Open Source Contributions

How is it different to people contributing to Open Source software in their free time?

Not everyone works on open source projects.

They might be looking for some open-source fame. The contribution to their resume is more important than the contribution to the project.

Why do people contribute to open source?

I have been hired by a software company to develop one of their SDKs which has been open-sourced later. After this job ended I kept working with them and a some of my contributions were and are still towards open-source projects which are mostly promoted by the company themselves. I, personally, don't have experience with working fulltime on OSS but I read some stories about it where companies hire people to maintain a project they use internally similar to a SLA.In my freetime I try to

No no no.This work should be part of your total, main, comp. Working on open-source projects directly contributes to your employer's business, even if the code of that project doesn't get used in those systems. You're building your team's brand (and yes, your own, too). Because other Engineers want to work in an environment where OSS is encouraged, this reduces costs of hiring and retaining Engineers. At $20/hr Formidable is getting recruiting on the cheap.

Why do open source guys work for free?

Why would you ever hire someone to help with a personal open source project?

This really depends on the project. Many people just do it in their spare time and have a normal software engineer or similar role working on proprietary software using open source. Some are still at university and studying. Some are contracting and probably also get some new customers thorough their open source work.I do not have real data, but I assume that more than 50% of the effort invested in open source is not directly paid by a company. For the Linux kernel 20% to 30% of the commits c

why not just dive into open source and contribute your work on a project you care for ?... just let the day job pay your bills.