included in my university dissertation.

Hopefully this question is within the rules. Thanks for reading

Personally for me it's the satisfaction I get from knowing that I've contributed to something without reward. I guess an ego boost from acting selflessly.

Answer 1

Well, I'm currently a student and have lots of free time. In order to build up a portfolio for future employment I volunteer on FOSS projects.

It also helps that my CompSci classes all request that we release our code under a GPL compatible license.

Plus, solving programming problems are fun, and it's even more fun to solve a problem and know that people are going to make use of your solution.

ESR's Homesteading the Noosphere might also make interesting reading, it attempts to liken FOSS to a post-scarcity gift culture, where the only motivation is reputation. (sort of the way SO works as well)

Answer 2

For me it goes like this:

1. Add a feature or fix a bug
2. "You know, I wish someone had done this so I didn't have to."
3. "Hey! I can be that someone!"
4. ???
5. Open source contributor

You get a warm fuzzy feeling, and get some "street creds" which is Real Handy when you need to differentiate yourself from the 300 other job applicants.

Cheers, Steve

Answer 3

A good reason to participate in a open source project is to have a lot of people examining a solution you proposed without the rules and constraints you have to challenge in a regular IT company. Your ideas will be evaluated by their value to the project, not to a marketing orientation.

Answer 4

For me, it's generally a selfish-motivation: if there's a feature missing or a bug that affects me, then I will consider making contributions to the project to help improve it for myself. However, part of the motivation is also altruistic; I know and appreciate that any improvement I made will help others and in general help the open-source movement.

As a student, it is also a good way to build a portfolio, and a good use of free time you might find in the late hours of the night.

Answer 5

First reason : working on personal project that can interest people but without any money to make from.

Second reason : reapear a bug that affect me on an open source project and give the patch for everyone.

Third reason : Good on cv to had done open source programming

Fourth reason : Be happy to help people, believe to belongs to a community...

Answer 6

I have always been intrigued by Open Source, but I have never fully understood the benefits. I guess part of it is my capitalistic mind set. Why should I give something away for free when I could potentially use it to make money? However, answering questions to others problems helps the entire community, because I get my answers from the community as well.

Answer 7

My participation so far has been almost completely because I wanted the changes and additions enough to code them. In other words, because what I did was worth doing for myself. Doing it for fame, glory, resume building, etc., is somewhat dubious in the sense that it may not get you what you're after and your motivation to code doesn't come directly from the desire to write good code.

Answer 8

As others have said... Usually it's because there's a bug or missing feature from a project I am using. I pretty much always pass my enhancements/fixes upstream. Another motivator is reputation, or portfolio. Experience also helps for those relatively new to development, or in school. It's also what all the cool devs are doing! ;)

Generally, it's a group work effort. Some people get it, some don't. If you need a component or utility that is not a core part of your business, it doesn't hurt to work with others that have a similar need. If you spend 5 hours, and a few other companies have employees spend a similar amount of time, you wind up with something everyone can use for less than the cost of a commercial alternative. There is a valid business drive here, and it doesn't have to be solely motivated by altruism.

Answer 9

to save the world. :-)

Answer 10

When I started working in industry I was amazed at how much open source software was written by industry. I always thought it was hackers in their garage. Open source makes lots of sense when it is written for an industry especially when it isn't vital to their competitive advantage. For example I was working on the intranet for the company I was at. We were using an open source product. When we found bugs it was to our advantage to fix them. When we needed new features it was nice to be able to add them and it was great to contribute back and have them in the next release. As intranet software wasn't our primary industry it was to our advantage to pay almost nothing and have something we could customize and give back with.

Answer 11

I have worked in a couple of companies where we were doing consulting, and we built some amazing tools. After the projects were over, our customers owned the software and we couldn't use it any more. I started my current (open source) project in my spare time because it was something I was interested in. I thought there was some chance others would be interested in it, so I published it. I put open source license notices in it so other people could use it, and I could be sure that it would stay open.

Now I have a couple of consulting clients paying me for support and enhancements, and they all understand that they don't own the software. I can continue to maintain and enhance the code, I get paid for the work, and I know that the software continues to be something I can use, no matter who else makes use of it.

Answer 12

I get paid to do so.

That's how most of my code for open source projects is written. I would probably contribute a little in my free time even if I didn't get paid, but really the vast majority of code I write (and a pretty sizable majority of most successful open source projects) is written professionally.

Answer 13

I participate because of my own needs. I have create projects because I needed the functionality. I shared the code because I want it better, and I want to see what others think of it. In that way I try to improve myself in the craft.

Answer 14

Definitely "Pure fun (You enjoy coding, graphic designing etc)"

That's not to say my open source projects haven't been rewarding. There's been some ad income, lots of career networking, and the educational benefit of a broader experience than I would get through employment alone.