

Open source is brutal: an interview with Google's Chris DiBona - tanglesome
http://opensource.com/business/13/10/interview-chris-dibona

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dekhn
Chris DiBona is great! I work at Google and his team provides a really solid
foundation for using Open Source at Google, and for Open Sourcing Google code.
I think few companies have the foresight to employ people like Chris and
DannyB who help us ensure engineers uses open source legally and ethically.

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enneff
I totally agree. Chris and his team do an amazing job. What you didn't mention
is the assistance they give to our open source projects (like Go, AngularJS,
Dart, Chrome and many more) and how they have assist teams in releasing parts
of Google's source as open source.

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cdibona
That's really nice of you to say that. Thanks!

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bradleyjg
It's interesting where they took that -- brutal on new contributors trying to
get a foothold in a project. When I saw the title I thought it was going to be
about the brutality of uses and random passers-by who critize, demand,
complain, and harass developers who put code out there.

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vonmoltke
Frequently on Reddit, and somewhat less frequently here, posters are told that
a key way to market themselves when trying to get the type of job they want is
to contribute to open source. This advice is usually tossed out nonchalantly
in a list of other things the poster could do. It makes the act of
contributing to a project seem like a trivial thing.

It is anything but in the context of DiBona's statement. Is this the best
advice to be flinging around? Is that contributing to the problem? New blood
in the open source world should be a good thing, but is there a balance to be
struck between sending everyone charging out of the gates at whatever project
tickles their fancy and maintaining the tight oligarchies that many projects
seem to gravitate towards?

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btilly
It actually is good advice.

If you attempt to contribute to an open source project, you will quickly get
feedback on what you're missing. The process is not particularly pleasant. But
it is a very fast way to learn what you need to learn, then to find mentors
who can help you. People who go through it come out much stronger, very
quickly.

I am personally familiar with more than one person with little or no formal
education and no job prospects who, through open source, got jump-started on
skills that have served them well since. I will not name names since the
people I'm thinking of are not public about their stories. But it really is
possible to do this.

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vonmoltke
> If you attempt to contribute to an open source project, you will quickly get
> feedback on what you're missing.

You hope. And if you do, you hope what you are missing is not some semi-
arbitrary whim of the particular project you wish to contribute to.[1]

I certainly think it is good advice for some people; I do not think it is good
_blanket_ advice. I also don't think it is a suggestion that should be tossed
out as lightly as some people do.

[1] Of course, that could be seen as great practice for dealing with the semi-
arbitrary whims of the particular company you will be working for someday.

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specto
That is a seriously sensationalist title for this Q&A article.

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smackfu
One of the questions was: "You once called open source “brutal”. What did you
mean by that?"

So not much editorializing.

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scott_karana
Considering that that question isn't the focus of the of the interview, I
agree that it's a bit sensationalist.

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tjaerv
Anyone have a reference for the mentioned "you once called open source
'brutal'"? Googling it now is polluted with reposts of the current article.

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nitrogen
Google's advanced search tools might let you find references older than one
month/one year. Sadly, sometimes websites with current dates still show up in
searches for historic content.

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cdibona
I think it was during my video interview at OSCON? Who knows...someone should
create a website that helps people find things.

