Last week, we launched our brand new Dev Cards with the OSCR (Open Source Contributor Rating) highlighted on the front to make it easier for you to showcase your impact in open source. To make it even easier, I've cooked up a little GitHub Action that'll automatically update your Dev Card on your GitHub profile.
In September of 2022, the European Parliament introduced the “Cyber Resilience Act”, commonly called the CRA: a new piece of legislation that requires anyone providing digital products in the EU to meet certain security and compliance requirements.
In theory, I'm not sure that open source should work. Think about it: Companies usually keep their best ideas secret. But in open source, everyone shares their code openly. You'd expect most people to just use the free software without giving anything back. Not to mention trying to organize thousands of volunteers from all over the world to build something complex. But despite all these reasons why it shouldn't work, open source not only survives – it thrives. It's powering a huge part of the technology we use every day. But for many people, the idea of actually contributing to open source still feels pretty scary. Why? And more importantly, how can we change that?
As an open source maintainer, one of my daily tasks is reminding contributors to complete their pull request (PR) templates or asking them to provide missing information on their issues. Although the saved replies feature on GitHub helps me a lot, it still takes me time to personalize replies based on the case. This is a challenge not only for me but also for most maintainers.
It is very important to take the time to fill out these forms and templates completely and accurately. This not only makes the process smoother and faster for everyone involved but also ensures that your contribution is given the attention and consideration it deserves, benefiting both you as a contributor and us as maintainers.
Have you ever been excited to use open source software or contribute to the codebase only to hit a brick wall of confusion because the instructions are unclear? It's frustrating, right?
But what if there was a way to tear down those walls and build bridges of understanding instead? That's where the documentation comes in.
One of the most satisfying moments as an open source project contributor is having your pull request (PR) merged into the main branch. This contribution showcases your skills, passion, and dedication to the project. However, the road to a successful PR can sometimes be bumpy and full of pitfalls.
Have you ever experienced the frustration of your PR being rejected or stuck in a never-ending review process? It can be demotivating and time-consuming, especially when you're eager to see your changes integrated into the project.
In the open source community, we often focus on contributor onboarding. We ensure a clear README, contributing guidelines, and a welcoming community to guide new contributors and help them get started. But what about maintainers?
Have you ever faced a dilemma as a maintainer, wondering whether to tackle an issue yourself or create an issue for the community to solve?
Knowing when to delegate tasks and involve external contributors is crucial for empowering contributors, fostering a healthy community, and keeping your sanity intact. However, there are also tasks that only the core team may and can handle.
Today is day 12 of my 29 Days of Open Source Alternatives series, where I'll be exploring open source alternatives to proprietary software in the categories of Game Development and Multimedia, Development Tools and Platforms, Productivity and Collaboration Tools, and more. If you'd like to see the list of the open source alternatives I'll be covering this month, head over to my 29 Days of Open Source Alts Page or if you want more open source to learn-to-code programs, check out this list. This is our first post in the Productivity & Collaboration Category.
Chances are, you either have a calendar schedule or you've interacted with someone else's scheduler. I have been incredibly resistant to having one myself, although I have tried (and didn't love) Calendly in the past to help schedule podcast episodes. At this point, it's necessary for me to have a way to easily schedule meeting, kids' events, and whatever else is happening. To do this, I investigated three open source alternatives to Calendly: cal.com, Fossify Calendar, and Easy!Appointments.