why do you contribute to other’s repositories?

I’m interested to hear from other open-source coders out there. I’d like to know some of your motivations for contributing to another person’s or another team’s open-source repository. Call it a social studies experiment, if you will.

1st-Person Open-source

Here, I’m attempting to answer the question for everyone: “Why do you work on your own project in a public way and sharing your source code, knowing full-well that someone may take your code or fork your project and become rich and famous as a result?”

1. I believe that my project has some worth for others and sharing it could make the world a better place to live in
2. Other people might help me with my project
3. A well-rounded github set of repositories looks good on my résumé
4. I’m not expecting to make money from doing this
5. Since I don’t live in America, there aren’t as many opportunities so this is my way of getting some attention from potential companies there

Let me know if I’ve missed any motivations here.

2nd/3rd-Person Open-source

This one’s a little trickier for me since I’ve been a life-time coder. In the not-so-distant past I was well-paid for working on software projects and have watched the coding salaries and the availability of programming gigs all erode.

The next question then for everyone: “Why do you work on someone else’s project in a public way, fixing their bugs and adding features, knowing full-well that some else may become rich and famous as a result?”

Case study – Github: Bloomberg reports that they recently brought in another $100M in venture capital based upon the Enterprise-level private repository revenue they’re currently earning. They’re currently valued at US$2B.

1. I really like the other project’s code (let’s say, the Atom editor), believe in it and want it to be more awesome than it already is; since I use it myself, I’m getting something from the collaboration
2. I want to work on a big project but I can’t otherwise get a job in a software development company so this is the next best thing; I’m getting the experience working in a software development team
3. “Many hands make light work”; it feels good to help others; karma; “what comes around, goes around”…
4. As a new programmer, I don’t have enough experience to start my own project yet
5. Since I don’t live in America, there aren’t as many opportunities so this is my way of getting some attention from potential companies there; I might get hired by doing this

If I’ve missed any of your own motivations for coding on other people’s/team’s open-source projects, please add a comment here.

Some Thoughts on the Open-source Subject

What’s strange is when you have an entire team of people spread all over the planet, they’re working together on a project started by one guy (let’s say), time goes by, the project goes viral and then suddenly one day that “one guy” gets $250M in venture capital (like in the case of github). It’s valued at US$2B at the moment, btw. That’s about the same value as the New York Times.

I wonder if the investment companies realize that for the average open-source “company” this means that 1) they’re not necessarily incorporated, 2) they probably don’t have an office nor even a business checking account, 3) and anyone can fork the collection of code and start their own Atom-knockoff project if they wanted to.

And what happens to all the people whose free labor went into making github who they are today? Do they get a share of the money? No, they don’t. Do they get a job? Possibly, I suppose it all depends upon that original guy. But at this point, the power has greatly shifted from what it was before (more of a democratic society) to what it is now (more of a capitalistic corporation).

The siren call of open-source is a world which is free from capitalism. But what seems to happen is that these big projects are becoming exactly that, the thing these coders hated in the first place (or so it would seem). Open-source is supposed to be a culture. So why is it turning into nothing more than a first step to becoming a (funded) software development corporation in the end?