• Ugly Bob
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    5910 months ago

    Existing established open source projects? Basically never.

    My own piles of shit with open source licenses? All the time.

    • wvstolzing
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      1110 months ago

      Same here; also I once sent vim, the FreeBSD Foundation, & Thunderbird $5 each.

    • @thevoidzero
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      310 months ago

      Similar. But I do contribute by adding things I want to some projects I use if it’s simple enough.

      And my pile of shit has like 40 stars, so maybe I have one or two other users besides me.

      • @[email protected]
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        1110 months ago

        It’s more common than you might think. A lot of companies have open source codebases. In fact, I think almost every software engineer job I’ve had so far have had at least a little public code.

          • @[email protected]
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            10 months ago

            NC is not for code. Its literally the cancer that prevents people from being able to have a job developing FOSS

            • @FutileRecipe
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              1810 months ago

              NC is not for code.

              No, they’re doing it for their comment, not suggesting others use it for code. It’s the new take on “I do not give Facebook permission to use…” trend that went on years ago.

  • Alto
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    3610 months ago

    I try to contribute as much info as I can to Open Street Map on my walks.

  • @[email protected]
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    10 months ago

    104 contributions in last year on codeberg, 52 contributions on github (some are duplicated from codeberg due to mirroring), some more in other places.

  • @roertel
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    2910 months ago

    I like to think that using FOSS daily, singing its praises to everyone and filing out the occasional bug report counts.

    • @[email protected]
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      1210 months ago

      It does. I wish more people recognized that bug reports are contributions.

      Probably only 1% of users file bug reports. That means for every 100 times a bug is found by a user, 99 of them won’t bother reporting it. Devs can’t fix a bug they dont know about…

      • @[email protected]
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        510 months ago

        I think it depends on the project. Some maintainers really only want extremely comprehensive bug reports that realistically only another dev could produce. All kinds of logs, sometimes requiring special packages installed to produce them.

        Which makes sense because someone just saying “it crashes sometimes” doesnt provide much to go on.

      • @[email protected]
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        210 months ago

        Going to time and effort to help improve something = contributing

        Absolutely love others testing my code for me because they find things I would’ve never run into myself

  • @[email protected]
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    2310 months ago

    code: null, nada, nothing. dunno how issues: maybe 30 in 9 years using gnu/linux money: 1% of my income for 5 years now, to whatever project i find cool, mostly smaller ones tho

  • @[email protected]
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    1810 months ago

    My job is contributing to the building of an open source project full of shared tools and resources for businesses in my industry to share. I am part of a team of skilled developers and citizen developers across my industry that work to create shared FOSS tools to make all of us more efficient at our work.

    So about 60 hours per week.

      • @[email protected]
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        10 months ago

        I make a 6-figure salary. I should specify that the tools and software I help create are used by data analysts. I am treated in my company like a data engineer.

        • @thevoidzero
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          310 months ago

          And how do I find a job like that?

          • @[email protected]
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            410 months ago

            I sort of lucked into it. I have worked in IT my entire life outside of a couple years where I worked as a server in a restaurant. I also have a 2 year degree in software dev. I left a large company where I did travelling IT repair services for business and private homes to work at a small company as just a standard help desk style technician. I have a tendency to look for inefficiencies in my day to day work and I write scripts to remove those tasks from my day and then I share them with my team. I also have a strong background in cyber security (from personal studying) and infrastructure/DevOps from my own personal projects and home study. So I started getting brought in for infrastructure and cyber security discussions and meetings as a resource. Over the last X years the company has doubled in size and they created a data department and they needed someone to help build out not just the software but the server architecture, CICD workflows, deployment strategies and data ontology. Because I have a proven track record at this company of being able to pick up new topics fast, as well as have shown the motivation to self study on nights and weekends, they approached me for this new role and I took it. And here I am.

              • @[email protected]
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                110 months ago

                The opportunity to expand my skill set, while still doing some infrastructure and DevOps presented itself, so I took it. It’s been a challenge. It’s a different thought process, but I enjoy being uncomfortable and I enjoy being the noob in the group. I enjoy the process of going from noob to expert.

  • Kalkaline
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    1710 months ago

    I hope to one day, but I don’t have any programming skills to speak of

      • @nottelling
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        1910 months ago

        I actually want to learn enough code to contribute, but there’s this gap between “how to code” and “how to participate in a modern software project”.

        Like, I’ve created plenty of little things. Discord bots, automation scripts, plenty of sysadmin stuff for work, etc. But like, I clone a git repo cause there’s a home assistant bug I’d like to fix for example, and I’m immediately lost on where to start.

        • @[email protected]
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          10 months ago

          I dont know how to code but i have made contribs on repos. For documentation and stuff.

          Some repos are very complex and some are simple. It is typically roughly corrolated to size: larger projects = more complex. And then it depends on the language/platform/toolchain being used. Some of them can be very ellaborate. If you dont typically work on that kind of project the set up can be very difficult as you are starting from scratch with dependencies, might need dev versions, can be a whole thing.

          Also there are some things which are organizational choices made by the maintainers. A couple of times i was unable to contribute to docs because they werent seperated from the rest of the project and just to edit markdown files you had to install a whole dev toolchain and who knows what. I gave up before getting anywhere. Whereas others have different components segregated nicely.

          Then there is quality control stuff having to do with testing, formating and such. You might only find out about that once you’ve got through everything else and time comes to make a PR.

          Start out by using git and github or alternative for yourself to learn the basics. Then pick a smaller, explicitly beginer friendly project to make some minor contributions. Something with a few maintainers and regular contributions from others is generally a good balance. Look for an updated CONTRIBUTING file or equivilant section in the documentation.

          I think making a few markdown contribs first is probably advisable even for programers because most of the time it is more simple.

    • @[email protected]
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      210 months ago

      I can’t code either but I’m supporting new users in selected forums on a daily basis and I volunteer at our local linux event once a year.

  • db0
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    1610 months ago

    Its practically been all my free time in the past 14 years

  • TimeSquirrel
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    10 months ago

    My main hobby is designing and programming embedded devices, and anything I create gets slapped up on my github in case anyone else can use it. Schematics, code, whatever.

    I have a side hustle of selling the PCBs I make, but I have absolutely no problems with someone making a clone of my designs. It’s not like they’re super advanced tech. Anyone can figure out what I’ve figured out.

  • @[email protected]
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    1210 months ago

    Since for the most part i still suck at programming; i help translating programs in my main language since i needed to learn english for my job regardless.

  • @[email protected]
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    1210 months ago

    As much as I can. I can’t code at all and don’t work in IT, but at least I try to help newcomers as much as I can, publish my work as OS license, try to heat up as much traffic as I can on Lemmy (especially for non-tech stuff) and report bugs whenever I find them.
    I can’t do much more :(