[johncessna]

> You're expected to 'contribute' to open source software. Why? Because employers want employees who are passionate about their craft.

Like others have mentioned, I don't really see this in the industry. That said, I think it's less a quest for the 'passionate' developer and more a quest for a good employee who can contribute to the task at hand.

Companies don't want 'passion' they want someone who will work hard on their product and be a great return on investment for the company. How do you measure that? That's hard. Detecting it in a 1-4 hour interview is also hard. Or, they can take the easy way out, generalize, and look for markers of that behavior, such as working an open source project 'job' in addition to their daily job.