Thoughts on “Makers and Takers” by Dries Buytaert

Comments about Tom Callaway’s blog post

Reading Tom Callaway’s blog post helped clear a lot of questions I had regarding open source and companies. I always wondered if all companies that produced open source software all ran on the same business model. I also wondered how they made money, and how it compares to other companies that sell proprietary software. Tom addressed all the different types of open source business models that exists. The one business model that really caught my eye was the dirty one that MongoDB is running. This raised my eyebrows because I actually had to use MongoDB for one of my projects in my other class, so I actually knew what MongoDB is and what they do. All the other businsses that Tom Callaway listed, like Elementary, Fastly, Tidelift, I never heard of before. MongoDB’s business model is very schemey but also smart. They offer a free and paid service. The free service, is free, but there is a catch. The catch is that the company that uses MongoDB code, has to release every component that uses MongoDB’s code. This scares businesses because they don’t want to release their code. The paid service doesn’t require businesses to release components that uses MongoDB’s code.
After reading Tom’s post, I also realized how much customers can hate or dislike proprietary software vendors. It seems like whenever a business purchases proprietary software, they take a bigger risk, and don’t reap as much benefits as the vendor selling the proprietary software. Most of the time, businesses are forced to pay subscriptions to continue to use the software, or they have to pay to upgrade the software. If they want to change a little feature, they cannot because it is proprietary software. They also can’t unsubscribe and stop using the software because their business has grown so much around this software and rely on it so much. So in a sense, they have trapped themselves. Vendors like microsoft, a lot of businesses rely on windows because it is argueably, the norm. A lot of employees will know how to navigate through a windows operating system, so there is no need to teach employees how to use it. Microsoft word, excel, powerpoint, all proprietary software that has to be paid for.
In one of my media classes, digital design, I am required to meet in one of the CS labs in the 10th floor that has the mac computers because the professor needed to teach using adobe photoshop, illustrator, or inDesign. All proprietary software, that has to be paid for. Throughout the semester, the professor greatly disliked Adobe, but reluctantly needed it. She needed adobe because it was her career and it was how she could make money. She had paid for the software, but she disliked it so much because there would be changes made after each update that weren’t needed. There would be updates changing the menu and layout of the software, making it hard to follow tutorials, beause the layout is oudated. She also had to teach an entire course at Hunter that revolved around this software, which would also pay her. In the beginning of the semester, we ran into a brick wall, when we discovered that every student had to buy their own copy of adobe products. It wasn’t the case anymore that students could just register with their hunter email and be able to use the software. Adobe had changed their license or something, and made it so that students each had to purchase their own individual copy of the software. It was bizarre, and a greedy corporate move.

Vicky Brasseur talk

I found Vicky’s Braasseur talk very informaative and helpful. She brought a lot to the table including insider’s information. Information like what it is actually like to participate in an open source communitiy. She brought a lot of insight as to what communities are like and the types of people to expect. She told me information that I would have not known if I was just viewing a community from the outside. For example, when applying for a job, you are often told the pros and not the cons. And you are given a perspective that it is great to work here. But Vicky is that person that tells you what the culture, niche is like at work. What kinds of people there are at work. There are some people that are mean, strict, and some people that are kind and outgoing.

Gil Yehuda Talk

I found Gil Yehuda’s visit to our class really inspiring and really informative. He answered a lot of questions I had regarding Open Source. He brought a lot of insight in terms of how companies work with open source. How companies can profit from open source. One interesting thing that Gil Yehuda pointed out that I never thought of is:
If you hire someone and they are using open source code on GitHub, is it the person you hired that is writing code, or the stranger on GitHub?
Gil Yehuda also gave a lot of good interview tips that other people wouldn’t tell you. Advisors at the career development center wouldn’t tell me this advice for interviews, because they don’t have the knowledge to. One good interview tip includes talking about the open source project that you know a company is using or made. If you make a contribution to an open source project, and the company you want to work for uses or made the open source project then you can use that to your advantage.During the interview for that company, mentioning that you’ve made contributions or showing that you’re interested in the open source project can be really impressive in the recruiter’s point of view.
Another tip that Gil Yehuda mentioned is that if a company doesn’t know much about open source or don’t believe in it, then it isn’t a company that you should work for.

What I found / discovered, and what was hard while investigating Wikipedia’s pages

While browsing wikipedia and trying to look for potential pages to contribute to, I found out how huge Wikipedia is, and how accurate a lot of the information is. It is so hard to find pages to contribute to because most time, there is more information than I would know. And because the information surpases my knowledge, I have no way of confirming it is correct, unless I do research. So instead of looking for pages to contribute to by searching for random wikipedia pages, I start thinking of pages I could potentially edit. I first thought of my laptop, and I thought maybe there is something I can contribute to this specific brand of my laptop. But then after some thinking, I realized I actually know nothing special about the laptop, besides the specficiations and performance. Other than that, I don’t know what year it was manufactured, all the variants. So contributing to my laptop was out of the question because I knew like nothing about it. Then I thought of one of my all time favorite movies, Interstellar, and I’m very passionate about this movie and I noticed all the small details in the movie. And when I read the plot for the movie on wikipedia, I immediately saw changes I could make. And so, I added a lot more detail to the plot of the movie in wikipedia and I actually enjoyed it.

Comments on “Why to report bugs”

After reading the post, on why to report bugs, I definitely learned a huge lesson. The lesson on why to report bugs. And i’m guilty of what the users are doing, thinking that someone else will do it so that means I probably, most likely, don’t have to do it. And this is not just in terms of reporting bugs but stuff in real life. Such as, thinking my sibling probably did the chore, so that means I don’t have to. Then afterwards, we all get yelled at.
Some of the reasons the author mentions for why people might not report bugs, included thinking someone else has done it, or people being too scared to report it because they are afraid to get yelled at. And it seems like this would most likely happen if the community for the open source project is toxic and mean. The user probably got a first impression of the community, and realized how strict people can be, or close-minded people can be. And I understand how hard it can be to ask these people questions, because you’re afraid of the backlash.

Kevin Fleming visit

I am really glad that Kevin Fleming gave us a presentation on Bloomberg, because I always wanted to learn more about Bloomberg and what exactly Bloomberg does. I have always heard of Bloomberg being a top tech company that almost everyone wants to work for. They offer great pay, and are a reputable name in the tech industry. But I always wondered what they do exactly? Cause I see that they post news articles, so intially I thought they are a news company. But then I see that they do programs and coding related stuff and software, so I thought they do news and software. But after Kevin Fleming’s visit, I now understand what they do. And it is actually really interesting to me because I am also starting to get into stocks. I am learning about stocks and the patterns, and what to invest, and when to invest. And to see Kevin Fleming come and talk about Bloomberg and how they specialize in stocks pretty much, is great to hear. I learned that Bloomberg offers a service that helps people. And Bloomberg service has become so essential, that some companies cannot function without Bloomberg’s service.

Inkscape opensource progress: For this week, I decided to build Inkscape again from the source code and fiddle around with some of the features. It runs pretty much the same as it would if I were to install inkscape from the installer. I read some more documentation on inkscape’s gitlab like the CONTRIBUTING.md and NEWS, and AUTHORS. The NEWS is pretty much just patch notes of what new things have been changed, and the AUTHORS is a really long list of all authors or contributors. I then went and checked out the issues tab and there are currently, a total of 1,155 issues. 615 are open ,and 540 are closed. I’m looking at the issues that contributors post and they are quite confusing cause I don’t have much knowledge is most of the issues. I am going to begin my open source progress for inkscape by analyzing the code and seeing how it works. I am probably going to barely scratch the surface because, personally, it is hard for me to understand code unless someone explains it to me in a lot of detail.

Comments on open source isn’t about you This article or reading really reminded me what open source is open and the pros and cons that come with it. I totally 100% agree with what is said in that article. It is true that open source, you are not entitled anything, and no one is your boss, and you’re no ones boss. Being the owner of a open source project does not allow you to boss people around. If you have someone who you have been relying on to make great progress to your project, and suddenly they stopped working because “they don’t feel like it”, you absolutely cannot say anything to them, and ask them to work. One does not gain any status in life because they helped contribute greatly to a open source project.

Semester Project

Team: Matthew, Keisuke, Umar ——————————– For our semester long project, we decided to work on Inkscape. The reason I decided to choose inkscape is because it is a program that we have all used at least once so we at least know what the purpose of the program is. However, one thing that threw me off intially is the fact that the inkscape source code is hosted on GitLab instead of GitHub. The reason that threw me off is because I’m already not too confident in myself in GitHub, and to potentially have to relearn everything on GitLab was a bit intimidating. But after deciding to finally take a step and check out Inkscape on GitLab, I realized that it is surprisingly similar. The layout is really similar, and it seems like the only difference between GitLab and GitHub is a different “skin” so to speak. Meaning, there is a different color theme. Other than that, I had to create an account, but I just chose to create with my GitHub account. The forking, cloning options were all still there like I was taught in class.

The project evaluation I did in class on Feb, 27, was a eye-opening experience. I did not realize that these open source projects can have so much detail. There is documentation for everything, like how to use the program and how specific features of Atom work. The manual for Atom is so large and long, and there is so much information.

Some projects I have looked at include:

• Bootstrap
• Microsoft visual studio code
• Inkscape
• Jupyter notebook
• Godot

There are many different ways to contribute to a FOSS project. Additionally, there are many people who can contribute to a FOSS project. On top of that, many people have a variety of skills that they are better at or comes naturally to them. I think the skills that I have that would be most useful for contributing to a FOSS project are also the skills I find most interesting. For me, I really like testing and trying out new software or applications. It gives me a sense of adventure. Additionally, I have a strong attention to detail, so I can spot little errors or bugs that other people may not notice. This way, I can contribute by submitting bugs. I also like to brainstorm, so I can also suggest new features and options to be added to a FOSS project. I also really like to teach people something that I am passionate about, so I can help others learn to use the program by giving tips or advice.

There are many ways to contribute to open source projects. Some ways that I would like to contribute in includes:

1. Suggesting new features and options
2. Correcting spelling and grammar mistakes in documentations
3. Helping others learn how to use the program

I decided to take this Open Source software development course because I would like to learn more skills to help improve my communication skills and navigation of sites like GitHub. I know that GitHub is a popular platform for allowing multiple people to contribute to a project. However, I do find GitHub interface a bit confusing. When opening the source code of a project, I see so many different files, all with seemingly vague names. And I don’t have a clear understanding of how to navigate the files, and how each file came to be how it is. Some questions I have include:

1. How many people did it take to edit this file to get it to the way it is now?
2. How many people worked on it?
3. How long did it take for this project to get to its current state.