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SoylentNews
nobbis writes:
"Mihai Guiman recounts how he built an open source community, FINkers United, around an open source financial application, FinTP. He believes that an open source project cannot succeed without a powerful community to support its development, and explains how FINkers United changed as the project moved from closed to open source. The management structure evolved and he expects new hierarchies to emerge based on merit and contribution. He notes the benefits of joining such a community as sharing interests and having the ability to act on ideas according to your beliefs. He poses a pertinent questions at the end: 'Why would you join an open source community?'"
[ED Note: As most of the Open Source news we hear these days relates to decade-spanning well established projects, it's good to be reminded that this process still goes on, and to reflect on what it means to be building a community-centric news discussion site.]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by lhsi on Wednesday February 19 2014, @11:58AM
A lot of the time I have contributed to Open Source projects recently is by reporting bugs, trying to get them as detailed as possible. I even tested out a fix before it was added to a release version. I don't have the time to do much actual coding outside work, but I like to help where I can.
But yes, the "user" part is mandatory; I wouldn't be able to report bugs if I wasn't using the software.
(Score: 1) by dilbert on Wednesday February 19 2014, @01:14PM
I contribute my time helping others learn how to use the software as a way of saying thanks to the devs/community who have provided such great software to me over the years.