What Aspects of Open Source Projects Do You Avoid?

paulproteus writes "I'm a Debian developer and a part-time contributor to a few smaller projects. I do a lot of free software-y and open source-y things. Sometimes, though, I don't do them. I figure some other Slashdotters might have similar hang-ups — we contribute to a project, but there are parts that we really dread thinking about. So I wrote a post about having these hang-ups, and I made a place on the web to share how others can help your project. What are the parts that, in your projects, you would be relieved if someone else looked at for you?"

Comments

Writing tests, user-level docs, and finding bugs

[multipartmixed]

Please, for the love of God, somebody come along and write a test suite for my project. I'm sick of breaking code by accident! ;)

Re:irc.freenode.net

[betterunixthanunix]

Hey now, we cannot have it both ways. If we want to push community support, that means that we have to be ready to answer the same novice questions over and over again, especially since a lot of concepts are lost on Windows and Mac OS users -- like the idea of a package manager. Yes, it may seem like the most obvious question in the entire world, but I frequently get asked things like, "How do I install ," and if we are unwilling to answer such basic question, people will just get scared (and subconsciously assume that "Linux is not ready for the desktop").

We may find it annoying, but we absolutely should not avoid it. In fact, we should being doing it more often.

Re:One thing I don't do is troublesome licenses

[maxume]

You could say "I choose to respect the GPL in situations where I am not prepared or legally able to do the work necessary for compliance."

Thanks for Slashdotting me

[paulproteus]

Working on fixing the site...

Re:Ego

[dvice_null]

> A lot of open source coders seem to avoid UI aspects and usability like a plague

- Programmers write code.
- UI designers design UI
- Technical writers write user documentation
- Graphical designers draw buttons and icons

The problem is that majority of open source developers are programmers and UI designing is a completely different profession.
Two possible solutions:
- Programmers must learn UI designing also
- We need more UI designers to join us

Re:Adding comments

[RAMMS EIN]

There's the Commentator for that.

Anybody have an implementation of that for *nix?

Re:Ego

[roman_mir]

You are probably right, but I think open source programmers need more of one more thing , which they maybe not getting enough of. Blow jobs. I think free and open source programmers need more blow jobs. From hot women. We should get the hot women to join in on this idea somehow.

Open Source Nazis

[Niobe]

What Aspects of Open Source Projects Do I Avoid? The part where I get yelled at by a developer for filing a bug that I tried diagnose to the best of my ability but didn't mange to fix myself. Because, as we know, you shouldn't even USE open source software unless you're willing to DEVELOP it as well. Pffft.