Contributing to free software projects

[Christopher Browne]

On 2009-03-02, Dave Germiquet <davegermiquet-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> I would like to see how to contribute to an linux open source project
> and start coding patches in the beginning and then start features.
>
> For example, where to find information, where to look to apply patches
> on how its compiled.

As a quick first reaction...

"That depends *heavily* on which project it is."

Every open source project is potentially a *separate* political entity
(occasionally they share bits, but that's not necessarily the case),
and dealing with a project is a political negotiation.

The Free Software Foundation is quite a bit like the UN, in that context:

- Their troops wear distinctive funny hats.

<http://www.stallman.org/saintignucius.jpg>
<http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/0cdnfAOfBIcdV/610x.jpg>

- People ridicule both organizations as being ineffective.  (When did
the FSF last release a version of Linux???  Why can't GNU Emacs and
XEmacs merge???)

- Both would *like* to influence policies of the "nations" that they
overlook, but generally don't, terribly much...

- You might imagine it to be sufficient to talk to the UN or to the
FSF, but in practice, to do anything particularly practical, it is
necessary to establish diplomatic relations with any individual nation
that you actually want to deal with.

- Customs differ from nation to nation, so it is absolutely
insufficient to learn one set of customs and attempt to apply them
more widely.

Notably, GPL, Open Source, and BSD Licensed somewhat correspond to the
historically brittle relations between Judaism, Christianity, and
Islam; while there *are* relationships between their origins, there
are material relational differences, and treating them identically,
and notably using the terms of one in the others' contexts will get
peoples' ire up, whether we're talking about:
 - Ham sandwiches
 - Wine
 - Talking to FSF folks about your love of "Open Source"
 - Telling BSD folks that the GPL "maintains freedom"

Free software projects have a *WIDELY* varying sets of forms of
governance, and that does really matter.
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