What is the ReadME Project

The ReadME Project amplifies the voices of the open source community: the maintainers, contributors, and developers whose powerful contributions move the world forward every day. In lifting up their personal and professional challenges, stories, insights, and lessons learned, we hope to continue to build a more sustainable open source ecosystem, together. Learn more about The ReadME Project

What is an open source community?

People often think coding is a solitary activity, but it’s actually the world’s largest community effort led by a small group of open source maintainers and teams. These invisible heroes often work endless hours without funding, support, or thanks, and the ratio of consumers to maintainers can be as unbalanced as 2,000 to 1.

The ReadME Project

“pandas was initially my reaction to being frustrated with the tools I’d been using. I think that’s what drives a lot of open source developers: They don’t find what they’re looking for, so they build it.”

Wes McKinney

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

developers
students
journalists
parents
authors
activists
CTOs
podcast hosts
public speakers
musicians
chefs
self-starters
partners
veterans
immigrants
gamers
freelancers
9-5ers
5-9ers
board members
grandparents
volunteers
educators
community-builders
leaders
contributors
maintainers

Meet the people building the software you love.

It’s a new era in India where open source is popular because it allows everyone to build on everyone else’s work. It’s the best thing for developers.

Shikha Mishra

Read Shikha’s story

People are obsessed with solutions. But I think what the world often needs are not just solutions—but the potential to make solutions.

David Nolen

Read David’s story

Community Contributed Content

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Walking the walk: bringing end-to-end automation and testing to internal teams

Joe Lust // mabl

Transforming productivity with a ‘whole product’ CI/CD pipeline

George Swan // Autodesk

Boosting speed and scalability with continuous deployments

Kevin Mo // Front

Connected by collaboration: unifying DevOps and open source

Austin Hemmelgarn // Netdata

Community Profiles

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It’s a 3D world, and we all belong

Gina Häußge // OctoPrint

Shaping a more empowering future for eCommerce

Nick DeJesus // use-shopping-cart

Part of something bigger, from the Army to open source

Andrea Griffiths // GitHub

The modern veteran: A coding superhero

Jerome Hardaway // Vets Who Code

Veterans mobilize to help each other break into tech

Feature Story

Looking deep to have a big influence

Michał Gołębiowski-Owczarek // jQuery

About The ReadME Project

Coding is usually seen as a solitary activity, but it’s actually the world’s largest community effort led by open source maintainers, contributors, and teams. These unsung heroes put in long hours to build software, fix issues, field questions, and manage communities.

The ReadME Project is part of GitHub’s ongoing effort to amplify the voices of the developer community. It’s an evolving space to engage with the community and explore the stories, challenges, technology, and culture that surround the world of open source.