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I think that high-profile projects have a necessary tendency to default to a fairly high bar for contribution quality and a more heavyweight process for how muc

by pm215 12y ago

I think that high-profile projects have a necessary tendency to default to a fairly high bar for contribution quality and a more heavyweight process for how much testing/review/rework needs to be done to get the patch in. This flows from the fact that they have a lot of users (so regressions are bad and UI changes or new features need more thought/consensus) and often a high rate of patch submission (so maintainers can be short on time to help bring less-than-perfect contributions up to standard). Within that there are of course more and less friendly projects.

chrismorgan 12y ago
As a counterpoint, larger projects will have new contributors coming along more frequently, so they may be more ready and able to help the inexperienced contributor. That’s my observation in the Rust community, for example.
- iurisilvio 12y ago
  In a less known project, it is really easy to find an issue where I can be useful. They have lots of created issues and nobody working on them. If I understand the issue, I can just dive into the code and make a patch. In a large project, in some cases it is even dificult to know where to start. Mozilla definitely did a good job to mitigate this problem.
endersshadow 12y ago
You're also forgetting the biggest thing, I think, standing in the way: Intimidation. Perhaps in their minds, they aren't expert developers, and are just learning, and therefore, their contributions to a very large project like Firefox or Linux would be unwelcome--as they probably are a little too scared to start. A self-confidence issue, as it were. Through the lens of the internet, it certainly feels sometimes like everybody knows everything--you often forget that you're getting thousands of viewpoints rather than just one super programmer doing everything. I can definitely see how this would be intimidating for newer developers. Cutting your teeth on obscure open source projects is a way to build up your self-confidence, work with others, and see your contributions make a tangible benefit.
- freehunter 12y ago
  These two things are exactly what I had in mind. Lack of confidence in your skills while starting out and a barrier to entry (my patch very well might break something else). Not that large OSS projects are unwelcoming, but a little bit of training goes a long way.
sanderjd 12y ago
Another interesting thing about bigger projects is that there are lots of people who want to contribute to them at the casual level, which means low-hanging fruit gets picked off really quickly. You can't find an easy little pet issue and spend a couple weeks working on it, because it's likely someone will come along and do it before you.

by pm215 12y ago

chrismorgan 12y ago

As a counterpoint, larger projects will have new contributors coming along more frequently, so they may be more ready and able to help the inexperienced contributor. That’s my observation in the Rust community, for example.

iurisilvio 12y ago
In a less known project, it is really easy to find an issue where I can be useful. They have lots of created issues and nobody working on them. If I understand the issue, I can just dive into the code and make a patch. In a large project, in some cases it is even dificult to know where to start. Mozilla definitely did a good job to mitigate this problem.

endersshadow 12y ago

You're also forgetting the biggest thing, I think, standing in the way: Intimidation. Perhaps in their minds, they aren't expert developers, and are just learning, and therefore, their contributions to a very large project like Firefox or Linux would be unwelcome--as they probably are a little too scared to start. A self-confidence issue, as it were. Through the lens of the internet, it certainly feels sometimes like everybody knows everything--you often forget that you're getting thousands of viewpoints rather than just one super programmer doing everything. I can definitely see how this would be intimidating for newer developers. Cutting your teeth on obscure open source projects is a way to build up your self-confidence, work with others, and see your contributions make a tangible benefit.

freehunter 12y ago
These two things are exactly what I had in mind. Lack of confidence in your skills while starting out and a barrier to entry (my patch very well might break something else). Not that large OSS projects are unwelcoming, but a little bit of training goes a long way.

sanderjd 12y ago

Another interesting thing about bigger projects is that there are lots of people who want to contribute to them at the casual level, which means low-hanging fruit gets picked off really quickly. You can't find an easy little pet issue and spend a couple weeks working on it, because it's likely someone will come along and do it before you.