Short: Why you should create a open source project?
Why we should spend time creating an open source project?
Is it for money?
No, most open source projects barely receive any donation. Even top projects could receive less than 100 donors (each one donating around $1-$5 bucks per month). Is it not even enough to pay the time invested.
Is it for the curriculum?
Nope. Interviewers barely care about it.
Is it for the fame?
Haha, no.
So why?
It is for you.
If you have a private library for a project, then when the project is done, then you most likely will abandon the library. When you create a library for a project, you usually are creating a solution that only fits a single needing.
While it could sound practical but if you are developing many projects, then sooner or later you found yourself creating a similar library many time.
Now, if you create an open source project, then you are publishing it and that is the important part. You are exposing a code everybody could look at it and in some cases (rare cases), people could find and solve bugs.
If it is an open source project, then it is easy to share with your team, and the team could share, edit, etc. and they could follow some standard and guideline(*). And thanks to the modern services (github, bitbucket, etc.) then it is way to easy to share an open source project than a close one.
(*) How does it work?. commonly in a private project, nobody care to add documentation, explanation, etc. However, it is not the same with a code that everybody could look at it (not always). For example, we used a project where one of the comment said “He bob, check this code” (ps: bob never checked the code). Close source libraries trend to cut a lot of corners, after all, this code is for one usage.
You could also create a private repository but if you migrate of company, then while you could copy it in a pendrive and bring it to the new company. However, your new team will be less willing to adopt it.
Also, legally if you work for a company developing code, then the close source code is owned by the company. It is not the same with an open source project. Of course, you don’t want to open source strategic code.
i.e.
When you share a project with others, then you also sharing a project with the “you” from the future.
