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The ReadME Project amplifies the voices of the open source community:
the maintainers, developers, and teams whose contributions move the world forward every day. Learn more

  • students
  • journalists
  • parents
  • authors
  • activists
  • business owners
  • podcast hosts
  • public speakers
  • musicians
  • chefs
  • self-starters
  • partners
  • photographers
  • immigrants
  • mediators
  • gamers
  • freelancers
  • 9-5ers
  • 5-9ers
  • board members
  • grandparents
  • volunteers
  • educators
  • community-builders
  • developers
  • contributors
  • maintainers

Meet the people behind the projects you love.

Picture of Michał Gołębiowski-Owczarek
Picture of Marc Cornellà
Picture of Robby Russell
Picture of David Nolen
Picture of Chrissy LeMaire
Picture of Benjie Gillam
Picture of Alex Ellis
Picture of Evan You
Picture of Issy Long
Picture of Jordan Harband
Picture of Ovilia Zhang
Picture of Sonia John
Picture of Samson Goddy
Picture of Henry Zhu
Picture of Dirk Lemstra

Michał Gołębiowski-Owczarek

Project

jQuery

Location

Warsaw, Poland

Marc Cornellà

Project

Oh My Zsh

Location

Barcelona, Spain

Robby Russell

Project

Oh My Zsh

Location

Portland, OR

David Nolen

Project

clojurescript

Location

New York

Chrissy LeMaire

Project

dbatools

Location

North of France

Benjie Gillam

Project

Graphile

Location

Southampton, UK

Alex Ellis

Project

OpenFaaS

Location

United Kingdom

Evan You

Project

Vue

Location

New Jersey ⇄ China

Issy Long

Project

Homebrew

Location

London, UK

Jordan Harband

Project

TC39

Location

Hillsborough, CA

Ovilia Zhang

Project

Apache ECharts

Location

Shanghai, China

Sonia John

Project

ProtoSchool

Location

Nairobi, Kenya

Samson Goddy

Henry Zhu

Project

Babel

Location

New York City

Dirk Lemstra

Project

ImageMagick

Location

The Netherlands

About The ReadME Project

Coding is usually seen as a solitary activity, but it's actually the world's largest community effort led by a small group of open source maintainers, contributors, and teams. These unsung heroes put in long hours to build software, fix issues, field questions, and manage communities, often without funding or recognition. The ratio of consumers to maintainers can be as unbalanced as 2,000 to 1.

The ReadME Project is part of GitHub's ongoing effort to amplify the voices of open source software: We want the world to know these inspiring people, hear their stories, and understand what drives them.

Get involved

Support the community

Recognize and support the community working behind the scenes and help them get the resources they need with GitHub Sponsors.

Nominate a person or project

Nominate inspiring open source developers and projects you think we should include in The ReadME Project (it could be you!).

Advance your journey

Grow your skills, complete hands-on projects, and get helpful feedback with GitHub Learning Lab.

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