FAQ
How do I get started?
We have an onboarding website that introduces you to the world of open source software!
You can also come join our Discord Community where you can discuss how we can help you.
Why is the company's name Grey Software
You can learn more on our Philosophy page!
Do students want something like this to exist
There are many Computer science students around the world who want to participate in the tech economy by building a startup or getting hired as a software engineer.
They want:
- To become better software engineers by building out their app ideas.
- To build a better resume and digital portfolio to better their employment prospects.
Currently, they are building projects alone without mentorship or a structured pathway to implementation that uses tools and processes from the industry.
Some of the most common problems they face are:
Not having a senior engineer to give technical guidance
“Without having the assistance whenever we need it, we had to spend hours googling and asking online.” - Baichen
“Even though tons of youtube videos are available, it’s a different experience to have someone that understands what you are going through to guide you in the project.” - Brian
No structured team environment
“When you work in a team and it’s easier to have the motivation because you see the project moving forward and everyone doing their part.” - Lee
No clear roadmap to implementation
“There was no clear leader, everyone was equal, but thought their idea was superior. So there was a lot of back and forth, instead of meaningful work.” - Baichen
“It’s easy to lose sight of your goals and lose track of progress” - Billy
“As an individual project, you are required to know every aspect of the component including frontend, backend, etc. As a result of that, for most students they have a significant knowledge gap to fill. This preparation process can be time-consuming and discouraging.” - Brian
No professional best practices
“We had no knowledge of the professional workflow. We didn't set up a git repo, and accidentally lost some source code.” - Baichen
How does the organization plan to sustain itself?
We offer premium versions of our OSS software to Github Sponsors. Learn more about it here
We raise money from companies on OpenCollective and offer advertising space on our online ecosystem. Learn more about it here
Why is Grey Software a not-for-profit organization?
Grey Software was founded around a mission to build the software ecosystem of the future.
To ensure that the organization’s future revenues went towards our mission instead of the pockets of shareholders, we founded the organization as a not-for-profit.
Who is Grey Software's competition?
- Mozilla creates high quality open source products to promote internet freedom, and manages the Mozilla Developer Network which is one of the world’s best sources for web development education.
- FreeCodeCamp is a not-for-profit company that creates videos, articles, and interactive coding lessons - all freely available to the public.
- Khan Academy is a nonprofit with the mission of providing a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere. They have Courses about computer science but don’t delve as deep as Free Code Camp with respect to industry software engineer and data science.
- MLH has an excellent partnership network with universities and tech companies around the world. With this, they run events, competitions, and open source apprenticeship programs for students get practical software development experience.
How is Grey Software different from other educational sites, such as FreeCodeCamp or Scrimba?
These websites host educational content that many rely on, including Grey Software's mentors and students. You will probably find them linked on our resources website!
In our approach, mentors teach by collaborating with individuals or small groups on real-world projects using the same open-source technologies that are used in the industry.
Are you focussing on all open source software or a particular set of open source software.
Open source software is a broad category. We are currently focussing on modern web application development because we feel that empowering students with the ability to build open source software on the web allows them access to a powerful tool set with which they can build what they imagine.
Is Grey Software only for Software Engineers?
Not at all!
Software engineers write the code behind Grey Software’s apps, but designers, product owners, and researchers are integral to how we develop software.
How does Grey Software deliver its educational content?
Grey Software hosts students who collaborate with mentors to build our open -source products in a real-world software development environment with mentors.
Since we create our apps and teach students how to develop them simultaneously, it’s hard to define a structured curriculum and predict learning outcomes.
We therefore propose that each project have creation teams and education teams.
The creation team evolves our products using the latest, most productive technologies and trends in software development.
The education team turns our products into projects that students can learn from. This team abstracts away certain software complexities, allowing students to gradually make their way to working with production code.