Your 2026 Mac Admin Open Source Journey: From Beneficiary to Jedi-Ninja Maintainer

Self-assessment

Your Mac Admin Open Source Journey

An anonymous self-assessment to guide your 2026 open-source contributions.

Years of Experience

How many years have you been working as a Mac Admin?

0 to 1 year

2 to 4 years

5 to 9 years

10 to 14 years

15+ years

Skill Self-Ranking

How would you describe your current Mac Admin skill level?

Still Learning the Basics

Comfortable with Day-to-Day Tasks

Proficient with Tools and Troubleshooting

Automation-Savvy

Jedi-Ninja

Community Engagement

How frequently do you engage with the Mac Admin community?

Rarely or never

Occasionally

Monthly

Weekly

Daily

Benefiting from Open Source in 2025

During 2025, from how many open projects did you directly benefit?

1 to 2

3 to 4

5 to 6

7 to 8

9+

Contributing to Open Projects in 2025

During 2025, to how many open projects did you directly contribute?

0

1

2

3 to 4

5+

Question 1 of 5

Rank

Take the above self-assessment to determine your rank from Beneficiary to Jedi-Ninja Maintainer.

Beneficiary

You’re benefiting from open source every day … great time to begin giving back.

Explorer

You’re discovering the ecosystem and starting to find your footing.

Emerging Contributor

You’ve taken meaningful steps — you’re ready for intentional contribution.

Active Contributor

You consistently help improve tools the community relies on.

Jedi-Ninja Maintainer

You’re a force-multiplier; thank you for all you do.

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21-Apr-2026

Invitation

I find myself hungering and thirsting for just a word of appreciation or of honest evaluation from my superiors and my peers.

I want no praise; I want no flattery; I am seeking only to know if what I gave was acceptable.

— Spencer W. Kimball

Please accept my personal invitation to increase — or, for you Jedi-Ninjas, to maintain — your contributions to the Mac Admin community’s various open-source projects during 2026 (and special thanks to Tony Young for his related post and his follow-up post.)

Where do I start?

Start where you are. If you’ve benefited from open source projects and don’t know how to contribute, remember that feedback — any feedback — is a gift.

If you can read and follow directions, you can help. While the preferred time to provide feedback is during beta- and preview-cycles, feedback is welcome at any time; especially if you can reproduce unexpected behavior on-demand (and can document the steps to reproduce the issue).

Your next step

The fact that you’re reading this sentence is a great indication that you’re ready to take the next step, whatever it may be.

See Microsoft’s Contribute to an open-source project on GitHub.

From all of us who maintain open source Mac Admin projects, we can’t wait to see where your journey will take you.