Slashdot Mirror
What Should I Do With My Life?
Bamafan77 writes "FastCompany's website has an interesting article about what it means to be successful that I think builds nicely upon a recent Slashdot discussion. That Slashdot thread was about a study that wanted to find out if there is a link between college rejection and success. This new article asks a more basic question that many people struggle with: what does it mean to be successful and how do I achieve it? This article is an excerpt from a new book by Po Bronson which details the personal lives of several people, many of whom are very talented and superficially successful, who switched gears to try to find that 'thing' they are impassioned about. One interesting excerpt that might particularly hit home to the Slashdot community is Bronson's tidbit about a Rockwell manager who left his job because, though it was mentally challenging, lacked a deeper level of gratification. What is this man doing now? He's a cop in East LA."
... in the totally lame articles?
We need to figure out how to decide whether or not open source projects are successful. As open source picks up steam, it is time to look at the Movement from a business standpoint. Namely, what kind of metrics exist to analyze a free software project and determine whether or not it is successful? Certianly not sales, because the software is free..
I've thought of a couple of possibilities but, like everything, they have pros and cons:
First, we could measure the number of downloads or, perhaps more accurately, the amount of bandwith spent on downloads. This would be kind of a negative performance metric, in that more mney spent (and therefore lost, since no money is being paid for the software) is actually a metric of success! That boggles the mind in that the more money a free software project loses, the more successful it is! I don't think that will take off as a widely accepted metric however, fo obvious reasons. I also don't think it works, since many people may download open source software, fail to get it to perform properly, and simply never use it again, so the metrics would suffer from variance.
So, my second idea is to create a small piece of open source code that could be embedded in all open source software, perhaps as a part of GPL requirements - sort of an EULA, if you will. This code could then connect to a master server owned by a corporation who's job it is to track all OSS usage and report monthly metrics. Perhaps it should be a government organization, since a company might not want to take such a thankless task.
What are your thoughts?
Guys lets move off Slashdot, move onto more intellectual sites like newsforge. Let's post trollish comments to take down this site... Comments and URLs like this:
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The answer is simple.
How is success measured?
Karma
How do you achieve it?
Post insightful comments on Slashdot
Or if you prefer, the answer is 42.
Comments should be like skirts. Short enough to keep your attention, but long enough to cover the subject
What, no gratuitous pictures of penises?
Slashdot become Oprah???
I sleep well, too. But that's because, at the end of the day, I cum really hard.
We human beings are never happier than when we are expressing the deepest gifts that are truly us. (45)
A sense of calling should precede a choice of job and career, and the main way to discover calling is along the line of what we are each created and gifted to be. Instead of, "You are what you do," calling says: "Do what you are." (46)
If there is no Caller, there are no callings - only work. (42)
God does call us to "be ourselves" and "do what we are." But we are only truly "ourselves" and can only truly "do what we are" when we follow God's call. (48)
We are not called first to special work but to God. (43)
The notion of calling is vital to the modern search for a basis for moral responsibility and to an understanding of ethics itself. (90)
All we are is a hearing and a response. We are responsible because we are response-able. Between the first word of God's creation and the last word of His judgment our ways of life are our response to God's Word to us. (92)
To make the choice of career or profession on selfish grounds, without a true sense of calling, is probably the greatest single sin any young person can commit, for it is the deliberate withdrawal from allegiance to God of the greatest part of time and strength. (47)
Be "inner-directed" by God rather than "other-directed" by our environment. Don't succumb to "outside-in" thinking. (74, 75)
In many cases a clear sense of calling comes only through a time of searching, including trial and error. Clarity may apply to only a part of your calling at first. (52)
Life is lived forward but understood backward. (53)
Plastics