| TL;DR: A lot of people contact me saying they'd like to help out with my Open Source project, but don't actually <i>do</i> anything. Can I fix this?
When employers get an applicant who claims they worked on an Open Source project, does the employer actually verify this activity? I have a small, niche Open Source project. Unnamed to protect the guilty :) It doesn't have a lot of followers but there is international interest. My dilemma is I have received requests to become a "member" and "help out" since the beginning. But when I email back, saying "great! here are some bugs or areas you might help out with!", 99% of the time I get no further response. <p>For Open Source, my understanding has always been to work on a project, you must: 1. Dig in yourself,
2. Find something to fix or create,
3. Create a patch or set of files,
4. Submit it to the project moderators for approval,
5. Be invited to "join" based on your success in steps 1-4. Have the "rules" changed? I explain to the requestors that I won't give "member" access right away: they have to write some code or make some other contribution, submit it for approval, and I'll consider letting them join. After that ... nothing. Can I fix this? Am I doing this wrong? Is this exactly what I can expect? I see other Open Source projects explicitly spell out the above join process. Do other projects have a better application/contribution ratio? Related question: I've seen here on Hacker News that employers suggest candidates include pointers to Open Source projects they've done. Do employers actually _look_ at whether the candidate has actually _done_ anything? I look at the profile of the people who contact me and most of the time they've done nothing even if
they are a member of an Open Source project. |
But on the other hand, quite a few people just submitted helpful patches out of the blue and then disappeared, never to be heard from again.