Date: April 19, 2024
It's getting worse: FOSS in India
Before you read:
Following blog post was written by me ~2 months ago. I was quite "angry" at the time, or at least, that's how I would describe it.
I decided not publish it because I realized certain parts of it were not appropriate and you will realize that too. It's too raw.
BEGINNING OF FILE
Disclaimer: I'm not a very huge FOSS contributor.
I'm just a student who loves the idea behind FOSS. Everything I say will be towards my love to FOSS.
This is my experience talking/listening to few people from internet/real life. I am just another normal programmer.
This blog is about Free and Open Source software not "Open Source".
I don't want to be country specific here because it's happening all around the world.
But I think as a country, we are really doing it badly.
In this job focused community of developers, It's tough. Hearing from them, I don't hear a single sentence/work that shows there care towards FOSS.
This angers me even more. If you're not FOSS, don't use it. It's simple!
It's not a compulsion to contribute to FOSS.
The Job market:
Companies this days value people with "Open Source" contributions,
because you have some experience working with real world software projects. Was FOSS built to let people gain experience?
Please don't intoxicate this community with your selfish contributions. We don't need them.
Open Source events:
People are told to make 4 contributions over the span of 4 weeks. That's great.
But are those contributions really "contributions". I mean what's the point of putting up a solution of a LeetCode problem? It doesn't even make sense.
Leetcode has it's own forum for it. Put it there.
What's the point MRs consisting of "Adding your name and socials". No one looks at them.
If you can't code and want to make a contribution. Make translation contributions. You'll help me in improving Internationalization(i18n) of software.
That's a really good contribution, that even maintainers appreciate.
People ask which project should I contribute to. There are even some website like 24pullrequest.
I'm not saying they are completely bad but why are looking for a project you haven't used/read about,
rather contribute to the software, you use on daily basis.
Even I thought of similar contributions, maybe I wasn't the idea correctly or I didn't understand it. But now I know.
I like the initiative. There are a lot of good contributions. Guess what which country has the most "GSoC" contributors coming every year. India!
It's really put up very badly among new developers. Same thing: "Companies prefer Google Summer of Code candidates".
Above stats are of Google Summer of Code candidates from year 2021 from Top 10 universities.
All of them are India. Don't take this in a wrong way.
But are we really doing it for the correct motive.
I'm not generalizing this one. It hurts. When someone is asked,
why do you want to participate in GSoC, without hesitation they say, there motive is money.
"Alright, that's fine. He just wants to earn money. Don't we all need money? What's wrong in earning money?"
NO!! I understand your conditions. You may be poor.
But let's not pollute the community shall we? You're destroying a beautiful thing with your "greedy" motives.
I have been part of both. I never felt there was a material motive behind all those contributions and I don't want you guys have to.
Let's contribute to FOSS projects but let's do it the right way 😀! Do it for fun! You'll enjoy it!
We the people of FOSS
Maybe we are presenting the idea in a bad away.
We should take the blame of not passing the idea clearly for those who couldn't understand.
We should not only give idea about FOSS software but also tell them the right way.
Note for Job Seekers:
You'll get a job trust me!
People will value you contributions but do it the right way.
Don't do it selfish reasons. Not everyone is "privileged" I know, but let's not pollute this community.
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