nobbis writes:
"Mihai Guiman recounts how he built an open source community, FINkers United, around an open source financial application, FinTP. He believes that an open source project cannot succeed without a powerful community to support its development, and explains how FINkers United changed as the project moved from closed to open source. The management structure evolved and he expects new hierarchies to emerge based on merit and contribution. He notes the benefits of joining such a community as sharing interests and having the ability to act on ideas according to your beliefs. He poses a pertinent questions at the end: 'Why would you join an open source community?'"
[ED Note: As most of the Open Source news we hear these days relates to decade-spanning well established projects, it's good to be reminded that this process still goes on, and to reflect on what it means to be building a community-centric news discussion site.]
(Score: 2, Funny) by crutchy on Wednesday February 19 2014, @05:10AM
when i read TFS for some reason github and sourceforge came to mind
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ticho on Wednesday February 19 2014, @05:39AM
"Why would you join an open source community?"
Because I have an interest in the particular piece software being developed, as its user. And maybe as a developer as well, but the "user" part is mandatory.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by mrbluze on Wednesday February 19 2014, @05:43AM
Because it is:
Probably more, but
Do it yourself, 'cause no one else will do it yourself.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by ticho on Wednesday February 19 2014, @07:15AM
All that comes second, unless you're primarily a show-off. Interest in underlying software comes first. Without it, there's no urge to participate.
And when the interest disappears (you found a better replacement, or you no longer need it), the things you enumerated can keep you in the community for a while longer, but only for limited time.
(Score: 1) by mrbluze on Wednesday February 19 2014, @07:34AM
Quite right, you have to believe in the thing you're working on, that's a primary motivator. But an open source project, nearly any project, has many more sides to it than software.
Do it yourself, 'cause no one else will do it yourself.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Vanderhoth on Wednesday February 19 2014, @07:44AM
I'm not sure who's right here, or at least who I agree with. Maybe both of you.
I joined an open source project by accident I made a couple tweaks to a project and because the "head guy" like what I did he asked if I'd take over management of a variant of the project. I agreed and I've been enjoying the kudos I've been getting for it for at least a year now. I was kind of worried it would turn out to be a million people screaming at me, but as it turns out everyone's been really friendly, offered great suggestions and generally seem very happy with the changes I've made and accepted to the project. I've learned a lot and I socialize quite a bit with the other developers.
I primary stay with the project because:
Although those aren't the reasons I join.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 3, Insightful) by similar_name on Wednesday February 19 2014, @05:54AM
Agreed, we're here because of or the pros of open source and community. Open source software setup by a community of developers so a community of users could stick together.
Building a tech community online:
Open source software + community = 1 week
Proprietary software + company = ???
Where can I vote for ACs to be Anonymous Cows? It should always be plural
(Score: 4, Insightful) by lhsi on Wednesday February 19 2014, @07:58AM
A lot of the time I have contributed to Open Source projects recently is by reporting bugs, trying to get them as detailed as possible. I even tested out a fix before it was added to a release version. I don't have the time to do much actual coding outside work, but I like to help where I can.
But yes, the "user" part is mandatory; I wouldn't be able to report bugs if I wasn't using the software.
(Score: 1) by dilbert on Wednesday February 19 2014, @09:14AM
I contribute my time helping others learn how to use the software as a way of saying thanks to the devs/community who have provided such great software to me over the years.
(Score: 3, Informative) by VLM on Wednesday February 19 2014, @11:08AM
"Why would you join an open source community?"
I'm in it for the groupies. You other folks have groupies, right?
(Score: 1) by Yog-Yogguth on Wednesday February 19 2014, @12:32PM
Yes, gazillionards of them.
Although I have to admit I'm in it for the mitosis.
Buck Feta? Duck Fice! And Guck Foogle too!
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by rufty on Wednesday February 19 2014, @08:53AM
The community is what matters - if there's a catastrophic loss of source the community will re-create it ( and maybe implement a better backup strategy). Without a community the code will only still compile on VMS. This is why it's Linux and not Gnu/Linux. There's a Linux community and that's what matters. The Gnu is not relevant and does not deserve to shove to the front. Or even be there.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 19 2014, @01:09PM
Since then, more has happened to reveal the true story here, the depth of which surprised even me. The GTK development story and the systemd debate on Debian revealed much corporate pressure being brought to bear in Linux. [...] Some really startling facts about Red Hat came to light. For me the biggest was the fact that the US military is Red Hat's largest customer:
This is pretty much what I had figured. I'm not exactly new to this, and I figured that in some way the military-industrial/corporate/intelligence complex was in control of Red Hat and Linux. [...] But I didn't expect it to be stated so plainly. Any fool should realize that "biggest customer" doesn't mean tallest or widest, it means the most money. IOW, most of Red Hat's money comes from the military - they have first say in its development. And the connection between the military and spying agencies, etc. should be obvious.
Next, a reader posted this FOSDEM: NSA Operation ORCHESTRA Annual Status Report [fosdem.org]. Well worth watching in its entirety (including the Q&A at the end), to me this turned out to be a road-map detailing how Red Hat is operating on Linux!
Sorry for being offtopic.
(Score: 1) by mechanicjay on Wednesday February 19 2014, @03:36PM
...if only more stuff still did compile on VMS :(
My VMS box beat up your Windows box.
(Score: -1) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 19 2014, @09:00AM
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses- the-point.html [gnu.org]
(Score: 4, Funny) by nukkel on Wednesday February 19 2014, @09:28AM
source opens you!!
(Score: 2, Funny) by dilbert on Wednesday February 19 2014, @11:04AM
(Score: 1) by Yog-Yogguth on Wednesday February 19 2014, @01:17PM
while SoylentNews.org == True:
if 'Soviet Russia' in meme:
newMeme = meme.replace('Soviet Russia', 'Slashdot Beta')
written as:
To display the "written as" segment I encapsulated all of it in the <ecode> tags.
To write "<ecode>" in this and the previous sentence I used < and >. "lt" is for "less than" and "gt" is for "greater than".
To write the "&"'s in the last paragraph and in the following example at the end of the sentence but not in the first & in this paragraph nor right now but the next one I used "&".
Because part of the beauty of this comment is lost when one only sees the result I have to point out that the last "word" of the last paragraph was written as "&amp;".
However now this has iterated to "&amp;amp;" in the last paragraph to this one and again once more an additional "amp;" in this paragraph itself.
Amp is of course short for ampersand but the html won't work if you call it that, and and should be called et, and et means and in Latin and French, and in English and many other languages it has gained a hint of alluding to or confirming a closer alliance or inclusion than a simple and. This indicates the importance of ".
I used <p> and used </p> to force the smiley onto it's own line. Can't be bothered to use it correctly all over the place.
My middle name is Sloppy.
No I'm not using spaces as tabs: I'm assuming tabs have been set to being one space long!
Buck Feta? Duck Fice! And Guck Foogle too!
(Score: 2) by dilbert on Wednesday February 19 2014, @02:09PM
(Score: 1) by iWantToKeepAnon on Wednesday February 19 2014, @01:58PM
As long as we are on old memes ...
1) fork news aggregation code
2) build user base
3) include small ads
4) ?
5) soylent beta
6) profit!
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
(Score: 3, Insightful) by xiox on Wednesday February 19 2014, @11:22AM
It seems relatively easy to get users to use a free software application, but pretty hard to get any developers who might want to contribute for the long term. I'm mostly a single developer for a graphical plotting app. Lots of people tell me it's great software, but few want to make significant contributions beyond bug reports and packaging it for distributions. Perhaps this is due to the type of application. Maybe developer-centric software encourages developers.