Thoughts on “Makers and Takers” by Dries Buytaert

This week I read a blog post, “Balancing Makers and Takers to scale and sustain Open Source”, by Dries Buytaert. While I try to approach any new text as an objective reader, I could not help but feel immediately and irrevocably thrown off by this piece. The post opens with: “In many ways, Open Source has won. Most people know that Open Source provides better quality software, at a lower cost, without vendor lock-in.” Open source has won in many ways and most people know the advantages of open source??! For me this was the first of multiple times where I encountered a bold statement, which then had to be heavily qualified if not contradicted later on. On the one hand, as Vicky Brasseur argued, and I am inclined to agree, open source has certainly made great strides, but also has a long way to go; this article suggests forms of organization and governance that may contribute to such improvement but it is nonetheless a pushy start. On the other hand, as Buytaert himself states not long thereafter, “proprietary software dominates most facets of our lives”. This is exactly because most people put very little thought in their software selections at all: to the extent that they do, most are still likely to feel more comfortable purchasing software from a major company, not peruse the options of small open source community productions. Thus while I do agree with the idea that open source “might be the only way to solve some of the world’s most important problems” (such as getting voting technology right) and helping pave the way for open source business to succeed is important for the future of open source, I couldn’t shake the feeling after this beginning that the post took a very limited view of the issues at stake and that I couldn’t quite nail down for whom this article was intended.

Open Source & Business

This past week I read the “musings” of notable open source speaker Tom Callaway on the intersection of open source software (he uses that term loosely to encompass everything recognized by the OSI and the FSF, and so do I) and business. Mr. Callaway is well-disposed to offer these reflections given his lengthy experience in this very matter at Red Hat. While the astute will notice that the blog entry is from over a year ago at the time of writing - virtually a lifetime in our rapidly changing tech landscape - and would be well complemented by some follow up research, it is nonetheless a succint, informative and blunt piece.

Getting Down to Earth With Vicky Brasseur

This past week our open source class received a particularly thought-provoking and passionate talk from Vicky Brasseur, who has quite the background in - particularly the business side of - the open source world. Ms. Brasseur is a former VP of the Open Source Initiative, currently serves as Director of Open Source Strategy for Juniper Networks, and is also the author of Forge Your Future With Open Source, which discusses how to contribute to open source projects. Her talk focused on the theme of “Four Ways to Spread the Four Freedoms”, referring of course to the freedoms to run, study, redistribute and improve software. While this sounds like the focus of a lofty and idealistic discussion, Ms. Brasseur instead laid out a positive, but nonetheless biting, message: the mission is not yet accomplished. The FOSS world has accomplished a lot, but there remains much to be done.

Well, well, well - it’s good to be back! For those of you keeping track, this is the first blog after two weekends off due to the originally calendared “Spring break” for the Spring 2020 semester.

Open Source in Industry:

This week the Open Source Software class was graced with a very enlightening, thorough and fun presentation by Kevin Fleming, Head of Open Source Community Engagement at the Chief Technology Officer’s office at Bloomberg. Personally I found myself spellbound, and I am sure that I was not alone in that, following Mr. Fleming cover the wide breadth of Bloomberg’s use of and contributions to open source tools and platforms across many fields: from cloud and distributed computing to machine learning. Perhaps what I found most interesting is the almost casual manner in which this relationship developed. While we learned that Mr. Fleming has his own background in open source software and continues to make contributions in his personal time to this day, the Bloomberg company began using open source software - the most obvious and well-known case being Git - as a practical (and sometimes free!) resource rather than out of some pre-existing dedication to the open source world. As Mr. Fleming pointed out, and I suspect this is the case for countless other companies, this usage and experience - even if only impacting how the company’s product is made at first - serves as great incentive for the company to continue to return the FOSS world, and, in time, to begin paying it forward with their own contributions. A compelling and encouraging component of his talk was just how much of a potent base open source software had been and continues to be for Bloomberg: not parts of pet projects or community outreach programs, but in fact serving as the real muscle below a professional product in which disappointment can be measured in milliseconds and in which the competing impulses of speed and accuracy somehow have to both come out on top.

COVID-19 and the Open Source Software Course:

The one thing dominating almost every headline (and e-mail subject line) is COVID-19. A disease that was but a murmur in the news a month ago, has upended normal life, particularly for everyone in New York City, and has changed what it means to work or attend school for millions of America. I can thankfully say that neither I, nor my family, nor anyone I know has been affected by the disease and I sincerely hope that it remains that way for me, and for you as well, dear reader. That said, I do want to note for posterity how it has affected my education, and what I believe the situation will be in 1 and 2 months.

While my previous blog entries have not been limited to a single topic, this week will feature more topics than usual, as there is simply a lot of learning to dicuss. I’ll be sharing thoughts on setting boundaries in the world of open source software and contributing to Wikipedia, as well as continuing my log of my project research.

Atom: Getting Started in FOSS

The time has come in our course to focus on getting our feet wet and making real contributions to the world of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). To this end the class has been partitioned into groups of 3-4 members, and I count myself extremely lucky to have been teamed up with Boubacar and Jessica. The blogs they maintain (click their names!) give only a taste of the fun collaboration and serious know-how they bring to the table. The following is the daily logs of efforts to jump into a project of our choosing.

Evaluating a Week of Evaluations:

To review, this week has been a week of reviews…no more puns from here on out, I promise. In all seriousness, this week’s classes were all about going through the rigors of evaluating FOSS projects in a more comprehensive and in-depth fashion. For my part, this meant reviews of the GNOME Clocks and TEAMMATES projects. In essence, it was a step beyond only checking for the basic necessities - or, when they are missing, the obvious red flags - such as a license, contributing or code of conduct document. These activities pushed all of us to get into the guts of what makes a project viable for an outsider to become a contributor. Can you set up the development environment? How well documented and readable is the code? Significantly, what does the life of an issue or pull request in the project look like? For an outsider well tagged issues and timely, helpful and appreciative responses from maintainers can be the difference between a great FOSS experience and a discouraging FOSS experience.

This week I will be listing open source software projects I have reviewed as candidates for receiving contributions in the Open Source Software course’s final project. Below each, I will list a very, very reduced form of some of the defining characteristics of an open source project, and check off where a project does, or does not, meet these criteria.

For anyone who has used some open source software, tool or platform, the thought of making one’s own contribution is nearly inevitable, as is the ensuing doubt that throws the potential value of that contribution into question. How can someone who is not a veteran of the project’s development, particularly in the cases of long development timelines, make a meaningful contribution?

Responses to Weekly Prompts:

Response to Weekly Prompt: