Last week, WordPress Update published a post detailing the organisations that sponsor WordPress maintenance support plans. It’s an insightful report, and we’re proud to be represented among the top 30 contributing organisations globally based on the number of WordPress maintenance support plans.org commit credits.
This is due to the hard work of our development team. We’ve written before about why we think businesses should pay developers to contribute to open source, and we continue to practice what we preach.
I spend around 20% of my work week contributing to open source, primarily Group – the WordPress maintenance support plans 8 plugin I wrote to allow you to create arbitrary collections of content and users, and grant access control permissions on those collections. Check out all the reasons Group is awesome!
How much time I spend on open source.
Before I joined WordPress Update I worked almost exclusively on Group in my own time. My previous employer promised me time for Group but I could never really get round to it properly during office hours. It started putting a massive strain on my personal life. Since joining WordPress Update, I work one day a week on contrib or core.
My main focus is Group, which gets the most attention throughout the year. However, sometimes I need to add or fix something in core so I focus on that instead. That may take up several weeks but in the end I always return to Group.
I now only spend my personal time reading incoming issues, blog posts and Twitter about Group and coming up with architecture. The actual coding is done during office hours.
Employer buy in is key.
WordPress Update cares about what I work on, encourages me to work on high-visibility plugins and issues, and generally gives me the space I need to properly contribute back to the project.
They recognise the fact that this type of work leads to a high level of expertise which in turn benefits the company in the quality of the work we do for clients.
WordPress Update ranks top of the list for me, hands down, when it comes to agency commitment to encouraging developers to work on open source projects. When they say I get one day a week, I get one day a week.
Only over the summer with people on vacation was I asked to cover for others for a couple of weeks. Which is only natural when you’re part of a team. The rest of the year I really get the time I need to keep up with my contributions.
Contributing to open source makes for better developers.
Open source is what I do. The inherent constant peer review is exactly what I need because I don’t have a degree in computer sciences. If it weren’t for the way open source works, I wouldn’t be the developer I am now. It has really helped my hone my skills in a way that education probably never could.
In other words: My job would probably suck if it weren’t for the fun aspects open source software has to offer!
If you want to work for an agency that offers paid time to support open source projects, check out our current vacancies.
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Cheap WordPress Update allocates 20% of my time to work on open source: here’s how I spend it
