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| author | Loïc Hoguin <[email protected]> | 2016-03-28 15:36:42 +0200 |
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| committer | Loïc Hoguin <[email protected]> | 2016-03-28 15:36:42 +0200 |
| commit | fe3492a98de29942477b061cd02c92246f4bf85a (patch) | |
| tree | 2255b796a657e6e4dfb72beec1141258d17f1220 /articles/on-open-source/index.html | |
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diff --git a/articles/on-open-source/index.html b/articles/on-open-source/index.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..55519160 --- /dev/null +++ b/articles/on-open-source/index.html @@ -0,0 +1,276 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> + +<head> + <meta charset="utf-8"> + <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0"> + <meta name="description" content=""> + <meta name="author" content="Loïc Hoguin based on a design from (Soft10) Pol Cámara"> + + <meta name="generator" content="Hugo 0.15" /> + + <title>Nine Nines: On open source</title> + + <link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Open+Sans:400,700,400italic' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'> + + <link href="/css/bootstrap.min.css" rel="stylesheet"> + <link href="/css/99s.css" rel="stylesheet"> + + <link rel="shortcut icon" href="/img/ico/favicon.ico"> + <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="114x114" href="/img/ico/apple-touch-icon-114.png"> + <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="72x72" href="/img/ico/apple-touch-icon-72.png"> + <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" href="/img/ico/apple-touch-icon-57.png"> + + +</head> + + +<body class=""> + <header id="page-head"> + <div id="topbar" class="container"> + <div class="row"> + <div class="span2"> + <h1 id="logo"><a href="/" title="99s">99s</a></h1> + </div> + <div class="span10"> + + <div id="side-header"> + <nav> + <ul> + <li class="active"><a title="Hear my thoughts" href="/articles">Articles</a></li> + <li><a title="Watch my talks" href="/talks">Talks</a></li> + <li><a title="Read the docs" href="/docs">Documentation</a></li> + <li><a title="Request my services" href="/services">Consulting & Training</a></li> + </ul> + </nav> + <ul id="social"> + <li> + <a href="https://github.com/ninenines" title="Check my Github repositories"><img src="/img/ico_github.png" data-hover="/img/ico_github_alt.png" alt="Github"></a> + </li> + <li> + <a title="Keep in touch!" href="http://twitter.com/lhoguin"><img src="/img/ico_microblog.png" data-hover="/img/ico_microblog_alt.png"></a> + </li> + <li> + <a title="Contact me" href="mailto:[email protected]"><img src="/img/ico_mail.png" data-hover="/img/ico_mail_alt.png"></a> + </li> + </ul> + </div> + </div> + </div> + </div> + + +</header> + +<div id="contents"> +<div class="container"> +<div class="row"> +<div class="span9 maincol"> + +<article class="blog_item"> +<header> + <h1 class="lined-header"><span>On open source</span></h1> + <p class="date"> + <span class="day">05</span> + <span class="month">Sep</span> + </p> +</header> + +<div class="paragraph"><p>Last week I read a great article
+<a href="http://videlalvaro.github.io/2014/08/on-contributing-to-opensource.html">on
+contributing to open source</a> by Alvaro Videla. He makes
+many great points and I am in agreement with most of it.
+This made me want to properly explain my point of view with
+regard to open source and contributions. Unlike most open
+source evangelism articles I will not talk about ideals or
+any of that crap, but rather my personal feelings and
+experience.</p></div>
+<div class="paragraph"><p>I have been doing open source work for quite some time.
+My very first open source project was a graphics driver
+for (the very early version of) the PCSX2 emulator. That
+was more than ten years ago, and there
+<a href="http://ngemu.com/threads/gstaris-0-6.30469/">isn’t
+much left to look at today</a>. This was followed by a
+<a href="https://github.com/extend/wee">PHP framework</a>
+(started long before Zend Framework was even a thing) and
+a few other small projects. None of them really took off.
+It’s alright, that’s pretty much the fate of most open
+source projects. You spend a lot of work and sweat and
+get very little in return from others.</p></div>
+<div class="paragraph"><p>This sounds harsh but this is the reality of all open
+source projects. If you are thinking of building a project
+and releasing it as open source, you should be prepared
+for that. This is how most of your projects will feel like.
+Don’t release a project as open source thinking everyone
+will pat you on the back and cheer, this won’t happen. In
+fact if your project is a too small improvement over existing
+software, what many people will do is say you have NIH
+syndrome, regardless of the improvement you bring. So you
+need not to rely on other people in order to get your
+enjoyment out of building open source software.</p></div>
+<div class="paragraph"><p>In my case I get enjoyment from thinking about problems
+that need solving. Often times the problems are already
+solved, but nevermind that, I still think about them and
+sometimes come up with something I feel is better and then
+write code for it. Writing code is also fun, but not as
+fun as using my brain to imagine solutions.</p></div>
+<div class="paragraph"><p>You don’t need thousands of users to do that. So are
+users worthless to me then? No, of course not. In fact
+they are an important component: they bring me problems
+that need solving. So users are very important to me.
+But that’s not the only reason.</p></div>
+<div class="paragraph"><p>I got lucky that the Cowboy project became popular.
+And seeing it be this popular, and some of my other projects
+also do quite well, made me believe I could perhaps work
+full time on open source. If I can work full time then
+I can produce better software. What I had one hour to
+work on before I can now spend a day on, and experiment
+until I am satisfied. This is very useful because that
+means I can get it almost right from the beginning, and
+avoid the million API breaking changes that occured
+before Cowboy 1.0 was released.</p></div>
+<div class="paragraph"><p>To be able to work full time on open source however,
+I need money. This is a largely unspoken topic of open
+source work. The work is never free. You can download the
+product for free, but someone has to pay for the work
+itself. Life is unfortunately not free.</p></div>
+<div class="paragraph"><p>Large projects and some lucky people have their work
+sponsored by their employers. Everyone else has to deal
+with it differently. In my case I was sponsored for a
+while by the <a href="http://leo-project.net/leofs/">LeoFS</a>
+project, but that ended. I also had the Farwest fundraiser,
+which was a success, although the project stalled after that.
+(Fear not, as Farwest will make a comeback as a conglomerate
+of Web development projects in the future.) After that I set
+up the <a href="http://ninenines.eu/support/">sponsoring scheme</a>,
+which I can proudly say today brings in enough money to
+cover my food and shelter. Great!</p></div>
+<div class="paragraph"><p>This is a start, but it’s of course not enough. Life
+is a little more than food and shelter, and so I am still
+looking for sponsors. This is not a very glorious experience,
+as I am essentially looking for scraps that companies can
+throw away. Still, if a handful more companies were doing
+that, not only would I be able to live comfortably, but I
+would also be able to stop worrying about the future as I
+could put money on the side for when it gets rough.</p></div>
+<div class="paragraph"><p>A few companies giving me some scrap money so I could
+live and work independently is by far the most important
+thing anyone can do to help my projects, including Cowboy.
+Yes, they’re even more important than code contributions,
+bug reports and feedback. Because this money gives me the
+time I need to handle the code contributions, bug reports
+and feedback.</p></div>
+<div class="paragraph"><p>If Cowboy or another project is a large part of your
+product or infrastructure, then the best thing you can do
+is become a sponsor. The second best is opening tickets
+and/or providing feedback. The third best is providing
+good code contributions.</p></div>
+<div class="paragraph"><p>I will not expand on the feedback part. Feedback is
+very important, and even just a high five or a retweet
+is already good feedback. It’s not very complicated.</p></div>
+<div class="paragraph"><p>I want to expand a little on code contributions
+however. Not long ago I ran across the term "patch bomb"
+which means dropping patches and expecting the project
+maintainers to merge them and maintain them. I receive
+a lot of patches, and often have to refuse them. Causes
+for refusal vary. Some patches only benefit the people
+who submitted them (or a very small number of people).
+Some patches are not refined enough to be included.
+Others are out of scope of the project. These are some
+of the reasons why I refuse patches. Having limited
+time and resources, I have to focus my efforts on the
+code used by the larger number of users. I have to
+prioritize patches from submitters who are reactive
+and address the issues pointed out. And I have to plainly
+refuse other patches.</p></div>
+<div class="paragraph"><p>I believe this wraps up my thoughts on open source.
+Overall I had a great experience, the Erlang community
+being nice and understanding of the issues at hand in
+general. And if the money problem could be solved soon,
+then I would be one of the luckiest and happiest open
+source developer on Earth.</p></div>
+<div class="paragraph"><p>Think about it the next time you see a donation button
+or a request for funds or sponsoring. You can considerably
+improve an open source developer’s life with very little
+of your company’s money.</p></div>
+ +</article> +</div> + +<div class="span3 sidecol"> +<h3>More articles</h3> +<ul id="articles-nav" class="extra_margin"> + + <li><a href="http://ninenines.eu/articles/erlanger-playbook-september-2015-update/">The Erlanger Playbook September 2015 Update</a></li> + + <li><a href="http://ninenines.eu/articles/erlanger-playbook/">The Erlanger Playbook</a></li> + + <li><a href="http://ninenines.eu/articles/erlang-validate-utf8/">Validating UTF-8 binaries with Erlang</a></li> + + <li><a href="http://ninenines.eu/articles/on-open-source/">On open source</a></li> + + <li><a href="http://ninenines.eu/articles/the-story-so-far/">The story so far</a></li> + + <li><a href="http://ninenines.eu/articles/cowboy2-qs/">Cowboy 2.0 and query strings</a></li> + + <li><a href="http://ninenines.eu/articles/january-2014-status/">January 2014 status</a></li> + + <li><a href="http://ninenines.eu/articles/farwest-funded/">Farwest got funded!</a></li> + + <li><a href="http://ninenines.eu/articles/erlang.mk-and-relx/">Build Erlang releases with Erlang.mk and Relx</a></li> + + <li><a href="http://ninenines.eu/articles/xerl-0.5-intermediate-module/">Xerl: intermediate module</a></li> + + <li><a href="http://ninenines.eu/articles/xerl-0.4-expression-separator/">Xerl: expression separator</a></li> + + <li><a href="http://ninenines.eu/articles/erlang-scalability/">Erlang Scalability</a></li> + + <li><a href="http://ninenines.eu/articles/xerl-0.3-atomic-expressions/">Xerl: atomic expressions</a></li> + + <li><a href="http://ninenines.eu/articles/xerl-0.2-two-modules/">Xerl: two modules</a></li> + + <li><a href="http://ninenines.eu/articles/xerl-0.1-empty-modules/">Xerl: empty modules</a></li> + + <li><a href="http://ninenines.eu/articles/ranch-ftp/">Build an FTP Server with Ranch in 30 Minutes</a></li> + + <li><a href="http://ninenines.eu/articles/tictactoe/">Erlang Tic Tac Toe</a></li> + +</ul> + +<h3>Feedback</h3> +<p>Feel free to <a href="mailto:[email protected]">email us</a> +if you found any mistake or need clarification on any of the +articles.</p> + +</div> +</div> +</div> +</div> + + <footer> + <div class="container"> + <div class="row"> + <div class="span6"> + <p id="scroll-top"><a href="#">↑ Scroll to top</a></p> + <nav> + <ul> + <li><a href="mailto:[email protected]" title="Contact us">Contact us</a></li><li><a href="https://github.com/ninenines/ninenines.github.io" title="Github repository">Contribute to this site</a></li> + </ul> + </nav> + </div> + <div class="span6 credits"> + <p><img src="/img/footer_logo.png"></p> + <p>Copyright © Loïc Hoguin 2012-2016</p> + </div> + </div> + </div> + </footer> + + + <script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.7.1/jquery.min.js"></script> + <script src="/js/bootstrap-carousel.js"></script> + <script src="/js/bootstrap-dropdown.js"></script> + <script src="/js/custom.js"></script> + </body> +</html> + |