[kwlug-disc] FLOSS contributions

[Hubert Chathi]

On Tue, 16 Aug 2016 02:00:36 -0400, Paul Nijjar via kwlug-disc <kwlug-disc at kwlug.org> said:

> Who here contributes to FLOSS projects? In what ways do you
> contribute? What were the biggest barriers you faced in getting
> started?

I contribute, though my contributions have lessened in recent years.
I've contribute in many ways -- bug fixing, bug filing, bug triaging,
implementing new features, creating new software, maintaining packages
for Debian, writing documentation, etc.

Some of the big barries that I've faced were:
- lack of time
- uninterested, unresponsive or hostile upstream
- insufficient skill/understanding (particularly with big projects)
- lack of documentation and/or spaghetti code
- the work is already done by someone else
- having to jump through various hoops in order to contribute

> Who has had intentions of contributing to open source, but been
> stymied? What were the roadblocks?

> Would you be interested in helping others get up to speed in making
> contributions?

At some point, yes.

> Who here speaks multiple (human) languages? Have you ever considered
> translating software? Have you ever done so? What level of technical
> expertise is required to do so?

Je parle francais (un peu).  I have considered doing some translation,
but my fr is very limited, especialaly in the technical realm.  I have
attempted to do some translation, but Transifex was not working for me
at the time, and I haven't attempted to do it again yet.  For the most
part, not much technical expertise is required to do translation, since
most translation tools are meant to be mostly human usable.  In general,
the most technical you need to get is: use a text editor (and understand
that a word processor is not a text editor), understand the (usually
minimal) syntax for the translation tool and/or understand basic syntax
for the programming language (e.g. how to escape special characters in
strings), and understand how the translation system handles plural forms
and any other special cases.

Of course, that assumes that the software already uses some sort of
internationalization system...

> I'm, um, asking for a friend.

> - Paul