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Unsung Heroes of Open Source
Yosef writes "Jon Udell uses his experience from using and hacking the free software BitPim to say that developers of such less-known projects are the true heroes of open source: 'For solving a host of vexing problems with quiet competence, and for doing it in ways that invite others to stand on their shoulders, I salute them all.'"
When it comes to open-source, Mozilla and Linux get all the glory. But it's this guy and his amazing SEPY text editor that make my life the joy that it is!
The interesting point he is making here is that FOSS people not only write software - they also make obscure technical information available and accessible.
I remember using gnuplot to make great EPS (encapsulated PostScript) graphs for papers in college. I'm not sure of a better way to put nice charts into LaTeX documents. Even the developers of LaTeX modules for things like rotated charts with regular headers and footers deserve a share of credit.
-- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
BitPim is the only example in that story? I was expecting to see a top 10 list of unsung heroes, but he just writes about one niche piece of software he found useful. You can find more in the average Slashdot article's comments.
Actually, The BitPim developer(s) don't accept financial contributions...
http://www.bitpim.org/testhelp/contributing.htm
John Udell, by writing this post, has just succeeded on bringing one unsung hero - Roger Binns - out of obscurity. Well done, John!!
- Alexei Vladishev
- Francesco
- Gerbier Eric
- Jerome Couderc
and many others. The big projects help us get things done, but the small projects make the big projects barable.Find coupons in Greeley
I'll bet there are hundreds of open source developers scouring these posts right now to see if they show up on someone's list.
I have a similar story with a small dockapp called wmfuzzy that displays a time string.
When I switched to OpenBSD on a laptop, it didn't work. I informed the author, and he rewrote some code so it would. I tested it, found a few bugs, and told them of it. Although I couldn't code C at the time, I could read the asset reports and change the system clock so that the bugs would trigger.
Its a great feeling to submit a bug report in the morning and by the next day have a patched version of the code to test.
Its also nice to get a point release and credit in the changelog. :)
Another time, I was playing slash'em and I found that I could get some rather strange error messages with One-Eyed Sam in a certain scenerio. I talked to one of the developers on IRC, narrowed down the problem, and filed a bug report. Last I heard, it was fixed in the next release. (The bug wasn't a game-crashing bug, just slash'em realizing that the shop didn't have a shop keeper.)
"what, one Shekel for an unemployed ex-leper"
"well i guess there's no pleasing some people"
"that's just what he said, bloody do-gooder"
-- Avishalom is usually vish
Alex Shapiro of 'touchgraph' fame
-- Avishalom is usually vish
I would guess that a great number of OSS projects are driven by people who need things for work, but whose work isn't exclusivley demanding ownership of their code. Small shops that need probelms solved that are very nearly solved already... and can spare a developers time to solve them... and won't be hurt by releasing the code. That's the idea I get in my mind.
For example, I'm considering making contributions to several projects myself. My contributions may be tiny but they may help to add up to a real finished product. It's all about the aggregate contributions of the many many tiny improvements people make adding up to make major differences... Open Source projects build up the same way civilisation does. Millions of small contributions over time.
I'm probably wrong but it sounds good to me...
So stop reading slashdot and go code something.
[signature]
I love open source and i don't give a crap about Linux. The fact that i have such good software like firefox, open office on windows represents one more reason not to dual boot.
Duncan Booth is supporting Nethack port for Psion computers (do you remeber them?) for years. Only small fraction of people (Psion users which are Nethack lovers too) will ever notice value of his work. But for us, Nethack addicts which happen to be also Psion users, he is an ultimate hero. Check it: http://www.suttoncourtenay.org.uk/duncan/Nethack.h tm
I'm sure you can find such people everywhere. Whatever obscure activity you undertake, or whatever strange problem happens to you, you sooner or later meet your hero. I mean - this is how free software works, isn't it?
This Is Not a Sig
The Slashdot audience is probably better positioned to recognize the true "unsung heroes of OSS" than anyone else.
So -- hey editors, you listening? -- why don't we have a monthly nomination for Unsung Hero of the Month? Let readers send in their candidates, along with a pitch for why they should be featured as an Unsung Hero; then have the editors pick the best pitch, and give that developer a front-page interview on Slashdot.
Heck, maybe even throw in some ad space for his/her project (we're all in this OSS thing together right?). You could probably even have a corporate sponsor pick up the tab for the ad space (the cost would be pretty low, and you could offer them naming rights -- make it, say, the "IBM Open Source Unsung Hero of the Month").
Then archive the interviews in a section of their own (just like "Developers", "Your Rights Online", etc.) so that once there's a bunch of these in the archives they can serve as a kind of Hall of Fame.
This would help introduce people to a whole range of great OSS projects they might otherwise never discover, and give the developers the "ego payment" that for so many folks is the only real reimbursement they get for their hard work...
Read my blog.
No Roger, you're not unsung or obscure.
:-).
:-).
:-). Even though his taste in toenail polish is *deplorable* :-).
You're just a git
To those who don't know, Roger Binns is responsible for Samba having the fastest share-mode lock code possible, as he goaded me into doing it by claiming it required a lock daemon. I was determined to prove him wrong...
Roger is also responsible for VisionFS (the *old*, good SCO's decent SMB file/print server).
Plus he holds a mean barbequeue
Jeremy.
The idea isn't to recognize every single worthy hacker out there. It's to recognize many worthy hackers who would otherwise never get recognition.
Even if you do this for years and only cover less than 1% of the total number of deserving hackers, you're still helping promote a huge number of great projects, which is a net win no matter how you slice it. Of course you're not going to be able to cover everybody. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
And I would argue that if something like this ends up focusing primarily on people contributing to projects like KDE, GNOME, etc. it'd be missing the point. Jon's column was about the huge number of tiny, useful projects out there that are maintained by one or a few dedicated people, toiling away in obscurity. KDE doesn't need the exposure, these projects do.
Read my blog.
Sure, after these pioneers have produced what they produce people often come along and hack on it so they can get real work done with it, but in the case of a sound driver, we're not talking about getting work done here, we're talking about the artifacts of intellectual curiousity that us programmers hate to see "go to waste", so we share it.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Joe Allen, the creator of Joe's Own Editor (JOE), my favourite text editor.
It has the perfect balance of simplicity and power. Thank you, Joe!
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