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Ask HN: Does anyone here still contribute to open source projects? Why?

2 points by AbstractH24 ↗ HN
I'm sure there's an answer, I just don't see it in an era where so much of the scaffolding that used to take a village can be gotten for your own pet project. And often for free[-tier].

The only open-source product I use that might seem fun to contribute to is Home Assistant. All the other ones I use clearly have plans to monetize (n8n, Hermes, Linux, etc). So I'd just be giving free labor.

7 comments

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patjensen
> So I'd just be giving free labor.

Why don't you contribute? Are you comfortable just taking from society?

AbstractH24
> Why don't you contribute? Are you comfortable just taking from society?

Since an overwhelming number of open-source projects I use these days have some effort to monetize as part of them. I no don't feel it's free.

But outside of that, I feel I contribute in other ways and lack[ed] the skills to contribute to the projects.

drewbitt
Yes, I use open-source projects, and as part of that, I either find bugs or want features. I don't think an agent should be recreating or forking React, for example, just for me - that's not realistic.
rekabis
If I was independently wealthy, with decent chunks of free time, I absolutely would.

Problem is, I live in a capitalistic hellhole that demands I be wildly profitable to someone else, least I suffer from starvation, destitution, homelessness, or even death.

spottedmarley
Not really. I used to contribute but lately I'm more of an open source leech. I clone the project that I need and improve/personalize it to my needs but I've stopped assuming that anything I add or improve A) is useful to anyone but me B) can't be added by someone else with a Claude Max plan and the time to contribute. Also, GitHub feels a lot like a social media platform to me these days and I just don't use those.
sglim
I contributed a couple of fixes to a small GraphQL-over-websockets library because I needed it to work for my project at that time. Took two hours to understand it, just to change six lines.