[Delmania]

You didn't work since you weren't paid. You volunteered your time to aid in a transition period, help reduce workloads, and keep your skills sharp. However I'd probably not mention that as that could throw up warning signs that would attract the DoL as there are strict rules on what constitutes volunteer work.

[kolinko]

What? Work is work, regardless of whether paid or not.

I just spent 4 months, 2 full time, and 2 crunch-time working on an open-source project that I didn't get paid for - according to your definition I shouldn't be able to list it on a resume.

What matters more than the payment is the scope/amount of such work. If the remainder of 2.5 years (unpaid) was just ad-hoc, or "once in a while", I would mark it as such.

[Delmania]

> What? Work is work, regardless of whether paid or not.

Most certainly not; within the context of providing services to a legal business entity within the United States, work is defined be receiving compensation for your time, skills, and knowledge. If you are doing something for a business entity and you are not receiving compensation, then it is defined as volunteer work, and there are strict limits on what can be done by a volunteer, chief of which is the volunteer's work must not be crucial to the operations of the business. Otherwise the DoL will classify it as work, and force the business to pay the social security and unemployment tax for your time.

The free software project is not run by a for-profit entity and as such is not bound by those laws.

> What matters more than the payment is the scope/amount of such work.

That's fairly idealistic. This tells me you value your time (and by extension, yourself) very low. Also, the Dept Of Labor would disagree with you.

[snowwrestler]

While this might be a problem for the business, it has no bearing on what the employee can or should put on their resume.

[paulcole]

Believe it or not, the Dept of Labor doesn’t oversee what you put on your resume.