What does an open source maintainer do after burnout?

Redis founder Salvatore Sanfilippo hadn’t run up against term limits. No one was demanding he stop leading the project, and he wasn’t struggling to keep Redis innovating. But on June 30, 2020, Sanfilippo announced the “end of the Redis adventure” for him. Effective immediately, he relinquished his lead maintainer role, saying “I don’t really know what there is for me in my future,” except to “just look around… without doing too many things.”

Despite (or, rather, because of) being the face of Redis for over 10 years, Sanfilippo was done. He needed a break. While Sanfilippo’s departure only affects the Redis community, the reasons have far broader implications.

[ Also on InfoWorld: Remember when open source was fun? ]

So let’s talk about open source maintainers, and how Sanfilippo’s example translates into best practices within the enterprise.

The other kind of ‘low code’

If you’re familiar with how open source communities work, you can skip ahead, because you likely already know this: Maintainers don’t write much code. As the GitHub Open Source Guide says, “If you maintain an open source project that a lot of people use, you may have noticed you’re coding less and responding to issues more.” Instead of writing code, you’re communicating with would-be contributors to help them shape their code to be useful for the project, or you’re documenting processes and vision, or any number of other things.

But coding…? Not so much.

Talking with the maintainer for the popular OBS project, founder (and maintainer) Jim Bailey told me that one of the major headaches of maintaining a project is that the incoming software often “isn’t very good.” As he explained, “It can be very difficult to review people’s code, because you want everything to be consistent in your project… There’s a lot of bad code that people try to contribute.”

Of course not all the code is bad, and sometimes it’s “bad” because it’s somewhat narrow and self-centered. As Bailey put it:

People only contribute stuff that’s useful for them, almost exclusively. They usually don’t contribute code that is useful to everybody, though sometimes they do…. [M]ost of the time, maybe 80 percent of the time, whenever you get a pull request for something, a request to merge code, it’s almost always [for their narrow self-interest].”

#salvatore sanfilippo #github #obs project, #redis

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Buddha Community

An Open-Source Book About the Open Source World

Open source today is a word that often include a lot of things, such as open knowledge (Wikimedia projects), open hardware (Arduino, Raspberry Pi), open formats (ODT/ODS/ODP) and so on.

It is a world of opportunities that can be difficult for newcomers but also for intermediates. This article will help you discover how to approach specific roles, activities or projects/communities in the best way.

Everything Started with “Coaching for OpenSource Communities 2.0”

I decided to write a book in my personal style about my experience in the last 7 to 8 years in open source. I was surprised when I reached 100 pages about various different topics.

My idea was to write something that I would like to read, so nothing that is boring or complicated, but full of real facts.

The second goal was to include my experience but also my philosophy on contributing and how I contribute daily.

Thirdly, I wanted to give a lot of hints and resources and an overall view of this open source world.

Basically, I wanted to write something different from self-help or coaching books that includes just a list of suggestions and best practices. Instead, I take real examples from real life about the OSS world.

As a contributor and developer, I prefer to have real cases to study, because best practices are useful, but we need to learn from others and this world is full of good and bad cases to discover.

In 2019, I started writing a book after Fosdem 2019 and after 2 years inside the Mozilla Reps Council. In that Fosdem edition, I had a talk “Coaching for Open Source Communities 2.0” and after the feedback at the conference and my thoughts in various roles, activities, and projects, it was time to write something.

At the end it wasn’t a manual but a book that included my experience, learnings, best practices and so on in Localization, Development, Project Maintainer, Sysadmin, Community Management, Mentor, Speaker and so on. It contains the following sections:

• Biography - This choice isn’t for self promotion but just to understand my point of view and my story that can be inspiring for others
• Philosophy - Not the usual description of Open Source or the 4 freedoms, but just what Open Source means and how you can help
• How to live inside the Open Source - A discovery about communications and tools, understanding the various kind of people and the best way to talk with your community
• How to choose a project - Starting with some questions to yourself and how to involve more people in your project
• The activity - Open Source is based on tasks that can be divided in 2 levels: Support, Testing, Marketing, Development etc
• How to use your time - We are busy, we have a life, a job and a family but Open Source can be time-consuming
• Why document is important - How writing documentation can be healthy for your community and the project’s future and brand

There are also three appendices that are manuals which I wrote throughout the years and gathered and improved for this book. They are about: community management, public speaking, and mentoring.

The book ends with my point of view about the future and what we have to do to change opinions about those topics.

I wrote this book and published in October 2019, but it was only possible with the help of reviews and localizers that improved and contributed. Yes, because this book is open source and free for everyone.

I picked the GPL license because this license changed the world and my life in the best way. Using this license is just a tribute. This decision usually is not clear because after all this is a book and there are better licenses like Creative Commons.

#open-source #contributing-to-open-source #programming #software-development #development #coding #books #open-source-software

Top 8 Java Open Source Projects You Should Get Your Hands-on [2021]

Learning about Java is no easy feat. It’s a prevalent and in-demand programming language with applications in numerous sectors. We all know that if you want to learn a new skill, the best way to do so is through using it. That’s why we recommend working on projects.

So if you’re a Java student, then you’ve come to the right place as this article will help you learn about the most popular Java open source projects. This way, you’d have a firm grasp of industry trends and the programming language’s applications.

However, before we discuss its various projects, it’s crucial to examine the place where you can get those projects – GitHub. Let’s begin.

#full stack development #java open source projects #java projects #open source projects #top 8 java open source projects #java open source projects

Did Google Open Sourcing Kubernetes Backfired?

Over the last few years, Kubernetes have become the de-facto standard for container orchestration and has also won the race against Docker for being the most loved platforms among developers. Released in 2014, Kubernetes has come a long way with currently being used across the entire cloudscape platforms. In fact, recent reports state that out of 109 tools to manage containers, 89% of them are leveraging Kubernetes versions.

Although inspired by Borg, Kubernetes, is an open-source project by Google, and has been donated to a vendor-neutral firm — The Cloud Native Computing Foundation. This could be attributed to Google’s vision of creating a platform that can be used by every firm of the world, including the large tech companies and can host multiple cloud platforms and data centres. The entire reason for handing over the control to CNCF is to develop the platform in the best interest of its users without vendor lock-in.

#opinions #google open source #google open source tools #google opening kubernetes #kubernetes #kubernetes platform #kubernetes tools #open source kubernetes backfired

Hacktoberfest 2020: Let’s Get Hacking

It’s October and we’re calling all programmers, designers, content writers and open-source contributors to join Hacktoberfest 2020. This is a fantastic opportunity to contribute to open-source or try your hand at something new.

For those who are new to programming or open-source, you may be wondering what is open-source or Hacktoberfest.

_Open source_refers to source code that is publicly accessible and allows anyone to inspect, modify, or learn from it. Open source projects encourage collaboration and the freedom to use the software for any purpose you wish._Hacktoberfest_is a month-long celebration of open source software run by DigitalOcean and is open to everyonein our global community.

Seven years ago, Hacktoberfest kick-started the celebration along with 676 excited participants contributing to open source projects and earning a limited-edition T-shirt. Now, hundreds of thousands of developers participate in Hacktoberfest from 150 countries.

If you want to contribute to open-source projects, but don’t know where to start, then Hacktoberfest is the perfect opportunity for you.

Hacktoberfest is a month-long celebration of open source software sponsored by Digital Ocean, Intel, and DEV.

The goal of the event is to encourage participation in the open-source community all across the globe. The challenge is quite simple: open four high-quality pull requests in October on any open source project to get some swag.

Swag you say?

If you complete valid 4prs, you stand to get a T-shirt, some stickers and a cup coaster (I got one last year, I’m not sure if they’ll be doing it this year also).

They also introduced the option to plant a tree instead of receiving a T-shirt as a reward to reduce the environmental impact.

#hacktoberfest #github #git #open-source #opensource #contributing-to-open-source #open-source-contribution #first-open-source-contribution

22 Interesting Python Open Source Project Ideas & Topics for Beginners [2021]

Python is among the most popular programming languages on the planet, and there are many reasons behind this fame. One of those reasons is a large number of open-source projects and libraries available for this language. From machine learning to animation, there’s a Python project for nearly everything. If you want to become a proficient Python developer, you should be familiar with some of these projects (if not all).

That’s why in this article, we’ll discuss different Python projects with source code Github. Because Python has applications in various industries, you might find many projects to help you complete your tasks. You should choose projects according to your interests and your experience. You can bookmark this article for future reference. Let’s get started.

Here are a few of the Python Open Source Project Ideas –

#data science #open source project ideas #open source projects #project ideas #python #python open source