1. Write open source. 2. ??? 3. PROFIT

22 June 2017

Studies keep showing that open source developers get paid more than people who develop software but do not contribute to open source.

Good recent piece: Tabs, spaces and your salary - how is it really? by Evelina Gabasova.

But why?

Is open source participation a way to signal that you have skills and are capable of cooperation with others?

Is open source a way to build connections and social capital so that you have more awareness of new job openings and can more easily move to a higher-paid position?

Does open source participation just increase your skills so that you do better work and get paid more for it?

Are open source codebases a complementary good to open source maintenance programming, so that a lower price for access to the codebase tends to drive up the price for maintenance programming labor?

Is "we hire open source people" just an excuse for bias, since the open source scene at least in the USA is less diverse than the general pool of programming job applicants?