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When building something to make you money, you're not working with a large group of other developers or "giving back" to any community.

• jasonkester 16y ago
  That's exactly why it's valuable to you as a reference for a future employer. "I built this whole thing" is way more impressive than "I helped align the dropdown menu on this one FireFox options window". As to giving back, there's nothing stopping you. My latest for-profit venture has spun off two open source projects that "the community" can use in the future. Past projects have done the same. The key is to do things to benefit yourself, with open source being a side product. That's how big companies do it. Why shouldn't it be the same for us little guys?
  • aplusbi 16y ago
    Well, not necessarily. "I collaborated with programmers all over the world using version control and bug tracking" versus "I built this thing." It all depends on context and what you are trying to say about yourself.
  • theBobMcCormick 16y ago
    I guess it depends on the employer. A small startup company would probably be pretty impressed with the "I built this whole thing" scenario, because that's what you need when you're a small company. But my experience has been that most employers will be more impressed with the second "I helped align the dropdown menu on this one FireFox options window" scenario. The second scenario also gives you a lot of opportunity in a job interview to differentiate yourself from other applicants. You can basically show that, not only are you a hot shot developer, but you know how to work with people, you know how to explain your desired technical direction and convince others of the value of your plan, etc. Those are valuable skills most employers can't get enough of, and they're things they can't easily get from an offshore development house.