<commit_before>---
title: Golden Rule For Open Source Projects
subtitle: Don't be a putz
slug: golden-rule-for-open-source-projects
banner: /img/Cogley-Banner-Kids-Doing-Radio-Exercises-1400x450-mono.jpg
date: 2016-03-29T14:56:40+09:00
publishdate: 2016-03-29T14:56:40+09:00
description: Remember the golden rule if you participate in open source, a post by <NAME>.
draft: 'true'
images:
  - /img/Cogley-Banner-Kids-Doing-Radio-Exercises-1400x450-mono.jpg
  - /img/rick-cogley-avatar-240x240.png
tags:
  - creativity
  - open source
  - oss
  - bug report
topics:
  - Professional
  - Culture
  - Software
  - Tips
postsummary: Open source projects are a wonderful opportunity to collaborate with others on creating something useful. But some people just can't play well with others.
postsvg: icon-origami-fish
---

Open source projects are a wonderful opportunity to collaborate with others on creating something useful. But some people just can't play well with others.

<!--more-->

## Introduction

I participate in some Open Source Software ({{<abbr OSS>}}) projects, and have noticed a few instances of annoying behavior by project members. After some reflection, I decided to write this post to try to organize my own thoughts, and perhaps help the reader participate better in {{<abbr OSS>}} projects.

## What's the Situation?

Open Source software development is a truly unique and fascinating activity, where people—whether they are software development pros or otherwise—give freely of their blood, sweat and tears to work on a project as volunteers, for no compensation. The participants love software and the {{<abbr OSS>}} projects they work on so much, that they are willing to spend some of their free time, after a full day's work. Such {{<abbr OSS>}} projects are often quite extensive and important, and little by little, large corporations are utilizing {{<abbr OSS>}} in their production systems.

There are a few examples of companies funding a specific developer on an {{<abbr OSS>}} project, to ensure that useful enhancements are being implemented. Additionally, there are plenty of cases where companies like RedHat (CentOS) or Ubuntu, are the main contributor to a project, while making money to provide support to other companies that want to use the software.

Still, if you examine the many, many smaller but healthy projects that are thriving just on GitHub alone, the majority are simply volunteer-supported. Each of these projects has a particular "personality" comprised of the people, and the tone and policies set by the group. If a group developing useful software sets and follows guidelines for behavior and development operations, and the leaders enforce this in a skillful and tolerant way, the project has a good chance of being successful.

## Writing Good Bug Reports

Bug reports will take different forms depending upon the project, but there's commonalities. Namely:

1. what were you doing?
1. what did you expect to happen?
1. what did happen?

The point is, you want to tell the project's developers exactly what happened, in as precise a way as p{{<abbr OSS>}}ible, so they can reproduce the bug. Here's an example:

> I'm using version 5.2.2 that was just released. When I select a series of entries and click "delete" in the entry list screen (switched to it using ctrl-shift-e), the entries are supposed to go the trash bin, but instead only the first one selected gets deleted. I confirmed it by looking at the trash bin, and finding only the one entry deleted. I tried two different ways of selecting: by clicking one, then shift-clicking another below, and, by clicking one and cmd-clicking a few more. In either case, only the first selected gets deleted. No errors appear. Please see the attached screenshot.  

In other words, the more precision and detail, the better.

Each project might have a different system for submitting bugs, be it in GitHub Issues, Bugzilla Bugs, JIRA, OTRS, or even just a chat room, and so on. Figure out what that is, and be thorough.






stack exchange is harsh

Communities, sometimes vibrant, sometimes quiet. Contribute how you can.

Open source projects are true social media.

Its culture is made up of the whole community, from the leads to the casual participants.

Attitude. Read the damn docs.  

Draw.io. I'll be sure to refund.

Some people have expectations when they join. But you should be polite and offer something. Why demand?

Devs should not assume people have nothing to offer. Just because a person cannot code, does not mean they cannot do something really good for a community.

Does the ADD cause it?

Manners! What a concept!

Don't be a dick.

http://scripting.com/stories/2010/06/30/writingGoodBugReports.html

http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

http://spf13.com/post/how-to-be-a-good-open-source-community-member/

http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html


{{% ack1 %}}
The banner photo is a monochrome version of a shot of kids doing their "radio exercise" warmup, a kind of teamwork building exercise that most Japanese would have done in their youth. You can view the original [here](https://www.flickr.com/photos/rickcogley/4607915582).
{{% /ack1 %}}<commit_msg>Various updates to foss post<commit_after>---
title: Golden Rule For Open Source Projects
subtitle: Don't be a putz
slug: golden-rule-for-open-source-projects
banner: /img/Cogley-Banner-Kids-Doing-Radio-Exercises-1400x450-mono.jpg
date: 2016-03-29T14:56:40+09:00
publishdate: 2016-03-29T14:56:40+09:00
description: Remember the golden rule if you participate in open source, a post by <NAME>.
draft: 'true'
images:
  - /img/Cogley-Banner-Kids-Doing-Radio-Exercises-1400x450-mono.jpg
  - /img/rick-cogley-avatar-240x240.png
tags:
  - creativity
  - open source
  - oss
  - bug report
topics:
  - Professional
  - Culture
  - Software
  - Tips
postsummary: Open source projects are a wonderful opportunity to collaborate with others on creating something useful. But some people just can't play well with others.
postsvg: icon-origami-fish
---

Open source projects are a wonderful opportunity to collaborate with others on creating something useful. But some people just can't play well with others.

<!--more-->

## Introduction

I participate in some Open Source Software ({{<abbr OSS>}}) projects, and have noticed a few instances of annoying behavior by participants. After some reflection, I decided to write this post to try to organize my own thoughts, and perhaps help the reader participate better in {{<abbr OSS>}} projects.

## What's the Situation?

Open Source software development is a truly unique and fascinating activity, where people—whether they are software development pros or otherwise—give freely of their blood, sweat and tears to work on a project as volunteers, for no compensation. The participants love software and the {{<abbr OSS>}} projects they work on so much, that they are willing to spend some of their free time, after a full day's work. Such {{<abbr OSS>}} projects are often quite extensive and important.

There are a few examples of companies funding a specific developer on an {{<abbr OSS>}} project, to ensure that useful enhancements are being implemented. Additionally, there are plenty of cases where companies (like RedHat or Ubuntu) are the main contributor to a project, and make money providing support to those that want to use the software.

Still, the majority of open source projects are simply volunteer supported, and each has a particular "personality" that comes from the participants, and the tone and policies set by the group. It seems common that successful projects have clear policies, and leaders who enforce them in a skillful and tolerant way.

### A Couple of Examples

There are an incredible number of healthy projects, but here are a couple examples, with various links (where available) to their sites, code repositories, FAQs and codes of conduct:

* **[Discourse](http://www.discourse.org)** - modern discussion forum software. ([FAQ](http://www.discourse.org/faq/) | [Code Repository](https://github.com/discourse/discourse) | [Code Contribution](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md) | [Rules of Civilized Discourse](http://blog.discourse.org/2013/03/the-universal-rules-of-civilized-discourse/))
* **[Ubuntu](http://www.ubuntu.com)** - user-friendly, major Linux-based operating system. ([Contributing](http://packaging.ubuntu.com/html/) | [Code Repositories](https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Repositories) | [Code of Conduct](http://www.ubuntu.com/about/about-ubuntu/conduct))



* **Hugo** - asdf
* **Mozilla** - asdf
* **Apache** - asdf
* **Brew** - asdf
* **Ubuntu** - user-friendly operating system ([code of conduct](http://www.ubuntu.com/about/about-ubuntu/conduct)).
* **Golang** - asdf

[Contributor Covenant](http://contributor-covenant.org), expressing open source values



## Writing Good Bug Reports

Bug reports will take different forms depending upon the project, but there's commonalities. Namely:

1. what were you doing?
1. what did you expect to happen?
1. what did happen?

The point is, you want to tell the project's developers exactly what happened, in as precise a way as possible, so they can reproduce the bug. Here's an example:

> I'm using version 5.2.2 that was just released. When I select a series of entries and click "delete" in the entry list screen (switched to it using ctrl-shift-e), the entries are supposed to go the trash bin, but instead only the first one selected gets deleted. I confirmed it by looking at the trash bin, and finding only the one entry deleted. I tried two different ways of selecting: by clicking one, then shift-clicking another below, and, by clicking one and cmd-clicking a few more. In either case, only the first selected gets deleted. No errors appear. Please see the attached screenshot.  

In other words, the more precision and detail, the better.

Each project might have a different system for submitting bugs, be it in GitHub Issues, Bugzilla Bugs, JIRA, OTRS, or even just a chat room, and so on. Figure out what that is, and be thorough.





GUIDES from various real projects
stack exchange is harsh

Communities, sometimes vibrant, sometimes quiet. Contribute how you can.

Open source projects are true social media.

Its culture is made up of the whole community, from the leads to the casual participants.

Attitude. Read the damn docs.  

Draw.io. I'll be sure to refund.

Some people have expectations when they join. But you should be polite and offer something. Why demand?

Devs should not assume people have nothing to offer. Just because a person cannot code, does not mean they cannot do something really good for a community.

Does the ADD cause it?

Manners! What a concept!

Don't be a dick.

http://scripting.com/stories/2010/06/30/writingGoodBugReports.html

http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

http://spf13.com/post/how-to-be-a-good-open-source-community-member/

http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html



{{% ack1 %}}
The banner photo is a monochrome version of a shot of kids doing their "radio exercise" warmup, a kind of teamwork building exercise that most Japanese would have done in their youth. You can view the original [here](https://www.flickr.com/photos/rickcogley/4607915582).
{{% /ack1 %}}
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