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Open source life style

Posted by on June 23, 2010

Open source is a life style. — Michelangelo Van Dam

Some developers identify open source with weekends spent coding and programs given away for free, but this is not the full picture nor a balanced one. Open source consists not only in contributing to projects with code or documentations, but also in every other activity that provides value to the community: you don’t need to patch the PHP core to be active in the open source movement.

For example, in the last year I published a lot of material on my personal blog, including a free ebook on practical testing in PHP applications. As a result of the exposure my articles gave me, I got to be employed as a freelance blogger here at php|architect and to speak at my first conference.

There are also more immediate benefits from writing for the community: if English is not your native language, using it nearly everyday will also improve your proficiency. English is one of the standards of the open source world and of the business one.

Code

Of course also code can be important: for example, my contributions to Doctrine 1 and 2 gave me credibility when writing about it. We usually can’t show our private projects since they are confidential, and certainly a customer won’t let you open source his website.

Writing code samples is a mandatory step in the interviews of every place where you would want to work. If your code is out in the wild, it has double value: first, for the users of the project you helped and second, for you to show your skills to potential employers. If you take the step of jumping from the perspective of an end-user of a framework or a library to a contributor or active developer, would you then need a certification? What sounds better on your résumé, that you can work with Zend Framework, or that you created a part of it?

Moreover, writing open source code makes you learn new patterns and practices, and you can choose what you are interested in so that your work won’t be boring. This is one of the factors that makes working on open source attractive where no monetary reward is present: the joy of hacking.

Once you have started coding on open source projects, your contributions can make your name recognized: people dig into source code very often and @author annotation remains naturally impressed after seeing many of them. Years ago I wondered who this Sebastian Bergmann was.

Open source your career

Thus, participating in the community with code, articles, documentation, and whatever provides value to others can really help your career. Often in subtle ways: the web is open to anyone and you never know who is receiving your content. For instance, Lorna Jane Mitchell came to know that one of the reasons she stands out during candidate selection and now works at iBuildings was an Oracle podcast she did for zend.com.

Now she is giving a talk about open source stories, and she’s looking for people that are willing to recount to her how contributing to the open source movement have helped them advance in their careers. If you feel community involvement helped you get where you are, tell her your story.

Image from Wikimedia Commons


Marco is the keeper of keys and Chief Garbage Collector at Blue Parabola. He can be found on Twitter as @mtabini.
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Responses and Pingbacks

Thanks for the kudos, but you’ve done so much more than I was able to do, especially with your articles on unit testing and design patterns. And your eBook is with me all the time.

Thanks,

Michelangelo

yeah/. you’ve done so much. maybe lot’s of people give thanks to you because of your any opinion or idea in this site….

OpenSource is the taste of the new generation developers since they are free, easily accessible, customizable, distributable without any copyright issues.

participating in the community with code, articles, documentation, and whatever provides value to others can really help. Often in subtle ways: the web is open to anyone and you never know who is receiving your content

Well, it is decent, but how about the other options we have here? Do you mind crafting one more post regarding these as well? Thanks!

I found this post whilst researching openSource and coptright and i’m glad i did.
Bini is wrong saying “distributable without any copyright issues” the author still has entitlement to credit for their work.

Hello!
I also agree with you.”Some developers identify open source with weekends spent coding and programs given away for free, but this is not the full picture nor a balanced one. Open source consists not only in contributing to projects with code or documentations, but also in every other activity that provides value to the community”. I am also trying to learn .php. I have a site for branded products , I strongly recommend you visit here.
Thank you

OpenSource is a good options for many companies, especially those don’t have a big budget to invest in software. There are many tools like Open Office the equivalent of Microsoft office that works perfect and it is free, no copyright issues.

Open Source’s proponents often claim that it offers significant benefits when compared to typical commercial products. Commercial products typically favour visible features over harder-to measure qualities such as stability, security and similar less glamorous attributes.

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