It's not necessarily *my* FOSS projects that I want to be successful, but rather the FOSS ecosytem as a whole. I have stewardship over my little slice of it, but the FOSS ecosystem is a much broader (and singular) thing that I believe we all have a joint responsibility in caring for.

All free software is ours for the improving: projects will welcome our contributions and we should focus on broadening our impact.

To accomplish this, it helps to work on reducing the mental leap it takes for you to go from user to contributor, until the line between the two roles is difficult to distinguish. Contribute early, contribute often, and you'll be rewarded with a healthier free software ecosystem.

**Freddy** · Jun 28, 2020, 12:13

Freddy boosted

**Henry Edward Hardy** @hhardy01@mastodon.social · Jun 28, 2020, 12:13

Jun 28, 2020, 12:13

Henry Edward Hardy @hhardy01@mastodon.social

Privilege.

If you don't fear the police & don't understand why other folks do.

Let's break it down.

Hundreds of people are killed by the police in incidents of police violence.

Black folks are stopped & searched, restrained, beaten, tasered, handcuffed, transported to jail, charged, sentenced, and imprisoned longer with much higher frequency than whites with similar alleged offenses. There's a huge amount of statistical evidence showing this.

If you don't fear the police, that's privilege.

**Freddy** · Jun 28, 2020, 08:19

Freddy boosted

**kick** @kick@blob.cat · Jun 28, 2020, 08:19

Jun 28, 2020, 08:19

kick @kick@blob.cat

@sir have you seen the stuff happening with the Open Technology Fund recently?

"The head of the Open Technology Fund (OTF) Corporation, which funds internet freedom projects and technologies, resigned Wednesday because she said she became aware of a lobbying effort that would push the group's funds toward closed-source tools rather than the open-source ones it has traditionally championed."

https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/935k5p/open-technology-fund-ceo-resigns

https://saveinternetfreedom.tech/

**Freddy** · Jun 28, 2020, 00:19

Freddy boosted

**foosh** @FuchsiaShock@radical.town · Jun 28, 2020, 00:19

Jun 28, 2020, 00:19

foosh @FuchsiaShock@radical.town

brilliant

**Freddy** · Jun 27, 2020, 15:25

Freddy boosted

**Drew DeVault** @sir@cmpwn.com · Jun 27, 2020, 15:25

Jun 27, 2020, 15:25

Drew DeVault @sir@cmpwn.com

"How do I get started contributing to open source? What are some good entry-level tasks to work on?"

These are questions I am often asked, so here's the answer for everyone to read:

Scratch your own itches. Find bugs that are causing you problems, conspicuously missing features you would find useful, and implement them - in literally any free/open-source software you're using. Don't worry about not being familiar with the codebase or programming language or whatever, just solve one problem at a time.

Try this: next time you go to report a bug, report it, and immediately start working on a patch which fixes the problem.

Scratching your own itches is the best source of motivation and maximizes your productivity.

Often that means not contributing to my projects at all, if you're asking how to get started with a specific project. Maybe you like it because it's flawless 😉 (hah!), in which case it wouldn't need your help anyway. Go fix something which is bugging you in another project. Spread the contributor wealth around and eventually it'll come back to my projects, too.