use of the benefits of participa-
tion while contributing to the
overall good of the project. But
communities should be aware
of the “what’s in it for me” kinds
of participation and others who
might be “free riding.”
What does social participation
mean for designers, and how can
designers benefit open source
communities?
social Participation in
open source for designers
Designers working on open
source projects are relatively rare
compared with the thousands
of developers who contribute to
projects, but designer participa-
tion has been slowly increasing.
GNOME, KDE, Mozilla, openoffice.
org, and Drupal, to name a few,
have embraced designers as a
valuable resource in the com-
munity. Many of these projects
have a backing foundation with
resources to pay designers to help
them strategize user experience.
Plenty of other projects, however,
are in need of design work. Open
source, because it is by defini-
tion a social good, has many
opportunities for designers to
help change the world, especially
for those who are looking to offer
pro bono work. The social good in
open source software communi-
ties comes in many forms.

• A microfinance self-help group meets at a local community center in a village near Pune, Maharashtra.