The first point really shows an employer that actually cares. To be honest, out of all the places I have interviewed, there was only one instance of being questioned about the specifics of an open source project; it was for a QA position, and actually just a Pick-from-List kind of question. Oddly enough, not too many of them seem interested in actual code I can show them.

The second point, I think, deserves some more discussion.

There's no denying it: I consistently fail at coming up with questions to ask when an interview nears its end. Although I do try and ask small questions along the way, after the whole thing is done, there's just nothing else I care to know about that's appropriate at this stage in the process. In terms of work environment, if it was interesting enough to talk about, the interviewer would have already given me a spiel or the topic comes up naturally. The actual work gets discussed in some detail regardless, so there's not much else there without actually working on it. Having some opinions about the product in question would be nice, but no such luck there either: they've all been doesn't-exist-yet, enterprise apps, and generally things the general public doesn't have enough access to to be able to have an informed opinion about. That said, if the other side cooperates, I generally try and make the interview into more of a conversation, and seem to leave a very positive impression on the interviewer. Doesn't really help with the having-a-question-to-ask at the end, though.

What sort of questions do you really hope a keener would ask?