<blockquote style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;" class="gmail_quote">Whenever I plan to start an open source project, it always ends up unloved an unfinished... which is bad. So don't do that.</blockquote>
<div><br>A gran of salt or no gran of salt?<br><br>Or even more to the point, don't underlove and unfinish your OSS projects or don't do them in the first place?? (a fantastic potential for controversy, right here!)<br>
<br>/ Vahagn <br></div><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, May 7, 2009 at 4:59 PM, Tom Lea <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:lrug@tomlea.co.uk">lrug@tomlea.co.uk</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Hi,<br>
My OSS contributions come in the following categories:<br>
<br>
1) Bugs or missing features in existing projects (usually rails patches). These<br>
are usually things I had to work around in my day to day work, then patch up<br>
in my "Thursday afternoon time" [1].<br>
<br>
2) Original plugins and gems. These are things I needed to do day to day work,<br>
and extracted out as plain old good practice. My employer (Reevoo) is more<br>
than happy to let us open source or publish any general purpose code we write [2],<br>
so they get thrown up into small github projects, and occasionally get polished as<br>
part of Thursday afternoon time.<br>
<br>
3) Sites I write in my spare time. Not sure how useful they are to the general<br>
community, but when I'm using a 3rd party site, and it does not work how I<br>
want it to, it's nice to be able to contribute to fixing it.<br>
(examples: something I worked on: <a href="http://hasmygembuiltyet.org/" target="_blank">http://hasmygembuiltyet.org/</a>, and from earlier today: <a href="http://tinyurl.com/d5mz6v" target="_blank">http://tinyurl.com/d5mz6v</a> ).<br>
<br>
Whenever I plan to start an open source project, it always ends up unloved an unfinished... which is bad. So don't do that.<br>
<br>
- Tom Lea<br>
<br>
[1] Developer Thursday afternoons are dedicated to community projects, or none planned/scheduled work of our choosing.<br>
[2] This can be justified to your bosses as simple free, cheep PR.<div><div></div><div class="h5"><br>
<br>
On 7 May 2009, at 15:23, Roland Swingler wrote:<br>
<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Hi,<br>
<br>
My OSS contributions have been paltry, rather than impressive, so take<br>
what I say with a pinch of salt. I've been motivated a little by all<br>
of the things you suggest - some were driven by trying to get a better<br>
feel for a project or type of project (jRuby for example - which sort<br>
of fits with your option 3), others were motivated by needing to fix a<br>
problem in an existing library or finding that something you've built<br>
might be useful to others (options 1 & 2). What I haven't done (yet)<br>
is set out from the beginning to "create an open source project to do<br>
X": for me it seems a little more unplanned than that.<br>
<br>
Cheers,<br>
Roland<br>
<br>
On Thu, May 7, 2009 at 2:54 PM, Vahagn Hayrapetyan <<a href="mailto:vahagnh@gmail.com" target="_blank">vahagnh@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Hello,-<br>
<br>
I've been browsing the often impressive open source contributions of some of<br>
the Rails / Ruby luminaries when it struck me that I don't really understand<br>
how most open source projects originate. Essentially what I'd like to know<br>
is whether such contributions are most typically the bi-product of some main<br>
development effort or are they conceptualized and implemented for their own<br>
sake, from the very start.<br>
<br>
So if you have open source contributions, I hope you'll shed some light as<br>
to why you have them:<br>
<br>
You were solving a problem for yourself (a pet project perhaps), and ended<br>
up with extra code that you released as open source;<br>
You were working on someone else's problem (such as a client's), and ended<br>
up with extra code that you released as open source;<br>
You were bored and decided to make a contribution for the fun of it;<br>
You were being strategic. You realized that for the Kool Kids to work with<br>
you and the Beautiful People to go to bed with you, you NEED to have open<br>
source contributions before we arrive at web 3.12. (This is the path I'm<br>
feeling irresistibly pulled towards, by the force of destiny).<br>
<br>
As I realize that human behaviour is often influenced by several factors,<br>
compound answers (such as 1&4; or 3&4) are of particular interest.<br>
<br>
Thanks!<br>
<br>
/ Vahagn<br>
<br>
<br>
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