Why do we do Open Source?

In general:

Developers earn money (mostly) by creating code. And what allows them to do code (mostly) is an open source free software – fair enough.

Case:

Our work is also based on open source projects, we use them every day. And as we make our living from using open source projects we feel that we owe something to the community, that we need to pay back our own contribution. To create the greater good that everyone may benefit from.

Yeah, we’ve all heard that before, right? ;-)

Besides paying a debt of gratitude, are there other reasons for opensourcing our own code? What exactly makes us do the open source?

'Work it, make it, do it, makes us...'

‘It's hard to think of a free, open source software as the one of a good quality!’ – one may claim. Nothing could be further from the truth! Hundreds of thousands skilled developers, day by day cast an expert eye over committed code trying to work it. Continuously and thoroughly. No bugs allowed.

That makes a great opportunity for us, to do our best. If we're creating the software which is planned to be accessible to the general public we’ll make every effort to do it at the highest level. Once the code is open, it will surely be reviewed by other devs.

As an addition, making a contribution to the open source community is the best way to show technical aspects of our work to a wide audience. And though sometimes it may not be the perfect one, still, we're proud of it! Remember transparent values we follow? We've got nothing to hide.

'...work it harder, make it better...'

Once your code exists (and runs) there comes a time for some improvements. Open source software has its undeniable advantage which is the ability to be customized. Literally. One is allowed to take a piece of the code, introduce some modifications, change it and adjust to his own needs, sometimes even make it work in a completely different way. Just like we do - accordingly to our current needs and ideas, we’re happy to modify an already existing chunks of our code.

What is more, publishing our work is still great opportunity to confront our code with other's solutions. Some ingenious developers will surely show us a totally different point of view, aspects of our open source software that we've never had the chance to notice. Their suggestions and solutions often surprise us by bringing to light features and improvements we didn’t notice before. Since the code is open, it's simply a matter of modifications to add the functionality one wants.

The best part of open sourcing is that we can play with our code with pleasure. There is no time for the rush, no deadlines, and precise requirements. Just our imaginary. It helps us to stay in vibrant shape, practice our creativity, have a little fun and in the same time - develop our code under the vigilant eyes of other developers.

'...do it faster, make us stronger...'

Everyone can make our work stronger, every suggestion matters, we’d be more than happy to hear your opinion. We've got some interesting open source projects in our sleeves that may interest you.

For example, have you heard about 'LIT – Lost in (rails) translation?' It is an engine for effective translating rails applications into foreign languages. https://prograils.com/posts/lost-in-rails-translation

Or how about 'Reward them' application – a simple app for rewarding co-workers? https://prograils.com/posts/reward-them

'...our work is never over.'

That's right, 'never over', so if you want to stay up to date with our work find out more about our open sourced commitments. Feel invited to drop in and follow Prograils on GitHub!

Credits:

1 – Writing itself and the concept of this blog post was boosted by the Daft Punk's song titled: "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger". Probably that is the reason why some lyrics are quoted above.

2 - Also, text as a whole is decorated by the picturesque photo taken from unsplash.com)