7 reasons for a developer to contribute to open-source projects
Why developers should contribute to open source projects? It is taking time and effort. You do not get paid. Why do that?
There are many reasons for that. I will describe 7 reasons for you to become part of an Open Source project like “Open Flutter Project: E-commerce App”.
1. Improve your skills.
Every time you work in a new team you get to know new stuff. You can get feedback on your work from other people all over the world. You can find out that the same problem you faced was already solved by somebody else many times.
You do not have to do all the tasks and can only pick those that you are most interested in or already did in other projects.
You can find a mentor for yourself or become one for others.
2. Do things you are not able to do at your work.
The jobs of a developer is always getting us to a position when we need to do something that is decided by others: system analysts, project or product managers. So you have to work on issues because you have to due to your job responsibilities. You can choose what tasks to work on in an open-source project by yourself.
Another benefit of contributing to open source projects is to be able to do things in the way you think is right or not do it at all.
You have a choice to improve a feature and propose your variant. Just fork the repo, do your update and make a pull request. I will describe the general workflow in another article.
3. Start your career
If you are only starting your career as a software developer then taking part in an open-source project is a great option. First, you get to know how things are being organized in software development. You get to know git, the technology(of course start with Flutter), additional skillset you might need in your job.
If you are a strong developer please help me carry this computer to another desk.
Second, you understand the workflow and the process of development. You get feedback on things that you should do and should not do while working in a team. You can ask questions and get answers from other people.
4. Prove your qualification
If you already have some skills then you can prove what you can do by contributing to an open-source project. Do you know how the developers are being recognized right now? Guess what — using their GitHub account including the source code they contribute to their projects or to open source projects. You can do a project yourself, of course. Spend some time, produce a nice result and get it to be used by someone. Will you have time to support or improve it afterward? Maybe you will, but in most cases, you won’t. The full-time job or freelance probably will take most of your working hours. A group of developers can do a lot more than one developer (unless we are talking about genius enthusiasts, but even them can do much more in a team than alone).
So you contribute to a project when you have time. Ten more developers do the same. The project gets usage, we get feedback and more updates needed. Let’s take an example when none of those ten developers can get a quick update to fix it but somebody else who did not have time before or new to the project can do the fix right now. So the project keeps on improving. Your work was done for a good purpose. Now others push it forward and you can continue your part at any time.
You can try to work on different positions within an open-source project.
If you are a developer but want to be a team leader then take the lead. Pick a feature, organize a small team of two or three people, establish communication and try to do it quicker than you would do it by yourself.
5. Contribute to providing meaningful results to the real user needs
A good open-source project should have the goal to build the best application/tool/library for users/business/other developers. You can not do the best thing without feedback from those who should use it. Doing open-source projects you will provide your better understanding of user needs, business needs and other things there that is terra incognita for most of the developers. That experience will distinguish you from others in the market because you will take part in a finished product where you have more information on what is going on,
a product that will walk that last mile to success.
6. Get to know new people.
Taking part in open source projects allows you to get to know more people than you potentially would meet in a year. Open Flutter Project right now has almost 1000 developers in our LinkedIn group that we got in less than a month. You connect with all of them immediately. Share your projects and libraries, your vision of the technology, provide feedback and get feedback from others, collaboration, build new features, talk to other developers in chat, get new team members, become a member of other teams. Get noticed by contributing to the project. All that become available for you as you join an Open Source Project.
7. Become part of the community.
We are always willing to be part of something bigger rather than ourselves.
Humans tend to be part of a group of common thinkers, people who share your values and interests.
That is exactly what you can get with Open Flutter Project. Besides feedback and help that you can get you to join a group of enthusiasts from all over the world that help each other improve skills, build great products and solutions, share experience and get new jobs. You can meet here your future colleagues, friends or someone more valuable for you. Imagine going to a conference every three months. Well, being part of an Open Source Community is almost the same thing taking place every day. Do not hesitate, take responsibility, contribute to Open Flutter Project and let’s create great products together.
Conclusion
Contributing to open-source projects is a great idea from any side.
If you have free time write the code, if not — help others.
The benefits you will get are numerous, the cost is affordable because you decide your level of involvement.
Join our Open Flutter Project and build with us the best E-commerce App that will be used by thousands of clients all over the world.
Open Flutter Project on LinkedIn
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