Helping Open Source Software

Transcript

1. Helping Open Source Software
2. Bryce Kahle @brycekahle Introduce myself Speak philosophically for a minute
3. visibility == quality Oft-cited benefit of open source Quality is not inherent to visibility To quantify this, I took a proverb and tweaked it
4. If source code appears on the internet and no one is around to review it, does it have bugs?
5. static OSStatus SSLVerifySignedServerKeyExchange(SSLContext *ctx, bool isRsa, SSLBuffer signedParams, uint8_t *signature, UInt16 signatureLen) { OSStatus err; ... ! if ((err = SSLHashSHA1.update(&hashCtx, &serverRandom)) != 0) goto fail; if ((err = SSLHashSHA1.update(&hashCtx, &signedParams)) != 0) goto fail;! ! ! goto fail; if ((err = SSLHashSHA1.final(&hashCtx, &hashOut)) != 0) goto fail; ... ! fail: SSLFreeBuffer(&signedHashes); SSLFreeBuffer(&hashCtx); return err; } Public Apple source code Affected millions of devices. Invalidated trust of lots of software
6. visibility == quality eyeballs What is usually meant More the merrier
7. visibility == quality eyeballs test cases Automated way to ensure correctness Prevent breaking changes TDD
8. visibility == quality eyeballs test cases usage Real world usage finds the weakness
9. visibility == quality eyeballs test cases usage docs What good is it if nobody understands how to use it?
10. Community Developer Where community comes in Open source works because of this cycle. By nature, JS has lots of open source libraries Most don’t close the loop. Intimidation, not desire !
11. < % 3 < 3% of Github users opened a PR in 2013 Turn that into open source love
12. Learn the ways of the open source
13. No chnagechange is too small Single character typos can be the difference between success and failure
14. CONTRIBUTING One thing you have to look at first Coding style/CLA Fastest way to get your PR rejected
15. Documentation Easiest way to help Can do everything in the browser: if using Markdown on Github Auto-fork and PR
16. First time user Document any problems/speedbumps Speed/ease of first time use can be a major influence on reception
17. Speak a foreign language? Translate documentation or UI strings Help with localization code/structure
18. Choose an existing bug or feature Talk to authors if possible: IRC/Mailing list Start small Authors sometimes tag issues as good ‘first bugs’
19. So you want to fix a bug? Decided to be heroic and contribute some code
20. Write a test case first So you want to fix a bug? Solid reproduction steps if not Don’t have to solve bug, test case will help author Helps prevent regression in the future
21. UI testing Load testing UI/UX design DB design Moral support Beer / $ / B⃦ Website Promotion Security audit User support Benchmarking etc. Infinite number of ways to help
22. Give Back Not about guilt Raising the quality of the entire community All want better tools