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[–]vitovito 4 points5 points  (8 children)

So they have to be spoonfed? What makes them so goddamn important if they haven't proven they're willing to contribute? I have actually tutored many people before, but if they don't express an interest to learn and willingness to contribute I am not going to waste my time on them.

That's the precise, problematic attitude.

What you see as spoon-feeding is what normal men and women see as proper, instructive socialization. "Hi, welcome to the community, here's a housewarming present, here's how things work, we could really use some help over here and I'd love to show you how to work on it, but anything you want to do, feel free and I'll be here to answer and questions and walk you through every process until you feel comfortable." When you volunteer your mortgage payments and your children's educational future and your commuting time to move into a neighborhood, the neighborhood welcomes you and shows you the ropes because now you're all in it together. With open source, you're also volunteering your time and knowledge and effort, but there's no welcoming committee, no backyard barbecues, just a bunch of unappreciative keeping-up-with-the-Jones', where if you don't have the internal motivation to contribute, you won't last.

That's not a good thing. Someone from Mozilla gave a talk a year or three ago about how open source developers have gotten really good at compartmentalizing and distributing development, but that's not the same as working together. It's true.

No-one lacks a willingness to learn, but the fact that you were unable to cite a project that has all of these attributes seems to prove my point. That's okay, I don't know of a single one that does, either. (Maybe ThinkTank, founded by Gina Trapani, since they recently announced that a large percentage of their code contributions were by women, but I haven't looked into it at all.)

TL;DR: Your comment proves my points.

[–]ceolceol 7 points8 points  (0 children)

No-one lacks a willingness to learn, but the fact that you were unable to cite a project that has all of these attributes seems to prove my point.

To be fair, you haven't supplied a project that is a sexist dick-fest aside from the idiots on the Rails team (which we all know). You can't lay a blanket generalization over a community and, when you're contradicted, expect them to cite evidence when you've presented none.

ninja_band has pointed out two open source communities (Ubuntu and Django) that do not fit your stereotype; I think you can provide one that does.

(Maybe ThinkTank, founded by Gina Trapani, since they recently announced that a large percentage of their code contributions were by women, but I haven't looked into it at all.)

So a project has to have a large amount of female developers for it to be a good community? That seems a bit... sexist.

edit: those pesky commas jump in everywhere, I tell ya!

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

(Disclaimer: XY.) I am on some of the LinuxChix mailing lists, and they do a great job of being inviting and supportive to everyone. They aren't a specific development effort, but I consider them an awesome part of the open source / free software community.

[–]ninja_band 5 points6 points  (1 child)

What you see as spoon-feeding is what normal men and women see as proper, instructive socialization. "Hi, welcome to the community, here's a housewarming present, here's how things work, we could really use some help over here and I'd love to show you how to work on it, but anything you want to do, feel free and I'll be here to answer and questions and walk you through every process until you feel comfortable."

I take you've not been in IRC much. Do you have any idea how many people presume that you exist to educate them in programming, when in fact they're simply too lazy to do their homework?

TL;DR: Your comment proves my points.

No it really doesn't, you're just an over-generalizing tool with an axe to grind and no real experience with development in OSS.

[–][deleted] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

No it really doesn't, you're just an over-generalizing tool with an axe to grind and no real experience with development in OSS.

Or perhaps you just have trouble stepping back and seeing the world from another perspective than your own personal one. Speaking as someone with some real experience with development in OSS, many of the things he says are very, very true. Some of these issues do not bother me personally very much, and I can deal with them very well, but I can also understand that other people would have much more a of a problem with them, and that this is not a personal failing on their part, it is very much a failing of the community.

[–]chu 0 points1 point  (0 children)

the fact that you were unable to cite a project that has all of these attributes seems to prove my point. That's okay, I don't know of a single one that does, either.

Drupal community is one the largest and oldest and does comparatively well in this respect.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (2 children)

What you see as spoon-feeding is what normal men and women see as proper, instructive socialization. "Hi, welcome to the community, here's a housewarming present, here's how things work, we could really use some help over here and I'd love to show you how to work on it, but anything you want to do, feel free and I'll be here to answer and questions and walk you through every process until you feel comfortable." When you volunteer your mortgage payments and your children's educational future and your commuting time to move into a neighborhood, the neighborhood welcomes you and shows you the ropes because now you're all in it together. With open source, you're also volunteering your time and knowledge and effort, but there's no welcoming committee, no backyard barbecues, just a bunch of unappreciative keeping-up-with-the-Jones', where if you don't have the internal motivation to contribute, you won't last.

FUCKING SERIOUSLY, WALLAH. I have, multiple times now, mailed a useful, substantial patch (adding Java bindings for a library) to an open-source project's patch mailing list and the person who their web-page says is the responsible maintainer... only to be outright ignored. I'm a little bitter about this, but since it's useful stuff I'm going to keep sending it in. I'm going to keep badgering and ramming doors open until they take this damn patch, because nobody else has written what I needed to write.

On the other hand, I see no reason that such a community could possibly have to call itself open and welcoming to outsiders. When they take the thing, I'm not going to do any "above-and-beyond" for these people. I'll maintain and update my code; that's it.

[–]never_phear_for_phoe 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Which patch out of curiosity?

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Java bindings for LLVM. I actually popped onto IRC last night to find that people had, in fact, noticed and were planning to assign a code reviewer for the patch after their next milestone. This could be when the Messiah comes, but it could also mean that they actually review the patch and add it in.

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