Many developers assume that you need to be a great code ninja to contribute to open source projects, but that isn’t the case. The people who develop those open source tools, libraries and frameworks that we use for our own work aren’t all uberhackers; but are often simply individuals or small groups of volunteers, working on the projects in their own time, and who need all the help they can get. Many companies believe that contributing to open source has no benefits, or even that it’s giving away their trade secrets; but there are benefits for companies that do make contributions to Open Source projects, and it doesn’t result in giving away a competitive edge, but may even result in improving their business where it matters to them – on the bottom line.