First, let’s talk a little about why you want to gain influence in open source projects in the first place. There are three different tiers of value that individuals and organizations get from open source code.
- Take it and use it. (Great value.) It’s free, right? And there’s great value in that because you didn’t have to write the code. A lot of this software has been around for a long period of time, so you know it’s stable and it’s reliable, so it’s just a great resource.
- Customize it for your specific needs and contribute those changes back to the project. (Higher value.) You can continue to evolve with that project, pulling in changes that others have made that give great benefit to you as well. (See our guide to Participating in Open Source Communities for more.)
- Recognize this transformation occurring in your industry and rely on the platform that everybody in the industry is working on together. (Highest value.) When you start to lead feature sets and activities in those projects, you have a tremendous influence on what’s happening next.
Read more at The Linux Foundation
