A better way to encourage contributions to OSS
- by Daniel Cazzulino
Currently in the .NET world, most OSS projects are available via a NuGet package. Users have a very easy path towards *using* the project right away. But let’s say they encounter some isssue (maybe a bug, maybe a potential improvement) with the library. At this point, going from user to contributor (of a fix, or a good bug repro or even a spike for a new feature) is a very steep and non trivial multi-step process of registering with some open source hosting site (codeplex, github, bitbucket, etc.), learning how to grab the latest sources, build the project, formulate a patch (or fork the code), learn the source control software they use (mercurial, git, svn, tfs), install whatever tools are needed for it, read about the contributors workflow for the project (do you fork & send pull requests? do you just send a patch file? do you just send a snippet? a unit test? etc.), and on, and on, and on. Granted, you may be lucky and already know the source control system the project uses, but in really, I’d say the chances are pretty low. I believe most developers *using* OSS are far from familiar with them, much less with contributing back to various projects. We OSS devs like to be on the cutting edge all the time, ya’ know, always jumping on the new SCC system, the new hosting site, the new agile way of managing work items, bug tracking, code reviews, etc. etc. etc.. But most of our OSS users are largely the “... Read full article
