What are your thoughts on contributing to open source design?

[flyingjuggernaut]

I recently came across Open Source design with companies like Automattic, Gitlab, Mozilla, etc. being big advocates for it.
It's popular in the developer community but I don't see a lot of designers talking about it. Since development is a very objective field, it makes sense to contribute but with design, there are numerous ways to solve the same problem which means everyone designing can potentially come up with a completely different solution.

My question to you is why would a designer contribute to open-source design communities? What are the benefits for a designer to spend valuable time contributing to these? Do you contribute and if so, why? I can see entry-level designers contributing to gain some experience or projects for their portfolio but for designers that have been working for some time, apart from exposure or reputation, I can't make sense of it.

Posting this question since Brian works at Github where a lot of these open source communities are based.

• Jatin

[flyingjuggernaut]

This article asks designers to contribute their time to open-source design -
https://uxdesign.cc/dear-designers-please-help-a5436907be8b