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Do F/OSS Contributions Make You More Marketable?

Posted by Cliff on from the looks-good-on-the-resume dept.

Bucking for a Raise asks: "Assuming that Free/Open Source contributions qualify as 'experience' in a professional sense, it would seem to follow that contributing would make one more marketable as an employee or contractor. Personally, I feel that I've gained invaluable experience from my contributions. However, I'm curious to know what other Slashdot readers have experienced: do potential employers/clients feel that it increases your worth? Does it depend on the visibility or perceived value of the project to which you contribute? Do the employers/clients you've seen place any value in, or even know about, F/OSS?"

2 of 69 comments (clear)

  1. I think... by Anonymous+Cumshot · · Score: 4, Insightful

    it would definitely make you more marketable since it shows potential employers that you code for the sake of coding and not for the monetary profit gained by coding. In other words it shows that you love what you do.

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    Best regards, A.C.
    1. Re:I think... by ottothecow · · Score: 4, Insightful
      At the University of Chicago, they have a Free Software Practicum class in their CS division where you essentially pick a strong OSS project and work on it by yourself or with a team. Obviously this ranges from working on a few bugzilla entries for a project to working on adding features to something like Sunbird (PDA Sync anybody?). Part of the class requires that your work gets accepted into the projects codebase before you get credit.

      I think that the classes requirements essentially show what would look the best on your resume. If you can point to something that YOU did in a decently major project (as in something they will have heard of), it will probobly help you and differentiate you from the tons of other applicants who spent their time coding "Bob's freeware XP launch bar". Think of what would happen if your resume is read by someone who uses thunderbird or sunbird in the future and you can say that you played an integral part in implementing PDA syncing.

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      Bottles.