[LRUG] Paths to open source contributions

[Matthew House]

I suppose it also depends on how exactly you define 'open source
contributions'.  For example, I have a github account with a few projects
that I work on, some plugins and scripts and stuff, but I don't consider
myself a contributor because the stuff I've done is generally just stuff
that I needed to do for work or to scratch an itch and doesn't really
warrant much thought.
So my question is are you a contributor just because you happen to release
things, no matter how small and potentially useless. Or does it take
something more, creating a project that is genuinely useful to the
community, or patches committed in an already well established project?

cheers

Matt
On Fri, May 8, 2009 at 11:35 AM, Andrew Stewart
<boss at airbladesoftware.com>wrote:

> Hello El Rug,
>
> On 7 May 2009, at 14:54, Vahagn Hayrapetyan wrote:
>
>> So if you have open source contributions, I hope you'll shed some light as
>> to why you have them:
>>        • You were solving a problem for yourself (a pet project perhaps),
>> and ended up with extra code that you released as open source;
>>        • You were working on someone else's problem (such as a client's),
>> and ended up with extra code that you released as open source;
>>        • You were bored and decided to make a contribution for the fun of
>> it;
>>        • You were being strategic. You realized that for the Kool Kids to
>> work with you and the Beautiful People to go to bed with you, you NEED to
>> have open source contributions before we arrive at web 3.12.
>>
>
> For me it's the first two.  I think the last two lead to bad projects.
>  Here's an entertaining article germane to this:
>
>
> http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/08/business-requirements-are-bullshit.html
>
> In a nutshell Yegge says only build stuff you'll use yourself.
>
> I think there's a fifth motivation you could add to the list: you have some
> code which you are too lazy to improve yourself, so you open the source so
> other people can improve it for you.
>
> http://cleanair.highgroove.com/articles/2008/01/03/we-love-open-source
>
> Regards,
> Andy Stewart
>
> -------
> http://airbladesoftware.com
>
>
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