Understanding Open Source

Talking to people at open source events, and recently at JandBeyond, I’m always surprised how easily people use the excuse ‘I don’t have time to contribute’ to the open source projects they use personally or as part of their business.

Those same people are however quick to point out governance issues, code bugs and missing features. Some of them even dare to demand for solutions for their problems.

Participate and improve

If you use free and open source software and you find any deficiency in the project, the onus is on you to address that deficiency. Open source projects provide you with tools and processes to not only remove inadequacies in any part of the project but also to improve the project.

This whole mechanism exists to empower you : the user. If there is something that would cause you to criticize a project then it means enough to you to do something about it. In simpler terms, scratch you own itch and fix it! Without this positive feedback loop an open source project will die.

Using Nooku as an example its continued improvement and success is directly proportional to the developers community participation. If a developer contributes to Nooku then 100% of that contribution will go to improve Nooku and create a shared outcome that benefits all, including themselves.

It’s not about the numbers

A lot of people seem to believe that by using open source software or creating solutions for and with that software they are contributing to it’s success. This is not true ! Open source doesn’t improve by use, advocacy, mindshare, by having 10 million users or a global brand. It improves by the participation and contribution from it’s community.

For this reason, the “more users” isn’t important in open source, the more contributors is. We all use open source for our own reasons. But contributing and participating is the only way any open source project can evolve. If we use open source software, contributing and participating in the improvement of that software is commonality we should all share !

In the Nooku our community motto is : For every hour Nooku saves you, try spending 5 minutes to help improve it. If we all apply that principle to the open source projects we use, free and open source software will have a very bright future !