Hobart Patchwork

A short talk I gave as an intro for the GitHub Patchwork at LCA Hobart

Transcript

1. RTFM Or how I somewhat got into open source. The F is for “Fancy”
2. “ How do I do <X> in Linux? -Me Circa 2000, trying to dual boot Linux. I realised I needed to compile the modem drivers from scratch to access the internet, lots of reboot to find guides and download files.
3. “ You have been kicked from #linuxhelp (RTFM) -some op Back then asking questions about Linux from a windows workstation was not always…welcome.

4. This was also a time before google, where most of the information was in Mailing Lists.
5. Peter Reed - https://www.flickr.com/photos/petereed/5041941336 There was a lot of information but the librarian was out for lunch. You had to figure it out yourself by going through every resource.
6. I actually came up with the corollary for this based on my own experience: The only existing thread is you asking the same question a few years back
7. CONTRIBUTING?
8. Kate Henderson - https://www.flickr.com/photos/2littlebanshees/373853114 I’m really good at breaking things according to my parents, so finding bugs was easy. Reporting them not so much. Usually you had to post to one mailing list or another, with varying results.
9. Tiger_Bee - https://www.flickr.com/photos/shanebee/14062236967/ Sometimes you’re confident enough to fix it yourself and get your hands dirty in the code!
10. “ Just go on the mailing list and submit a patch file. - Some project maintainer Submitting a fix is another matter altogether. 
 Alternate outcomes:
 “Do you want to take over the project?”
 “We do not accept patches”
 “That’s a terrible solution”
11. Puppet really got me back into contributing. Combination of having your personal fixes merged upstream, and an employer who believes in giving back to the community
12. Exposing my bias here, but GitHub was a great help. Everything is centralised, you don’t have to follow 15Mailing Lists and figure how to submit changes any more.
13. QUESTIONS?