The value of contributing to open source
The primary value of contributing to open source projects is that it gives you access to awesome software that you can modify for your needs! You also gain the following:
- Knowledge
- Skills
- Opportunities to work on impactful projects
- Purpose
- Friendship
- Opportunities for networking
- Access to amazing developers
- A portfolio
- The ability to build your reputation
When developers talk about open source, they usually mean participating in open source projects or contributing code to libraries or software they use and like.
The definition of open source itself comes from the Open Source Initiative (OSI). It is a set of rules on how to license software in a way that allows people to learn from it by having access to the source code. You can modify the source code for your own purposes and publish the modifications for others. The open source definition creates the basic ground rules that allow all of us...
