What Does It Mean To Be an Open Source Author?

lolococo writes to tell us that Laurent Cohen, founder of the open source project JPPF (Java Parallel Processing Framework), has decided to share what life is like for an open source contributor in general and little bit about what that means. "There came a time of coding, releasing, coding, releasing. The project started gathering some momentum, as a small community of users started to use it, but why was it not working in this case, or why did it not have this feature, or how could I do this, etc...? You get the drift. Oh my, now I had to start interacting with other folks! What was I to do? That started a (thankfully short) period of intense existential self-questioning. What was the purpose of this project? Why did I actually open-source it? I resolved this by deciding unilaterally that it would be a free contribution, for whomever would be interested enough to look into it. I also decided that it was my personal responsibility to support these brave folks into using the project, and to make it, as much as possible, a happy experience for them."

Comments

I'll tell you what it means

[elrous0]

No rent money *THIS* month either!

Re:I'll tell you what it means

[bsDaemon]

No, it means having an always-accessable portfolio to show your skills without having to worry about making people believe you without proof, or "stealing" code from previous jobs.

It means "experience" for high school and college kids so that they can work on things other than the rather useless examples in the sheltered setting of academia.

At least, that's what it would mean if you leveraged it properly -- and that would mean further rent cheques from "real" jobs.

hell, maybe it means turning that side project into a real job that generates rent cheques -- even if those are the really, really rare exceptions.

Re:I'll tell you what it means

[chromatic]

Good stuff, minus the cheap shot at academia.

How many computer science or software development courses include anything resembling:

• Interacting with real users
• Changing requirements
• Deployment, packaging, and releasing
• Maintaining code for longer than a semester
• Prioritizing requirements
• Managing contributors
• Triaging bugs

To my knowledge, only a handful.

Re:I'll tell you what it means

[Psychotria]

And that takes a lot of work. When I started my open source project it came as a bit of a shock. The first few emails I got from users were a bit of a thrill and spurred development. Then came support requests. And then every other point chromatic mentions. All of a sudden I found myself under "pressure" to implement features. It was not until I re-assessed what I was doing, and why I began doing it that the pressure lessened a bit (the project was to fill a gap and no project filled my requirements). I still listened to users, and fortunately most of the time their requests were things that I wanted to. But, at the end of the day, I was doing this for myself and I open-sourced the project just for fun and with the hope others found it useful as well.

Re:I'll tell you what it means

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

This is what I don't get I'd say that's quite clear...

Re:I'll tell you what it means

[zullnero]

For me, it's 100% self-serving. I used no license whatsoever, so that's the best I can expect.

Whenever I try out an app on a handheld that has some features that look suspiciously similar to my work, it makes me well up with self-delusional pride that, just maybe, that's my 45 minutes of actual work in there somewhere.

Re:I'll tell you what it means

[poached]

And I suspect if they included all those real-world lessons that we'll see far less CS graduates, from the sheer boredom. But I wish they had included those courses in my CS curriculum because now I would be doing something else, other than programming. I realized after I started working that programming for a small semester project is very different from programming in the real world and if I had gotten the entire picture I would have said, "this looks interesting, but there is too much stuff other than programming that I have to do that I absolutely don't care about... I think I will pass." But of course not too much highly ranked CS departments will allow this because it's not theoretical enough.

I think this is also why there are so many open source programmers, because their day job just don't allow them to do what they love, or they don't have a significant role.

Just like any other developer, except no paycheck

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Sure the money might come, but that takes time and tends to be erratic.

People still expect some support, because you need that with software.

One word

[UnknowingFool]

Groupies. Lots of groupies. In that way it's a lot like Islam. There WILL be 72 virgins around you. Unlike Islam, they will be no guarantees that they are female.

Re:One word

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Allah, could I have just one experienced whore instead?

Re:What Does It Mean To Be an Open Source Author

[Anonymous Coward]

THE MORE YOU MOD ME DOWN, THE MORE NERDS I WILL PUNCH. SAVE YOUR KIND FROM THE RIGHTEOUS BEATING THEY RICHLY DESERVE AND MOD ME UP, PEONS, BECAUSE YOU FEARED ME THROUGH HIGH SCHOOL AND YOU WILL FEAR ME NOW. FOR EVERY NEGATIVE MODERATION I RECEIVE, ANOTHER INNOCENT NERD WILL HAVE THEIR GLASSES BROKEN AND THEIR TEETH KICKED OUT BY ME AND MY FRIENDS. NONE OF YOU STAR WARS FAGGOTS CAN STOP US.

NOW MOD ME UP BEFORE IT'S YOUR TEETH I BREAK NEXT, NERDS. YOU KNOW WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF YOU DISOBEY THE POPULARS!

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die nerds die

Re:What Does It Mean To Be an Open Source Author

[One Childish N00b]

Troll or not, there something about this perfect example of a jock being foiled by technology that deserves a +5, Funny.

Release Early, Release Often Doesn't Serve Users

[MichaelCrawford]

I'm working on a Free (GPL) audio application called Ogg Frog. If you explore the site, you'll see that it's been there for several years, but there is no software to download.

I have come down thoroughly on the side of The Cathedral in my development methodology, because I feel that The Bazaar doesn't serve the needs of end-users. It unnecessarily subjects them to buggy, incomplete software.

I can see how The Bazaar would work well for highly technical users, for development tools, text editors and the like, but not for an audio application.

I was up all night last night trying to figure out how to use OpenOffice to print address labels from a database. When I couldn't get it to work, I downloaded the 3.0.0 Beta, only to find that all the same bugs were still there.

It didn't appear to me that the label printing function had been touched by the developers at all between 2.4.0 and 3.0.0, with the exception of a native OS X print job dialog for the Mac version.

Folks, this is a supposedly mature, full-featured and commercial-quality office productivity application, published by one of the world's largest computer companies, yet one cannot do even such a basic task as printing labels from a database?

That's just inexcusible!

I've done quite a lot of work on Ogg Frog, but it's still in a primitive state, and there are lots of bugs. I fear that if I released it, not even the version I have now, but future snapshots, it would get uploaded to all the shareware sites, where it would be downloaded by unsuspecting novice users, who would find it unpleasant to use.

That wouldn't serve their needs, and further, it would give me and my project a bad reputation. Quite likely I wouldn't get a second chance: my wife now flatly refuses to use Free Software, having had such bad experiences herself with Mozilla, The Gimp, and OpenOffice.

I know that I have the greatest chance of success if I wait until I have something rock-solid before I make its first public release.

Now, that doesn't mean the software isn't being tested, or that real end-users aren't giving me feedback. I have a small circle of testers, both end users and other developers, who are testing it for me - privately.

And that's how I think every Free and Open Source Software project ought to be run.

It does mean I get a lot of crap for not releasing yet, as evidenced by Kuro5hin's A Trolled Englishman. But it's a small price to pay for what I am confident will be my ultimate success.

There are two types

[WarJolt]

I believe there are two types of open source authors. The first one is the hobbiest. I think the author of this article belongs to this group. Sort of a socialistic approach. Do work for the benefit of the community.

The second is a more capitalistic reason behind open source. Companies are big sponsores of open source. Companies can derive revenue through selling support, selling hardware or supporting an open source piece and selling a close source piece of software. Ubuntu, mySQL and google are for profit companies that support open source and derive revenue from it. For example linux kernel modules are often open sourced, so hardware manufacturers can sell more parts. Often open source advocates overlook the benefit from for profit companies that build a business around open source and in some instances alienate them. The GPLv3 for example has a clause often refered to "anti-tivoization", yet they followed the rules of the GPLv2 and release
the source code to the users.

My point is that the life of a open source contributer isn't always lonely guy in a basement somewhere turning out code hoping to get recognition. It could be a cushie desk job at google.

Re:Release Early, Release Often Doesn't Serve User

[ArikTheRed]

Voltaire:

Perfect is the enemy of good

Does it mean...

[johannesg]

Doing a lot of hard work, and then getting people to bitch about it incessantly as if you were their very own personal slave, all without being paid?

Ah, I kid: back when I was an active open source developer (for fMSX Amiga, for those that care) there were plenty of nice people too. And I got a grand total of 25 DMark for my six years of work! (and that's the truth!)

I'm an "Open Source Author"

[datachild]

I'm sure there are many ways of going about open source project management. Here is mine:

I mainly write tools dealing with games and game related file formats (used for mod creation, amongst other things), and some programs on the side regarding audiovisual analysis.

While some may find the release early, release often model to work, it's too incomplete for me and I don't use it myself. What I do is:

• Do some research, grab some documentation
• Write the program to be fully functional, commenting the functions along the way
• Release the code along with the program once it is finished and thoroughly tested
• Sit back and see if any users are experiencing difficulties or come across bugs, and release the new version of the binary and source code with the fixes/changes

In short, I believe in releasing complete, stable software, and providing the source for it if anyone wants to expand it or see how a certain part is done. And, going along with Crawford's issue with OOorg, a thing like that will not pop up -- because the program wouldn't be released half-finished (let alone be in it's third version!).

hardheadedness a good quality

[radarsat1]

I think part of the success of some open source projects like Linux is due to the hardheadedness of the principle author. I think that generally releasing early and often is a good thing, but if you do it, you have to be prepared to be extremely honest about your intentions, and STICK to them.

That is, if people come crying to you for features, you have to remember that you have other priorities, and you can't be scared of telling people to show code or step back. Basically, TFA here is talking about feature requrests that will start appearing before the project has the infrastructure (developer momentum) to support them. In that case you have to simply say, "this feature will be available when someone gets around to coding it, I'M working on this other thing over here." In other words, you've got to stick to your guns, you can't let your users own you.

It takes a certain amount of jadedness to realize this, I think. At the onset of a new project, people want to attract attention and make potential new users happy, because they think this will help the project. But it won't; it will even be detrimental if you get "users" too early. Keep the *project's* health in mind, forget the users.. until the project reaches a level of maturity. At that point, if it's useful, it'll sell itself.

Re:Release Early, Release Often Doesn't Serve User

[QuantumG]

Just because you have no idea how Open Source works, doesn't mean you have The Answers.

The rest of us are getting along just fine without your mistaken insights.

It didn't appear to me that the label printing function had been touched by the developers at all between 2.4.0 and 3.0.0, with the exception of a native OS X print job dialog for the Mac version.

Folks, this is a supposedly mature, full-featured and commercial-quality office productivity application, published by one of the world's largest computer companies, yet one cannot do even such a basic task as printing labels from a database?

That's just inexcusible!

Here is the irrefutable evidence that you don't understand Open Source (and can't spell inexcusable). Clearly, the only people who care about printing labels are jerks like yourself who are uninterested in even reporting the bug, let alone contributing some code or other support to make it work. This is the point of Open Source.. the software is what *you* make it. Sure, someone else might be willing to write the code for you, but its up to you to let them know what you want and to provide some motivation for them to fix it. Whining on Slashdot is not such a way.

Like they say

[commodoresloat]

Open Source is the bomb! Linus-u Akbar!!!

Re:How many open source advocates...

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Is that why Opera, a proprietary browser, far outshines Firefox,

Matter of taste, Personally, I think the various flavors of Moz brwosers are better right now than Opera, although there have certainly been times when Opera was ahead. Quantifying "far outshines" would be pretty difficult in this domain.

and why Mozilla corporation is recording record profits?

There may be a few ideologues who believe it's morally wrong for any F/OSS company to make a profit, but they're in a distinct minority. Most of us "FOSSheads" as you put it are glad to see F/OSS companies making money, because it shows that there's a sustainable business model there. Make no mistake, F/OSS isn't going away any time soon whether there's money to be made in it or not. But there will undoubtedly be more of it if some of it is profitable.

Your 13375P33X-ing "FOSShead" is a strawman. Most F/OSS users don't use it because it's morally superior. They use it because it's good at a partcular task, because it's available for a wide variety of platforms, and because the price is right.

The names we give

[PopeRatzo]

I've never written software (IANAP?) so I can't relate directly, but I've seen the term "author" used for someone who writes code before.

I'm curious: is this the best term to use? Is "author" a term of art in the the software world? Do those of you who create software prefer any other descriptor? Why "author" and not "composer" or "creator", "programmer" or "engineer"? I'm not aware of the various strata of people who code, but I'm pretty sure that the world of software "designers" shakes out categorically just like other fields. In music, there's "composer", or "songwriter" (which mean very different things) and "engineer" and "producer" (which can mean all sorts of things). In film it gets even crazier with "production assistant" and "producer", "director" (which can overlap), "set designer" and "art director" which can mean lots of different things, too. And of course, "best boy" which turns out to mean something quite different from what I thought when I was a movie-loving teenager.

So, would Laurent Cohen also use "author", do you think? I'm really interested in hearing from you software wizards and conjurers.

Re:The names we give

[Raconteur]

I prefer the term "developer". It encompasses most of what we do. Other terms are appropriate; author is as descriptive as programmer, I suppose. I do shy away from "engineer" or "designer", as those monikers evoke different and more restrictive facets of our profession. Referring to programming as an art form elicits strong and varied reactions from many people. Personally, I do see the field as an art form. A sculptor or painter (for example) has the joy of creation, taking raw materials and creating a (hopefully) pleasing and meaningful result. They also have the joy of experiencing their work being examined, critiqued, and possibly purchased by total strangers. And, they have an appreciation for the hidden beauty of the work that the audience never gets to see -- the minute changes in texture of the canvas or the structure of the stone. Software developers share all of these experiences with other artists. There is beauty in the finished product (ostensibly) and a hidden beauty in well-turned algorithms and eloquent functions. Those who would chafe at the notion of software developers as artists usually believe that an artistic bent is an unwholesome trait for a developer, that we need rigidness and structure in our psyche to be able to produce good code. While I wholeheartedly disagree with that belief, I have to acknowledge that it exists.

Re:Release Early, Release Often Doesn't Serve User

[dbcad7]

You might check out.. http://glabels.sourceforge.net/faq/

There are also label templates for OpenOffice but I think the glabel program will do what you want to do.

Re:Release Early, Release Often Doesn't Serve User

[grumbel]

I fear that if I released it, not even the version I have now, but future snapshots, it would get uploaded to all the shareware sites, where it would be downloaded by unsuspecting novice users, who would find it unpleasant to use. Thats what we have CVS/SVN/Git and friends for. Simply don't release it in tarball form until it is ready, instead just dump it into a public repository and be done with it. The repository will make sure that no shareware sites pick it up and that distris stay away from packaging it. It will also make sure that the end user gets that it isn't done yet.

That wouldn't serve their needs, and further, it would give me and my project a bad reputation. It doesn't have to serve a need, it simply has to be there to take a look. If nothing else just to see that it is actually real and not just one of the thousands of vaporware projects on sourceforge. By just having a webpage up and no code you are basically wasting peoples time.

I know that I have the greatest chance of success if I wait until I have something rock-solid before I make its first public release. On the other side the bus-factor can kick in and we are left with nothing but an empty webpage. It has happened before, it will happen again and maybe to you.

According to the Microsoft PR rep..

[lmnfrs]

..that I met over the weekend, it means you're a "weirdo who ate too much paste as a kid."

I don't think that convinced the other guy to install a closed-source alternative to OpenOffice.

As an open-source author...

[gillbates]

• I don't have any arbitrary deadlines to meet.
• I can rework parts that I think need reworking, without any change control forms or paperwork.
• I can create in my own particular way, at my own particular pace. I don't have to release or publish anything until it's ready.
• I don't have to bother (much) with issues like licensing compliance or chasing down deadbeat payers, or filing stupid lawsuits because someone is sharing my stuff over P2P.
• I'm free to pursue projects that aren't commercially viable; I can do the kind of creativity that will never be seen in the world of commercial writing.
• I can sate the urge to create without sacrificing my heart and soul to the whims of a corporation.

Okay, on the bad side...

• I'm not sure how many people are using my code, or reading my works, or if anyone even cares. I could be a really bad writer and wouldn't know the difference...
• Because I have no professional obligation to release code, I don't release most of it. I have quite a few projects which are perpetually almost ready.
• I'm spending a substantial amount of time for which I won't ever reap a dividend. Could I do something more productive with this time? Perhaps. But then I'd still have to find some way to sate my creative instincts, so it might end up a net wash.
• There are things which I just can't work on because of my agreement with my employer. Working for a large corporation means that almost anything technical, which has the ability to change the world for the better, would fall under my employment agreement. Sure, I could probably post beer recipes (yes, I do brew...), but the work I've been doing with this FPGA kit is probably covered in part, if not completely, by my employment agreement. Because of the general wording of the agreement, and my desire to continue working there, I generally do not publish anything which could be construed as belonging to my employer in any way. So I typically can't publish anything related to my areas of most proficiency.