Octoverse spotlight: Exploring the people and stories behind GitHub data

In January 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a state of emergency. Even before the novel coronavirus had an official name, it set off global travel restrictions, widespread closures, and a near-instant shift in how the world worked. As cities and countries responded to the pandemic, developers everywhere closed their laptops at work, and the next morning, reopened them at home.

These sudden changes left unmistakable tracks across developer activity on GitHub—data we charted in our 2020 State of the Octoverse Report. Our analysis uncovered the impact COVID-19 had on developers’ work days, the global community response to the pandemic, and the challenge of securing the world’s software.

Today, The ReadME Project published three feature articles leveraging data within The Octoverse Report and elaborating on the challenges and opportunities the last year has presented for the developer community:

• How the open source community came together to fight COVID-19: As the world shut down, the open source community sprang into action. Read more about the developers, researchers, and activists mobilizing to make sense of the pandemic’s emerging data sets.
• How open source maintainers can maintain balance in turbulent times: Open source maintainers are working harder than ever as the boundaries between work and home life blur. Learn how they meet the needs of their communities without losing sight of their own.
• How InfoSec pros keep open source safe—and how you can help: A single vulnerability can impact hundreds of downstream dependencies. Hear from the InfoSec experts securing open source code to make the world safer.

Analysis shows that even though developers “walk away” from their work on holidays and weekends, a flurry of open source activity happens in the off hours. Open source has always been a way for people to learn and be creative—but in 2020 it was so much more. These projects became a way to connect, organize, and make the world a safer, healthier place.

COVID-19 is part of everyone’s story. Trace the effects of a global pandemic on developer activity in our 2020 Octoverse Report. Or visit The ReadME Project to learn more about the people, communities, and code behind the data.

Written by

Nicole Forsgren

@nicolefv