161–170 of 279 posts
If you have the time to spare and the mental energy to talk to random strangers about their problems every Friday afternoon, good for you. But get right out of here with that “should” nonsense. OSS maintainers are already donating time and effort for the common good. You’d have to be a complete jerkwad to insist they need to do more.
I hate articles like this. Or maybe it's just the headlines but it follows a set formula: 1)Person X finds a way of doing something that works for them . 2)Person X writes an article either saying outright, or implying, that this is how it should be done for everyone About the only universal statement I've every found useful is the one that says "Universal statements should always be treated with skepticism".
I have deep aversion to "Open source projects should run office hours" title. Maybe "Office hours may be a good idea for open source projects"? This would not suggest obligation. In general, fact that someone created or maintains or supports open source projects should not be considered to create any obligations beyond lack of malice and abuse. I am not obligated to support any bugs, create any features and it is per…
Depending on license, aren't you obligated to provide a repo if you're using the code (ie GPL)? Or do I misunderstand it?
Short version of your obligations if using GPL as a license: https://tldrlegal.com/license/gnu-general-public-license-v3-...
I have deep aversion to "Open source projects should run office hours" title. Maybe "Office hours may be a good idea for open source projects"? This would not suggest obligation. In general, fact that someone created or maintains or supports open source projects should not be considered to create any obligations beyond lack of malice and abuse. I am not obligated to support any bugs, create any features and it is per…
Depending on license, aren't you obligated to provide a repo if you're using the code (ie GPL)? Or do I misunderstand it?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Depending on license, aren't you obligated to provide a repo if you're using the code (ie GPL)? Or do I misunderstand it?
There are a few MUSTs if using GPL, yes (btw, GPL is considered a "free" license, not a "open source" one), but providing a repository is not one of them. Although you do need to provide the source (in any means you want, as long as it's accessible, making a repository is one of the ways, bundling a zip file would be another). Short version of your obligations if using GPL as a license: https://tldrlegal.com/license/…
I used to work on a reasonably sized open source project (10k+ stars on GitHub). We held approximately monthly office hours on Zoom. Very few people ever came to them. I think the average was less than one person. And no, I don't think the issue was that no one had any questions. We got plenty of questions via Gitter chat, mailing lists and GitHub issues. We advertised the office hours on the same Gitter chat and mai…
Maybe the big difference here is getting people to book slots? Booking slots helps emphasize that this us a one-on-one opportunity for a conversation - not a situation where you might feel awkward that there are several others on the chat who already know each other. It also sets up a small obligation that you'll actually show up, since if you reserved a slot it's rude to cancel at short notice.
(The course is behavioural economics and this is a kind of interesting behavioural phenomenon).
"I’d like to encourage more open source project maintainers to consider doing something similar"
It's a matter of fact that many people (myself included) form opinions based on the headline without reading the article - so I wish I'd worked a little harder coming up with a headline that better encapsulated that message!
"Open source projects should consider office hours" perhaps?
I'm going to change that headline on my blog now.
A wonderful side effect of maintaining a channel like this has been that there is a tiny group of regulars now in the channel and we often discuss stuff other than open source projects too. Due to the nature of the projects, they attract like-minded people into the channel, so a lot of time is spent in discussing mathematics and computer science literature, and Lisp, Emacs, etc. What started as a support channel has gradually evolved into a tiny book club for mathematics and computer science!
I maintain a few small open source projects around publishing math on the web. I have a Freenode IRC channel and Matrix room bridged together where anyone is welcome to join anytime they need help. When I am relatively free, I also post a live web meeting URL to the channel where anyone can drop in or drop out anytime. So the Matrix/IRC channel along with occasional web meetings have been my version of office hours s…
Since about half of this thread is (reasonably) taking offense at the implication from the headline that this is yet another demand for free labor from open source maintainers, I'd like to emphasize this sentence: "I’d like to encourage more open source project maintainers to consider doing something similar" It's a matter of fact that many people (myself included) form opinions based on the headline without reading…