

Ask HN: Does Open-Source matter? - maxamante

Does the tech industry take care of it own? More specifically, does more open-source projects mean a karmic increase in successes and good outcomes, whether it be financial or personal?<p>I have been wondering this for a while. Of all the stories and articles I've read on HN and other such sites, I've noticed that a lot of people thanking all their open-source work for the jobs they've been offered. Now, despite this, my mind is stuck on whether open-source really matters. I know for the users and I suppose for some coders, open-source projects are very significant. They allow free, and usually solid new features for the users and more code for hackers to read through and learn from. But does open-source actually benefit its creators?<p>I mean that open-source is usually free, so most are working for free to get out some new, interesting feature that could have made them millions but won't.<p>So does giving away your time to the industry through open-source mean that you will be rewarded in some later success?
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sebg
Open-source matters because it's free to play. Anybody anywhere in the world
can open up a browser and get access to the best thinking / practices of
projects in esoteric languages all the way through common place languages.

For people who open source systems/ideas/etc (think DHH and ruby on rails for
the current hotness, they get thousands of people to play with their framework
and make it better. This benefits DHH and colleagues while benefiting
everybody else).

For those who contribute, it allows them to show off their knowledge and/or
skills. By contributing you get to meet and chat with all kinds of intelligent
people as well as learn best practices.

