DEV Community

Cover image for The State of Open Source: Currents 2020 Survey
Erika Heidi for DigitalOcean

Posted on

The State of Open Source: Currents 2020 Survey

We want to hear from you. Have you contributed to open source in the past? Which projects are more inclusive and open to new contributors? Who should support open source maintainers?

Take a few minutes to participate in our Currents 2020 survey and help us understand and report back on the state of open source in 2020. Data will remain confidential and used only for the purposes of the report. After taking the survey, you'll be able to opt in to receive a limited-edition open source Sammy sticker or contribute a tree to our DigitalOcean Forest!

Currents 2020 Survey by DigitalOcean

Additionally, we welcome anyone who would like to share their #OpenSourceStory by leaving a comment in this post. How did the pandemic impact your open source involvement this year? Share your thoughts with us!

Top comments (3)

Collapse
 
sleeplessbyte profile image
Derk-Jan Karrenbeld

Unfortunately there was no feedback question in the survey, or contact address for that specific survey. If you're not looking for feedback at all, you may ignore this comment, or let me know if I should delete it.

I took the time filling this in, as an open source enthusiast, maintainer and contributor. As a data scientist I have a lot of questions about... a lot of questions. I don't know what the reporting will be on this, but grouping "all of open source" together is probably a mistake. There are also various questions that don't make sense under various circumstances -- I don't know how to answer these.

I'm actively wondering if the people who came up with the questions are involved in open source themselves, or have asked open source maintainers and contributors what the questions could be/should be. Asking a or b questions where a large number of people will identify with both answers is an indicator of this.

I'm interested in the outcome, but have a lot of reservations about both the validity and the worth of any "conclusions". If you or someone is looking for concrete examples, I can point them out.

Collapse
 
wrldwzrd89 profile image
Eric Ahnell

I'm guessing this isn't the common case, but the pandemic did nothing to change my open source contribution level, as someone who authors far more Git repositories than contributes to, and has never even considered getting paid for this as a possibility... I had to just shrug at all the related questions with "Undecided", since I have absolutely no idea what makes sense. Regarding my personal open source story... after consolidating everything into my personal GitHub account and deleting my former organizations, my repos jumped up from 25-ish to 80-ish. I forgot I had that many...

Collapse
 
wrldwzrd89 profile image
Eric Ahnell

The confetti suggestion resonates with me. I also think the results have potential to be enlightening, and get the community thinking. Nice reply.