- Developers are working longer hours and spending time on the weekends contributing to open source software projects, according to GitHub’s annual State of the Octoverse report.
- Developers may have more time because the pandemic cut out long commutes or they may want to boost their skills during a time of economic instability.
- Projects like Google’s AI framework TensorFlow, the Python programming language, and coronavirus-related software have all experienced increased attention.
The coronavirus pandemic has brought many changes to how people work, socialize, and spend their free time – including for developers.
Namely, they’re working longer hours and spending more free time writing code, according to a new report from Microsoft-owned GitHub. GitHub, a site for hosting open source projects which over 56 million total developers flock to, published its annual State of the Octoverse report on how developers are working and what the community can learn from it.
The report found that developers are working longer hours during the pandemic, particularly Tuesday through Friday. But they’re also coding more in their free time: Non-work open source contributions increased significantly on the weekends. (GitHub’s report distinguished “work” from free-time projects based on whether the activity came from paid enterprise accounts.)
