Reply to: Open Source Benching

[NickFitz]

Also if you use Open Source tools it's always good to give back to the community, it doesn't have to be coding, documentation, sysadmin, helping out newbies, etc.

Agreed. I was hunted down at a conference and hired by Yahoo! as a direct consequence of my activity in the YUI community and several bug reports, with fixes, that I'd submitted.

[NickNick]

Some of it is Good IMHO, but some of it (The powerpoint clone) is awful, just truly awful both on Windows and Ubuntu.

[portseven]

Open Office needs all the help it can get at the moment in my opinion

Aww, its not that bad

[NickNick]

Might be good to go for some of the more well known ones. I know Openoffice.org is crying out for help, also Ubuntu has a very active community, and is quite good at bringing people in.

Open Office needs all the help it can get at the moment in my opinion. Ubuntu however, is an excellent product. My business use it as standard on all it's machines.

;o)

NN

[portseven]

Are there any particular ones you would recommend getting involved in?

Might be good to go for some of the more well known ones. I know Openoffice.org is crying out for help, also Ubuntu has a very active community, and is quite good at bringing people in.

You can also check out GNU Savannah, which has a good 'help wanted' section.

Pick a project that you are interested in and just get stuck in!

[SueEllen]

Open sores software is for hippies/communists.

I would not hire such a person.

[dude69]

Open sores software is for hippies/communists.

I would not hire such a person.

[BrilloPad]

Have been involved in Open Source community for a number of years and even had a few articles published, looks good on the CV's and is always talked about in interviews.

Also if you use Open Source tools it's always good to give back to the community, it doesn't have to be coding, documentation, sysadmin, helping out newbies, etc.

Are there any particular ones you would recommend getting involved in?

[portseven]

Have been involved in Open Source community for a number of years and even had a few articles published, looks good on the CV's and is always talked about in interviews.

Also if you use Open Source tools it's always good to give back to the community, it doesn't have to be coding, documentation, sysadmin, helping out newbies, etc.

[Cowboy Bob]

I've got a few projects up on SourceForge that I mention on my CV and without fail they end up getting brought up at interview - always in a very positive way.

[t0bytoo]

I've been working for the last year or so with open source tools and have found that most people looking to hire me aren't impressed that I don't contribute anything...

Some days I think I should put up a blog, etc, but truth is I can't be a*sed... So long as there's work coming in.

[NotAllThere]

If you can get paid to do your hobby, then why do it outside of work?

If I was recruiting someone with benchtime on their CV, that had been filled with opensource, I would consider this to be very positive.

If they did opensource work during evenings and weekends, while in contract, I'd just ring for security...

[NickNick]

I've a friend who swears by the fact that having "programming" as a hobby makes you more employable as a "programmer". However, the last thing I want to do when i get home is carry on doing the same sort of thing I've been doing all day.

[BlasterBates]

Yes it will do you good, I was reading an internal c++ chat, and some senior permies were in agreement that programming as a hobby is something that would impress them, in fact one of them is an open source developer.

[Sockpuppet]

I can't say it would make a difference wither way unless the work you did was ground breaking or the freeware app became really successful.