For context, the original Reddit post being highlighted said: “Can someone help me in finding a good open source project […] for a beginner as I need to start doing open source” Feels a bit not great that you didn’t include my follow up. I agree with 80%+ of this. If you read the original post or my follow up, I think it would be 100% Open source contributions are a bad goal. They’re a good thing to do, but specifically seeking out open source repos in hopes of getting contributions harms literally everyone involved. Hacktoberfest was a mistake and has only served to confuse new devs more
Thanks for the response! I did include your followup at 1:50 - I agree that making open source a goal along the "bootcamp" or self taught dev path is not a good goal and I 100% agreed in the video that this mindset is a mistake. But i think it gets buried deep in the discourse of "should beginners do open source?" and ignores some of the nuance around why people should do open source in the first place (you'll note that I don't make it a required peace of the path to becoming a developer or becoming a senior engineer). I believe that everyone should do open source because it's a great way to level up and learn new skills, but more over, it gives back to the greater good: we should not just be blind consumers of open source software. We are all the total sum of what makes the common good of open source work today. Without open source communities, contributors, people answering questions, standing up infrastructure, hosting meetups, etc. etc., it would all fall apart. Do I detect a debate stream coming on??
Open source is alien to so many people because they've never been on an open ecosystem. If you've used the Linux desktop before, you'll find there's a hundred open-source projects you're already using, and many of them could use your help.
And like you said, the work doesn't even have to be entirely code-related. Just recently, KDE Plasma opened a competition for the default wallpaper they're going to be using on the next release. That doesn't require any coding at all.
Exactly: it's sort of a walled garden view. Alot of people sort of just assume their software is well taken care of and there's no need to get involved.
@@DelightfulPager-ro4nw Are you going to pay them? I’m being glib, but seriously, if you don’t have the means to contribute your time/skills to an open-source project you appreciate, but do have to means to contribute your money, consider donating!
"Everyone should contribute to open source." If the baseline expectation is for developers to give away their expertise, time, and work for free, this industry is fucked. It's a gross symptom of late-stage capitalism. The frogs are so boiled the meat is falling off the bone. Volunteerism is supposed to be willful _and optional_ donations. Making it expected converts it from charity to unpaid work. The cognitive framing needs a clean sweep.
I would argue that If the baseline expectation is for all companies to blindly and dogmatically consume open source software with little regard for its maintenance or common well being, then we have a worse problem. The world runs on open source. And people need to start seeing that and contributing back to the common good. Otherwise, infrastructure fails and we open the floodgates for terrible attacks by nation state actors.
@@JohnCodesThat´s even more of an argument against having new devs contributing to open source. You don´t want just any random joe schmoe making contributions that could potentially introduce an unknown security issue. You need good QA for open source tech that is that important, and junior devs spending time just mass-opening new pull requests is not the best idea IMO.
@@ElodereThen you could make the same argument for proprietary software: don't hire juniors, only hire the most senior engineers to work on our software! You need junior engineers / beginners / novices / etc. because the pipeline of people who burn out and leave is always flowing. There are _many_ projects that go unmaintained because there was no pipeline for people to go from novice -> trusted collaborator -> maintainer -> owner / leader. We need people at all skill levels or else the pipeline dries up completely.
@@JohnCodes Fair. I guess what I´m thinking if I were to put myself into the shoes of corporations is that they believe they can "kick the bucket" down the road so far that eventually AI will pick up whatever slack it needs to. I feel as though it´s an exercise in futility because they WILL eventually have to realize that they can´t just avoid training juniors. The reason why we are even here in the first place, is precisely because people don´t want to hire juniors, because you are basically subsidizing that junior´s training for the next company that they will inevitably leave for (to get higher pay and progress their career). What we see now is a counter-response to that culture, from the side of the corporations.
nice vedio on open source , iked the part where you pointed out major flaws in the community .... one video suggestion how to use open source to make meaningful connections via it
For context, the original Reddit post being highlighted said: “Can someone help me in finding a good open source project […] for a beginner as I need to start doing open source”
Feels a bit not great that you didn’t include my follow up. I agree with 80%+ of this. If you read the original post or my follow up, I think it would be 100%
Open source contributions are a bad goal. They’re a good thing to do, but specifically seeking out open source repos in hopes of getting contributions harms literally everyone involved. Hacktoberfest was a mistake and has only served to confuse new devs more
Thanks for the response! I did include your followup at 1:50 - I agree that making open source a goal along the "bootcamp" or self taught dev path is not a good goal and I 100% agreed in the video that this mindset is a mistake. But i think it gets buried deep in the discourse of "should beginners do open source?" and ignores some of the nuance around why people should do open source in the first place (you'll note that I don't make it a required peace of the path to becoming a developer or becoming a senior engineer).
I believe that everyone should do open source because it's a great way to level up and learn new skills, but more over, it gives back to the greater good: we should not just be blind consumers of open source software. We are all the total sum of what makes the common good of open source work today. Without open source communities, contributors, people answering questions, standing up infrastructure, hosting meetups, etc. etc., it would all fall apart.
Do I detect a debate stream coming on??
Open source is alien to so many people because they've never been on an open ecosystem. If you've used the Linux desktop before, you'll find there's a hundred open-source projects you're already using, and many of them could use your help.
And like you said, the work doesn't even have to be entirely code-related. Just recently, KDE Plasma opened a competition for the default wallpaper they're going to be using on the next release. That doesn't require any coding at all.
Exactly: it's sort of a walled garden view. Alot of people sort of just assume their software is well taken care of and there's no need to get involved.
Are they going to pay me? 😂
@@DelightfulPager-ro4nw Are you going to pay them?
I’m being glib, but seriously, if you don’t have the means to contribute your time/skills to an open-source project you appreciate, but do have to means to contribute your money, consider donating!
"Everyone should contribute to open source."
If the baseline expectation is for developers to give away their expertise, time, and work for free, this industry is fucked. It's a gross symptom of late-stage capitalism. The frogs are so boiled the meat is falling off the bone.
Volunteerism is supposed to be willful _and optional_ donations. Making it expected converts it from charity to unpaid work. The cognitive framing needs a clean sweep.
I would argue that If the baseline expectation is for all companies to blindly and dogmatically consume open source software with little regard for its maintenance or common well being, then we have a worse problem.
The world runs on open source. And people need to start seeing that and contributing back to the common good. Otherwise, infrastructure fails and we open the floodgates for terrible attacks by nation state actors.
@@JohnCodesThat´s even more of an argument against having new devs contributing to open source. You don´t want just any random joe schmoe making contributions that could potentially introduce an unknown security issue. You need good QA for open source tech that is that important, and junior devs spending time just mass-opening new pull requests is not the best idea IMO.
@@ElodereThen you could make the same argument for proprietary software: don't hire juniors, only hire the most senior engineers to work on our software! You need junior engineers / beginners / novices / etc. because the pipeline of people who burn out and leave is always flowing. There are _many_ projects that go unmaintained because there was no pipeline for people to go from novice -> trusted collaborator -> maintainer -> owner / leader.
We need people at all skill levels or else the pipeline dries up completely.
@@JohnCodes Fair. I guess what I´m thinking if I were to put myself into the shoes of corporations is that they believe they can "kick the bucket" down the road so far that eventually AI will pick up whatever slack it needs to. I feel as though it´s an exercise in futility because they WILL eventually have to realize that they can´t just avoid training juniors.
The reason why we are even here in the first place, is precisely because people don´t want to hire juniors, because you are basically subsidizing that junior´s training for the next company that they will inevitably leave for (to get higher pay and progress their career). What we see now is a counter-response to that culture, from the side of the corporations.
Let me know your thoughts: do you contribute to open source? Should beginners contribute?
YES and YES
Do you get paid for fixing problems or adding features in an open source project?
If it's not part of your job, very rarely.
Great video I'm watched it later, but it was a good replay on tweet
nice vedio on open source , iked the part where you pointed out major flaws in the community .... one video suggestion how to use open source to make meaningful connections via it
Great suggestion!
i love open source
me too!
Good video 👍👍
Thanks 👍