Overview

I came across this survey from Digital Ocean that takes a deep dive into understanding what devs think about contributing to open source.

In the survey we can say the list of open source projects sorted by popularity and it is no surprise that projects like React and Linux are some of the most favorable.

Google was found to be the most supportive when it comes to open source.

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Contributing to open source

There was 1 part which took me by surprise where a large percentage find it a challenge to contribute to open source.

The article states:

Two of the most prominent barriers preventing developers from getting involved in open source are not knowing where to begin, and doubting they have the right skills.

In my opinion some projects like Dev.to are very well documented on Github. Even though I may not be very knowledgeable with Ruby I am sure anyone can get their head around it as ultimately its the basic programming principles that count.

Having said that, there are a number of projects that should follow the same standards. This is where I have to admit that more needs to be done to encourage developers to contribute.

What is your take on this? Do you agree that these barriers exist? What could be improved? Let me know in the comments below.

Reason No. 3

The third reason which doesn’t surprise me at all:

Companies not giving their employees time to contribute is also a large factor.

It is maybe high time that more companies allocate a day a week where devs can spend X amount of time on open source projects or just learning something new.

This is something we do at Root Codex where we encourage our devs to contribute and take time every week to work on some form of pet project.

Did you have or are currently facing such barriers when it comes to contributing your code?

Do you contribute to open source? And if so which project?

Is there something, as a community that we can do to help others overcome these barriers?

Looking forward to hearing from you! 🙂

Full survey may be found at:

https://www.digitalocean.com/currents/october-2018/?utm_source=dev.to