We definitely do. I personally open sourced some tools we use, and we regularly contribute fixes and features to open source projects.
Obviously, internal stuff is first. But if we are in the middle of a slow period, i encourage colleagues to
Refactor our code for performance
Write extra documentation
Write new open source stuff or contribute to existing ones they like
(not necessarily in this order).
Also, in such cases they are not limited to projects we benefit from because, on the long run, this can give them more ideas and insight of the languages they use.
We definitely do. I personally open sourced some tools we use, and we regularly contribute fixes and features to open source projects.
Obviously, internal stuff is first. But if we are in the middle of a slow period, i encourage colleagues to
(not necessarily in this order).
Also, in such cases they are not limited to projects we benefit from because, on the long run, this can give them more ideas and insight of the languages they use.
This is exactly the kind of thing I was hoping companies were doing!