Is Open Source a Freeforall?

Agile programming in India writes:

“I hear alot about open source, everything is open source, how people write code on mailing list and Apache and all that… but I ask dear reader, how do they manage to fix BUGS? When many people write code it is hard and you need a methodology, but open source tell us that we don’t need methodology, any person can change code? How does this work? I know, they are good, but no methdology? Open source needs a plan. A new plan. It is not agile enough. you want to insert problems in my code, boy?! Go, join open source mailing list! NO good.”

Most people who work on open source projects are professional programmers who use the products at work. The individuals in the Apache HTTPD group contribute to the web server because they each use the server at work. The same goes for most any open source project.

Very few open source projects let any one change the code, in the way that Wikipedia lets any one change an entry. (And even Wikipedia is locking some entries down now.) Anyone can submit a patch, but an established “committer” has to decide whether to apply the patch.

How do you get to be a committer? Easy: Act lke a committer. File tickets, submit patches, and post to the mailing list. (But most of all, submit patches!) Once the group sees that a developer knows what he or she is doing, usually, someone in the group will offer write access. But you have to prove yourself first.

As to methodology, most projects use tools like mailing lists, commit logs, issue trackers, and wikis to discuss the code and apprise everyone of every change we make. For more about open source infrastructure, see The Open Source Secret Sauce

ApacheCon US 2007 CFP Submissions

I submitted my ApacheCon 2007 US proposals in this morning. I often submit multiple proposals, but I’ve never had more than one accepted at a time.

Migrating to Ajax – Leverage your hard-earned web development experience and learn how to migrate old-school web applications to Ajax and RPC. This full-day training session covers “Model 2″ applications based on frameworks like Struts, as well as “Model 1″ applications based on PHP or JSP. Prior Ajax experience is not required.

Ajax Petstore Smackdown – Let’s compare conventional implementations of Petstore using Struts or Tapestry with Web 2.0 implementions using Ajax and RPC. Which is better, faster, cheaper … or just more fun to write!

.NET @ Apache.org – Like it or not, many open source developers are moving to the Microsoft .NET platform, and we’re bringing our favorite tools with us! In this session, we look inside ASF projects that are creating software for .NET and Mono … iBATIS, Logging, and Lucene … and show how to create leading-edge ASP.NET applications with open source libraries.

Whether one of these are accepted or not, I expect I’ll wander down to Atlanta this November. It’s one of the few places where I can get a direct flight!

Call for Papers Opens for ApacheCon US 2007

The CFP announcement was inadvertently delayed, so the deadline is unusually close this year. If you’d like to submit a proposal, act today!

The Call for Papers is now open for ApacheCon US, to be held November 12-16 at the Peachtree Westin, Atlanta. The conference will consist of two day of tutorials (November 12-13) and three days of regular conference sessions (November 14-16).

Please log in to the website at http://apachecon.com/html/login.html to submit your proposal. Further details about fees and are avaialable on the CFP form. Topics appropriate for submission to this conference are manifold, and may include but are not restricted to:

• ASF projects
• ASF-Incubated projects
• Scripting languages and dynamic content such as Java, Perl, Python,
  Ruby, XSL, and PHP
• New technologies and broader initiatives such as Web Services and
  Web 2.0
• Security and e-commerce, performance tuning, load balancing, and
  high availability
• Business and community issues surrounding the ASF and Open Source

The paper submission deadline is Monday, 28 April 2007, Midnight GMT.

Thanks, and we hope to hear from you, and to see you in Atlanta.

Ready to give back? Help sponsor ApacheCon!

Newsflash:

Sponsorships for ApacheCon Europe 2007 are still available!

The conference opens May 1 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, so time is short, but if your organization might be able to help, please contact Delia Frees at delia@apachecon.com or on +1 707 765 0823. Various sponsorship levels and other custom strategies are available. Our willingness to work with people does extend to convention sponsorship!

ApacheCon Europe 2007 is the official conference of the Apache Software Foundation (ASF). ApacheCon draws ASF Members, innovators, programmers, developers, vendors, and users to experience the future of Open Source development. Meet, mingle, and exchange ideas with like-minded participants on groundbreaking technologies and emerging industry trends, through informal networking, peer discussions, birds-of-a-feather sessions, and entertaining social events.

In related news, the US conference will be held in Atlanta GA, November 12-16, 2007. For Atlanta, I’m hoping to snag one of the whole-day training sessions or maybe an “Ajax Smackdown” presention, and then do that meet and mingle thing

Getting Born Again at Apache

When individuals or communities propose a project to the ASF incubator, it’s not uncommon to see reasons like “recognition” and “exposure to a wider community”.

While these are common reasons, they are not particularly good reasons.

Sure, the software created by many ASF projects is widely used. But, just as many, or more, are relatively unknown. ASF membership is not a ticket to ride. You still have to do the work.

The best reason for joining the ASF is because the development community supports the foundation’s mission.

Once upon a time, the NCSA web server lost its only developer. NCSA was slow to replace the developer, and the project stagnated. Many of the people using the web server needed to make changes in
order to improve stability and scalability. People were posting and discussing patches on the mailing list, but there was no one available to make changes.

Finally, some of the mailing list subscribers banded together, setup their own version of the code, and started to apply their own patches. Not wanting to repeat history, the group organized itself in away that would avoid dependencies on a single developer or a single company.

Over time, the group evolved the notion of the Apache Way, which we now like to call ASF culture. We strongly believe that a codebase belongs to the individuals who create and maintain it, and that a codebase should be a collaboration between individuals. When we put these two ideas together, we come up with the term “meritocracy”, to describe an organization that is run by the people who do the actual work.

The ASF culture contrasts the model of the benign dictator described in Raymond’s The Cathedral and Bazaar. It is also very different that the Linux hierarchy. It’s a model that says any number of people can participate in a project, so long as everyone involved is prepared to work well with others … especially when we disagree.

In a word, our mission is collaboration.

In practice, we fulfill that mission by fostering software development communities. Everything that goes into that, the Apache License, the legal shield, the distribution policies, all speak to the fundamental mission of enabling collaboration.

As to ASF rules, after six years, I’ve been able to identify eleven.

It’s true that working with others is often more work than going it alone. When the kids were young, my wife I would joke that the household chores take longer when the children help. But, nowadays, lo and behold, sometimes, the teens even do their own laundry!

It’s hard. But, it’s entirely worth it.

But, wait there’s more …

This site is being used a part of my April “Tour de Blog“.

Visit JRoller for the complete Macaroni archive.