themselves, so having a local team fix it and feed back the information
helped everybody involved.
There is no shame in using other people’s work. All you need to do is learn
what it does and then make it better. Understanding the work you’re
building on is important; if you leave everything to magic and your
extensions break later, your reputation will be tarnished — especially if you
can’t explain why it happened.
One problem I encountered when I released some code was that I omitted
functionality that was flashy but inaccessible; people started overriding my
code to make the solution flashy again. My advice, then, is: before you “fix”
code, read the documentation and consider the rationale behind its
structure and functionality. The original author probably had good reason
to do what he or she did. Using open-source resources is as much about
respecting the authors as it is about making your work easier.
Release Free Code, Designs or Templates
Once you’ve seen how easy it is to create great products by building on the
skills and research of others, take part: release your products and let others
have a go. This is the beauty of the Creative Commons Share-Alike License:
you give stuff out but people have to mention you, and they are allowed to
release your content only under the same terms and conditions.
So, go ahead: upload your code to GitHub or Google Code; put your
photos on Flickr; put your designs and templates on showcase websites like
deviantART. By doing this, you reach people where they already hang out,
rather than hoping for them to stumble across your work by chance. Most
of my contracts for paid work have come from people who found and were
impressed by free things that I released.