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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!
We could all thank them by donating a buck or two to their projects.
What Jon Udell calls a "List of Unsung Heroes", Microsoft calls a "Hit List".
I'm a big tall mofo.
Do you use Linux? Know how to code?
If so, then you can be a hero too. I never paid for software in the form of money, I personally feel it is alright to spend some of the saved money in the form of personal time when I find bugs, missing features and so on. Sadly, I am not a very experienced programmer, but I have managed to get some small patches into Open Source projects.
This is how you can be a hero also, even if it is just a line of code - the sum of all small snippets like that does eventually help the evolution of Open Source.
So skilled or not, you can be a hero too! Some are great big heros, but even if you just translated a text string, fixed a few lines or code, or just made some graphics -- then you are a small hero (in my eyes) also!
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I know a lot more open source developers than the average person. (although perhaps not more than the average Slashdotter), and I can't figure out how there can be enough of them to keep all these projects floating.
For example, how many people were neccesary to put together libsdl-sound1.2 which is one of tens of thousands of packages hiding in the Debian repository, which is just a small piece of all open source projects.
Where are all these open source developers hiding? Is this what my bus driver does when they aren't at work?
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
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.
I would say the gentleman behind HT Track is an unsung hero. I sent him a bug report with pseudo-code as a guess to how to fix it. The very next day, he had sent me a thank-you email and had released a new version. I also found the Mozilla team to be very responsive to my suggestions here on Slashdot (one post turned into a new Mozilla feature -- pre-fetching). And the HTML-Kit team is very responsive to bug reports and patches too. I like all three teams at the geek level. Their products satisfy an important niche in Web development, they're responsive and accept code patches (even my poorly done offerings, with cleanup of course). I feel quite happy to call them unsung heroes of the OSS movement, and this is my second shot at singing their praises (see previous "unsung heroes of open source" article).
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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.
You've never seen MY code.
My code is like my handwriting, I know what it's about at the time, but no one, myself included, can decipher it if it comes up again.
You don't need to code to help out OSS.
Finding bugs, fix spelling mistakes, doing thorough reviews or usability studies, translating help into different languages or even setting you granny up with Linux all go to help OSS.
I think the translates do a Gem of a job, and make OSS accessible to a huge proportion of the world.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
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and many others. The big projects help us get things done, but the small projects make the big projects barable.Find coupons in Greeley
For example, how many commercial software development jobs come with benefits like this ?
"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
My personal hero in the Open Source community is Bill Gates. He has done so much to spur to growth of good software and open source its hard not to pay some tribute to this man.
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
It's true. Lately I've been noticing that living in the open source universe can be a lot like attending high school: everything is a popularity contest. If you're not one of the "cool kids" you don't get any attention, even if what you're working on is more mature, more sophisticated, and just plain better than what they're working on.
What I'm about to say is probably not going to be taken well, but here goes anyway: Slashdot is probably the "football team / cheerleading squad" of the open source high school -- the place where the coolest of the cool get the most concentrated doses of glory and attention. There are certain people (whose names I shall not defame in this post, lest I get moderated down to -99 or something) who could make a stupid remark about how they think it would be better if people didn't wear matching shoes, and Slashdot would run half a dozen stories about it.
The best example of unsung heroes might be Linas Vepstas. He wasn't one of the "cool kids" so the world pretty much ignored his project, which was to port Linux to IBM mainframes -- he actually got it working, for the most part. IBM ignored his work and went it alone, and nobody knows much about Linas Vepstas now.
Unsung heroes indeed. Let's all try to avoid making open source a fashion show. Most of our best technology was built by nerds, and nerds aren't known for their social skills.
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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.
The funny thing is that none of my friends would call me unsung or obscure :-)
:-) Having something like BitPim on my resume has been very useful to show that I can actually do things.
h on/msg/16c51c50418bbb7f
As someone else quoted we do not accept money, kickbacks or other forms of financing for BitPim. This is simply because it creates issues. Firstly some initial amount of that will be squandered on dealing with the tax situation it creates. Secondly it creates certain expectations. For example if someone donates and mentions they primarily use a particular operating system, then they wouldn't expect us to drop support for that operating system. Developer time is the most valuable thing, and it is best allocated without being biased by this kind of expectation.
The best kind of help is time from developers, and reproducible issues that on fixing improve the product from users. But anything that is an improvement anywhere is nice.
Don't worry about Microsoft. I've turned down the opportunity to even consider working for them several times. I've even reverse engineered several of their protocols, but sadly the results are all closed source. And I do know several people who have ended up at Microsoft. Not bad people as individuals, but the aggregate actions of the company are questionable.
Yes, I use Linux. And Windows. And a Mac Mini. To me open source and free software is about freedom of choice as an end user. I can use things for whatever they are best at, and later take my data with me to something that is better. Funnily enough, the games I most enjoy come from Microsoft (eg Rise of Nations).
BitPim got started because the closed source people in the cell phone space only supported Windows, and only allowed one installation of their software. (That isn't one concurrent use - it is one installation total. If you have two machines you would have to uninstall and reinstall.)
None of my time on BitPim has been paid for by anyone else. My regular consulting gigs do take time away, but also pay me something to live on
There are also several other people who contribute to BitPim. And *way* more contribute to the components that we use. BitPim is also an example of what you can do with Python.
You can read more at http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.pyt
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The guy that wrote like half the ethernet drivers (including all the 3com ones) in the main kernel tree, among other things. You need that NIC support, after all! ;)
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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