The post below makes many points dear to my heart, which I believe are applicable to other online collaborative efforts, not just FOSS development. These ideas tie into some of my long term hopes for the dadamac community.

I am hoping that, over time, people who are active in the Dadamac Community will develop their digital footprints in the community, which will give evidence of what they have done and who they have worked with. The work done will showcase their experience and the collaborative aspect of the work will build their trust network and testimonials. I'm not sure this will get them long term "jobs" in the traditional sense, as I believe that we will increasingly work in more "agile" ways. However I do believe that having a "Dadamac Digital Footprint" will help people to get work in various wealth-enhancing ways (either for money, or through win-win collaborations of one kind and another).

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How Open Source Projects Can Prepare Students for Better Careers

Paula Hunter is the executive director of the Outercurve Foundation. With over two decades of open source experience, she has served in leadership roles at organizations such as Open Source Development Labs and United Linux. Follow her on Twitter @huntermkt.

Free and open source software (FOSS) is at the root of the most innovative products, technologies and services of our time. The Social Network may have taken some Hollywood liberties, but there’s still a big story to tell about today’s colleges as the hotbeds of innovation, much of it driven by FOSS.

(more - http://mashable.com/2011/05/13/open-source-students/ )