Week 7
Week 7 Blog
Open Source is Not About You:
While I believe that the writer of Open Source is Not About You makes a valid point, one which details that users of a project are not entitled to anything, I also believe that users play an imperative role in projects and their importance should not be dismissed. Despite aligning with the writers belief that users should not feel as though they are entitled to features, attention, or a change in the focus of a project, I do believe that users are powerful. Users are individuals whom actively use these projects and have considerable thoughts on them; therefore, I would assume that users would want these projects to be the best that they could be. I truly believe that many users have good intentions in their ideas towards projects they use, thus, I feel these ideas should be heard. Furthermore, I do not believe that users would continue to use a project and have thoughts on it if they were not invested in it. I believe that projects are community-driven, with both owners and users contributing to the betterment of a project and working towards the goal of making a project the best that it could possibly be. However, in conjunction with these beliefs, I also feel that individuals who only have negative comments towards a project should place those thoughts towards speaking positively about projects they do enjoy. Furthermore, I believe that the owners of a project have the freedom to take into consideration the thoughts and opinions of users but do not have to follow them if they do not wish to. Maintainers have a set focus, along with numerous goals and ideas, in order to actively put forth progress, and advancements, in a project. Maintainers work extremely hard on these projects and devote their time towards what they believe is best for the project. Agreeing with the writers original argument, I believe that users are not entitled to anything and it is ultimately owners and contributers of the projects whom have precedence in decision-making, however, I also believe it is community and openness to ideas that truly lead to the optimal result of a project.
Progress on Gatsby Project:
Installing the Development Environment:
I successfully set up the local development environment! I was extremely happy when all of the test suites and tests passed. I plan on moving forward and setting up “Docs only changes” and “Gatsby functional changes” so that I can begin working on issues on Gatsby.
Issues I am Considering:
I am still interested in working on the following issues that I stated in last week’s blog:
I am still extremely interested in these issues because they all seem relatively suitable for beginners and I believe that I would enjoy working on them. I had to narrow down the issues that I have been viewing since last week because some of the issues were closed within this week and I even had an issue that I was interested in that my team member wanted to tackle. However, I will keep my options open and continue looking at issues on Github as I continue to move forward with setting up “Docs only changes” and “Gatsby functional changes”. I want the first issue I work on to ease me into contributing towards a large project and to get me comfortable with how everything works in the Gatsby environment.
Searching Through Wikipedia:
What Have I Found/Discovered?
I have found/discovered many pages that I will be able to make small, detailed edits to! I believe that Wikipedia is filled with a lot of information, however, sometimes there are typos, misinformation, or even missing information. I believe that I will be able to edit these pages that I have found through my search and be able to enhance the content, grammar, and formatting of the information that is being supplied. Furthermore, after reading “Wikipedia: Contributing to Wikipedia”, it gave numerous ideas on making contributions towards pages, including: making edits to formatting and layout, as well as adding pictures, sounds, and videos.
What Did I Find Hard?
I believe that Wikipedia can be difficult to contribute to because it has so many contributers. There are numerous pages that have an over-abudance of information on a plethora of subjects. Sometimes it can get difficult trying to find pages that do not detail just about everything on a specific matter. Therefore, I attempt to look for pages on subjects that I know may be less well-known, thus leading to missing information that I can fill in. Furthermore, it is also time-consuming looking through numerous pages and analyzing each of them for typos, misinformation, and/or missing information. It is also time-consuming, yet imperative, ensuring that the information being contributed is valid. After reading “Wikipedia: Contributing to Wikipedia”, I especially believe getting accustomed to citing information will be difficult at first. However, I believe that putting in the effort to consistently contribute will gradually facilitate how I cite sources, as well as make the contributing process as fluid as possible for me. Although these aspects may pose as a challenge, I still carry a lot of excitement towards making my first contributions on Wikipedia!
Research I Have Done This Week/Contributions:
I have been reading a lot of articles on Open Source this week! These articles included ones such as The Hidden Benefit of Giving Back to Open Source and Ten simple rules for helping newcomers become contributors to open projects.
I have also made numerous contributions to OpenStreetMap, along with edits to my peers' blogs! Furthermore, I have been delving into making contributions for both Wikipedia and Gatsby, and will begin making contributions for both this week.