I’ve been out of pocket for the last couple of weeks, helping my father relocate across the country. Since we were driving through the entire southern region of the country and traveling by RV, we were in some pretty remote areas. I really had to face my addiction to my phone and data connections, when I had access to twitter/linkedin/facebook/therealworld maybe once a day if I was lucky.
Last night, when I had a chance to catch up, I spent some time reading and thinking about an article @selenamarie posted earlier this week. Entitled Designers, Women and Hostility in Open Source, it’s a piece worth checking out. And it’s not what you might expect: it’s far more about community in general than women’s roles therein, although it most certainly applies to both.
I was particularly struck by some of Gina’s insight about how Open Source Software communities can welcome newcomers and noncoders. As a non-coder with a business background and a passionate interest in OSS, I’ve often wondered how, if at all, I might significantly contribute to open source projects. I tend to circulate in the open source crowd both socially and professionally, work with and for organizations that strongly value open source work… but have felt a bit daunted about jumping into specific projects when I’m not actually writing software.
Gina writes,
For programmers, the process of contributing to an open source project goes like this: you download the source code, you change the source code, and then you submit your changes to the project maintainers in the form of a patch, and if that patch gets accepted, your contribution shows up in the software. Done.
What’s not clear is how people who don’t code contribute their skills and expertise to making OSS software. Because it’s not clear, they don’t, and the software looks and feels like it was designed by engineers, for engineers—because it was.
She goes on to provide a solid list of ways non-coders can contribute, from functioning as a welcoming presence for newcomers to bug tracking to social networking. These roles, she points out, help move OSS from being entirely engineering-driven to a true community-built model.
Give it a read if you’re so inclined, and I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments here. I think it’s good stuff.
PS: I took this picture this morning at the last stop in Arizona on Rt. 93 before you enter Nevada. I tried and tried to find a way to tie it into the post, but it didn’t happen. However, it’s awesome, so here you go.
PPS: The UFO jerky was nothing to write home about. 
