Open Source Helps New IT Grads Get Foot in the Door

Yes, some US IT jobs are disappearing, but Linux.com (which shares a corporate overlord with Slashdot) has a recent story emphasizing the job advantage that involvement in open source projects can give young programmers who aren't planning to ditch their dreams of making a living in the field. The article focuses on one programmer's experience with Google's Summer of Code, which led directly to her job working on the Drupal content-management system. But the underlying message (that involvement in open source projects provides a background of experience otherwise difficult to obtain because of the chicken-and-egg problem of "experience required" job opportunities) is generalizable to many other forms of open-source involvement. Do you have a job that you landed because of your unpaid open-source programming?

Comments

Two points

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1. redacted.
2. How does one work for Drupal? It's not a company, it's a piece of software.

Re:But how does it help non programmers and PHB wh

[g0bshiTe]

Yeah because

./configure --with-mysql=/usr/local --with-gd
make
make test
make install
Is so very tough