I have much to write concerning this topic, but I’ll summarize all I have to say in these 8 reasons. There are so many reasons why people join open source communities and contribute code and/or ideas.
What is Open source?
The term “open source” refers to something people can modify and share because its design is publicly accessible.
What is Open source software?
Open source software is software with source code that anyone can inspect, modify, and enhance.
These definitions were gotten from opensource.com.
An open source community is a just a group of developers that contribute code to a particular open source project. An open source organization can have one or more open source projects. For example, LibreHealthOrganization has 3 main projects: LibreHealthEHR, LibreHealth Radiologyand LibreHealth Toolkit. There are many other open source organizations you can find here.
Now down to the real thing! 8 reasons to be part of an OS community.
#1. Improves your skills
When I first joined LibreHealth in September 2017, I had knowledge of PHP, but I hadn’t worked on any software as huge as the EHR at LibreHealth. This is about 9 months being in the organization, and I can’t measure how much I’ve learned from the community at this time. The knowledge I have of PHP, JavaScript and the web, in general, is more than 3x what I had before joining LibreHealth.
Shifting from programming, I really appreciate how I’ve been more organized and able to plan tasks and allocate time for them.
I’ve learned several new tools thanks to this open source venture. The list is long, I’ll list few of them here: git, GitHub, GitLab, GitKraken, Laravel, Docker and Kubernetes. Docker and Kubernetes are not used at LibreHealth for now, but I knew what the tools are at LibreHealth.
#2. Learn how to collaborate
Working in a team is a very important aspect of Engineering, especially in the Software field. Most employers look for people who are able to collaborate with other workers on a project. It’s a key aspect. Open source helps you train this skill. Most open source organizations are VERY welcoming to newcomers, so you shouldn’t shy away for fear of rejection.
Working on a project other developers has been made easy with tools like Git, GitHub, GitLab, BitBucket… long list. I learned Git about 4 years ago and was comfortable creating my personal repositories or working with 1 or 2 friends and pushing new changes. It was easy for me to say I know Git and GitHub at the time. When I joined open source, my lack of Git and GitHub knowledge was revealed to me. Aspects of branching, rebasing, issues, pull requests etc came in, then I knew how ‘git-empty’ I was.
After messing up repositories every here and then, I finally got a grasp of the whole Git and GitHub concepts. This permits me to be able to help newcomers facing these issues in the organization. I can now push changes and modify those changes over and over without being a pain to other contributors, and project maintainers.
#3. Learn how to communicate
Another key aspect that is required in almost every field of work. Communication! With open source, you work with people you’ve never met, they’re spread all over the world, they grew up and think differently from you. Now, how do you communicate with these people?
Most OS organizations have chat groups and forums where they discuss issues concerning their projects, and the growth of the organization. You will learn how to put your ideas on the table, listen to others criticize your ideas with reasons. This helps you to be patient, and get others’ point of view on a particular topic. You may think you have the best solution to a problem, but another contributor is totally against your ideas. Open source will train you to be patient and take premeditated decisions in such situations.
#4. Know much about other groups of people without meeting physically
LibreHealth is made up of a mix of Africans (mostly Cameroonians from the University of Buea), Asians (mostly from India), Americans (mostly from the USA), Europeans, and all continents. I’ve come across medical doctors, teachers, marketers, and writers in the organization. This tells you that open source isn’t all about programmers.
Just imagine where you can place yourself in society if you can predict with some degree of certainty how someone will think or react to something. I have had a great understanding of Indians and Americans in the past 8–9months. Right now I feel I can live with these group of people comfortably. Thanks to open source.
#5. Networking and new friends
What do you think about working from your home? Great, right. At open source communities, depending on your work, a contribution of ideas and clean code, you could get a job. Many startups and top notch company owners are involved in open source software too. Your contributions may interest one of these people one day.
You make new friends. Right now I have great friends in USA and India, though we’ve never met physically. Hope we do in the near future. Abhinav Singh, Naveen, Apoorv Choubey, Terry Hill… long list. Terry Hill has been a very great mentor to me, but we’ve never met. At least we’ve met online!
#6. Travel opportunities for conferences and workshops
There are lots of conferences that are centred around the open source community. To acquire one of these scholarships and get travel funding, you’ll have to prove your impact in the open source community.
You can find a list of some tech conferences here. Visit this Google page to know if you’re eligible to apply for travel funding.
#7. Paid internships
Want reward for your work? If you’re a student, then your efforts will be paid if you keep contributing and making important changes to the codebase. There are several internships schemes related to open source contributions. Some of these programs are Google Summer of Code, Google Code-In, Outreachy, Rails Girl Summer of Code and there are so many that you’ll find here.
Some of these programs offer stipends during and after completion of the internships. I’ve mentor Google Code-In at LibreHealth, and I can I tell you how much students learn during that period.
#8. You can be a mentor
It always a pleasure being a mentor. Personally, I think it’s the best way to learn. You have this ‘younger’ person looking up to you, and you don’t have to fail that person. You have it as a responsibility to provide solutions to your mentees worries, or at least propose a solution.
At the end of it all, you learn new things and understand old ones better while helping others. You fill the gaps in the knowledge you’d acquired.
Are you moved to join any Open source community???
I suggest you try LibreHealth. We’re open to any kind of person passionate about Health. Well if you’re not passionate yet, then you can learn to be! Join our chat and our forum and introduce yourself, and you’ll have a warm welcome from one of the members.
Like my article??? DON’T stop clapping.
Did I miss any important reason why you anyone should join an open source community? Why did you join your open source community? Leave your answers in the comment section.
Thank you for reading this long ‘thing’.
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