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Unsung Heroes of Open Source

Posted by Zonk on from the working-to-support-industry,-commerce,-and-the-american-way! dept.

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.'"

8 of 164 comments (clear)

  1. Thanking the developers by nadamsieee · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We could all thank them by donating a buck or two to their projects.

    1. Re:Thanking the developers by SharpFang · · Score: 5, Insightful

      In most cases they would be more grateful for a neat patch with some feature, for some words of praise, and especially with success stories of their software.
      I wrote this little piece of crap. Okay, it got obsoleted really fast, it does the job but isn't anything great and there's practically no audience. But then I found this blog entry (fish link) and felt really special :) It's what makes such projects great, people's gratitude. Not money. Just the fact that you're the hero.

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      45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
  2. YOU can also be a hero! by xiando · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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!

    --
    9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
    1. Re:YOU can also be a hero! by omicronish · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Do you use Linux? Know how to code? If so, then you can be a hero too.

      A lot of people equate open source with Linux, but there's quite a lot of it for Windows and other operating systems as well. Firefox, Mozilla, Eclipse, Python, and Mono all run on Windows. SourceForge lists over 10,000 projects for Windows. In fact, I'm a Windows user who wouldn't be able to live without Python, Bitlbee, Subversion, and wget.

      So Windows users who are interested, join in on the fun. OSS isn't limited to Linux users.

  3. Making technical information available by Husgaard · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The interesting point he is making here is that FOSS people not only write software - they also make obscure technical information available and accessible.

  4. Re:Where are they all hiding? by Zarf · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

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    [signature]
  5. So why don't we do something about it? by jalefkowit · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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...

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    Read my blog.

  6. I add: Donald Becker by WMD_88 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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! ;)