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August 2015

3 participants
2 discussions

Making a contribution: The Aftermath
by Scott Junner 30 Aug '15

30 Aug '15

I'd like to share my experience of the Free Software Melbourne, Contributing to Free Software workshop, and more importantly what has happened since then. Because, it's kinda cool. It's not what I expected. I consider myself a beginner programmer. Most of the time I have no idea what I am doing and no idea what the documentation is trying to convey. Lost is perhaps my most common emotion. But, I wanted very much to attend a workshop that showed me ways that a total n00b like me could make a meaningful contribution to some sort of software project. It was this desire, in fact, that led to me being nominated as a member of the committee of Free Software Melbourne. I wanted to be a part of that workshop so much that I was prepared to be one of the people to make it happen. And so some jerk who didn't want to take responsibility for anything nominated me for a position on the committee at the groups AGM (Nice). Getting close to the event I started to seriously doubt that I would be able to do anything meaningful at the workshop. I'd begun to lose faith in my ability to write any code of value. I was scared and looking for a way that I could just support everyone else to hide my own inadequacies. You know, make everyone cups of tea and all that shit so I could avoid facing what a total loser I am. But, after the day started and I'd managed to pull through a minor event organisational panic (called "We have nothing for morning tea") I sat down at a desk and, teaming up with another participant, looked for a project to contribute to and a thing to do. I'd no idea that openhatch.org was a thing I could use to do that. And especially no idea that I could filter projects and issues to find something that would suit my skills and skill level. Just learning it was a thing was enough. A major revelation and perhaps, in hindsight, the most valuable thing I got out of the whole event. Eventually Veronica and I settled upon a small task we figured we could handle for the Oppia <https://www.oppia.org/> project and got busy downloading source code, installing and making some changes. Along the way we encountered a problem which required an answer from the project devs and so I shot off a message to them expecting to hear from them in a couple of days or something. It turned out they were online and watching messages and we got almost an immediate response to our question. Problem solved. Keep going. We didn't quite get the job done by the end of the day. There were still some problems to be solved and tests to be run. But it wasn't much. Now here's where the story takes a turn. Or changes gear, or something. The code I wrote turned out to be waaaaay off the mark. It wasn't working, files were in the wrong directory, file addressing was a mess. And to top it off I'd changed quadruple the lines of code I'd needed to by adding html tags to every line when all I need to do was open and close them before and after an if statement. DUH! The cool thing was I had the balls to tell the project devs what I was thinking and where I was having problems. And they were cool enough to answer me and help out. Not something I expected. The end result was something that worked. And looked great. But wait! There's more. Submitting code and *having it merged* into the project was awesome. It felt like being a Débutante at the ball. But the best part of the whole experience wasn't that. It was when the project devs added me as a member of their organisation on github, and listed me as a contributor. So I feel like the real result wasn't better code or a nicer design. The real result was that by going to a little workshop in North Melbourne for a day, I moved from being just some guy trying to learn how to program, to someone with actual programming credits to his name on a real live project. I didn't expect that. I actually did something worth while. I kinda feel like a different person. Well, that's what I wanted to share. Remain Awesome Scott.

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From Andri Effendi - Free Software Australia (Sydney)
by Andri Effendi 28 Aug '15

28 Aug '15

Hello Free Software Australia, My Name is Andri Effendi. In case we weren't introduced in Melbourne at the "workshop: Contribute to free software and open source" ... I am a Free Software activist, running the recently created Sydney based Free Software mailing list. I am aiming to have a web conference using Jitsi on September 10th 2015. You will need a WebCam, Microphone, Speakers (or headphones) and a fast internet connection capable of streaming a live conference. The web conference will be a virtual gathering... The exact time of the even hasn't been decided yet, however I am currently contemplating holding it for 3 and a half hours at 7:00PM - 10:30PM. (with the last 30 minutes available for questions and answers) Still to be organized... Although Jitsi is Free Software, currently it is only compatible with Chrome, Chromium, Opera and Firefox Nightly, so I thought I should mention that if you would like to join in you should make sure you have one of the mentioned browsers. I would like to invite both Free Software folks in both Melbourne and Sydney to join along. I would like to know what people think?? Will anyone not be able to make it online that day? I am asking for Victorian's and New South Welshmen to help me out here, in any way you can. I am really eager to build up the Free Software movement in the Country so we can enshrine the solid foundations of The Free Software Movement in Australian culture. If you would like to email me Personally see my email address down below. Kind Regards, Andri Effendi Free Software Australia (Sydney) Email me: fusionman133(a)gmx.de GPG Key: 8438 138D ECDA 05E0 591F F2B4 4721 0F03 AC24 DF73 (For Security Reasons I think I should let you know that my GPG Key may have been altered in transit, so If you wish to exchange keys, it's best to do this in person)

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