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

Jerome Hardaway // Vets Who Code

Teaching in public with GitHub

Uplift others by sharing your knowledge.

Sonia John // ProtoSchool

Me, my computer, and the will to act

Sonia’s journey from self-taught coder to decentralized web advocate.

Henry Zhu // Babel

A leap of faith: Committing to open source

How Henry bridged his faith and finances with open source.

Kevin Riggle

How to write an internal production failure incident communication

What do you say when the system is down?

Angie Jones // Applitools

Demystifying Developer Advocacy

A seasoned developer advocate's answers to the most common DevRel FAQs.

The ReadME Project amplifies the voices of the developer community by telling stories about:

Safia Abdalla // nteract

Dream big, and follow through even bigger

Safia leverages her position as a maintainer to empower underrepresented contributors

THE README PODCAST // EPISODE 3

Taking Das Blog into the future

Maintainers Scott Hanselman and Mark Downie on breathing new life into old software.

You use more open source software than you think

It’s time to stop taking open source infrastructure for granted.

Glia uses open source and 3D printing to enable universal access to medical equipment

From conflict zones to COVID-19 shortages, Glia is bringing medical equipment to those who need it most.

Open Source on Mars: Community powers NASA’s Ingenuity Helicopter

Developers around the world contribute to historic flight.

That’s the beauty of open source. It gives me the opportunity to get to know other countries and collaborate with different people. It makes me a better human.

Dreaming big to unify Africa’s open source community

Samson Goddy // Sugar Labs

The ReadMe Podcast

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THE README PODCAST // EPISODE 12

Prioritizing empathy and taking risks to build Chakra UI

Founder Segun Adebayo on creating opportunities.

THE README PODCAST // EPISODE 11

Creating space and opportunity with She Code Africa

Founder Ada Nduka Oyom on giving women the tools to thrive as developers.

Developer Stories

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Limor Fried // Adafruit Industries

Leading the community of Adafruit

Limor Fried on making firm decisions, weeding out negativity, and building something better, together.

Nader Dabit // react-native-elements

From finding his calling to mastering React Native

Nader is energized by getting vulnerable on open source, learning, teaching, and connecting.

Shirley Wu

Chasing dreams, data, and creative coding

Shirley on creating art, representing Asian women in tech, and finding the work that resonates.

Monica Powell // react-ladies

Elevating others and making open source approachable

Monica nurtures inclusive spaces to educate, learn, be creative, and collaborate.

Guides

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Open Source

Gina Häußge

A dev’s guide to open source software licensing

A crash course in licensing.

DevOps

Joe Lust // mabl

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

On creating streamlined workflows and a seamless developer experience with built-in CI/CD.

DevOps

George Swan // Autodesk

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

How a shift towards innersource and shared best practices unified teams on a single DevOps pipeline.

DevOps

Kevin Mo // Front

Boosting speed and scalability with continuous deployments

Why building fast means balancing risk and practicality—from infrastructure migration to project management.

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.