I began my career as a technical writer in 2011, my first active interaction with open source was in 2014, and for the past five years, I’ve been working full time on open source. In this session, I will draw directly from my own experience to ask whether contributing to open source really makes sense for technical writers. I want to give you a clear, practical picture of what open source can and cannot do for a technical writing journey. I'll start by explaining what open source is, as many still misunderstand it.