
A Bitter Guide to Open Source - edward
https://medium.com/codezillas/a-bitter-guide-to-open-source-a8e3b6a3c1c4
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j1elo
That's the great dilemma. Either you write the actual fkin' code, or you do
roundabouts all around "project management" tasks, which in itself can be seen
both as a needed means for a project's success, and as the perfect
procrastination tool.

If you have 100 hours to write something and do ALL that is noted here you'll
end up not shipping anything at all. I'm currently the main developer and
maintainer of the Kurento project [1], and I've been working hard on all these
accessory but important details because my vision coincides with that of the
article's author, but at the same time they feel like a time sink which
distracts from doing _actual_ work on issues and bugs.

[1]: [https://www.kurento.org](https://www.kurento.org)

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AstralStorm
The main thing all these guys do is to ship the most trivial thing that will
work (is better than competitors) but leave it open for improvements.

Tests are written sometimes second, not first. Specifically regression only
testing is pretty good and less intensive than full testing everything. But to
know about regressions and problems you need reports and to do that, the
software has to be shipped, in use and the report channels have to work well.

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seba_dos1
This "guide to OSS" doesn't tell you anywhere, but talks about creating a
JavaScript library, resulting in advices like "your OSS project needs to have
valid package.json", which reads very strangely. Could use some "for example"s
here and there.

~~~
lainga
This is a very strange article from a universe where the only languages
available are JS and TS.

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mxschumacher
this "Medium" style of writing kills me. Lots of words, little substance.

~~~
tchaffee
It's fine if you don't like his style, but the "little substance" part is
hardly true. I contribute to OSS on a very regular basis and I was left with
four or five solid takeaways after reading the article. The author even admits
he isn't good at writing but a lot of people asked him to write the article.
I'm glad he did.

~~~
eropple
Agreed. I'm about to release a fairly large JavaScript service as open-source
(the Sidekiq to Kue's Resque, as it is), and I got a _lot_ out of it.

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paulddraper
> Repo Prerequisites

> README.md

> CONTRIBUTING.md

> LICENSE.txt

> A valid, filled out package.json

Hmmmm...one of those is not like the others.

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randop
> Some a$#h@!& is gonna come in and whine about something

This is very true just like in our society (good or bad intention it may be).
Nice article Ken Wheeler by the way.

How much time do you normally spend writing OSS?

