The phrase “cookie licking” has become popular in recent years to define a pattern which can be problematic in communities. Its meaning comes from a story: Mom makes a plate of cookies, and sets the on the table for the family. After everyone has had their cookies, there is one left on the plate. The cheeky child of the family wants to have the last cookie later, but has no confidence it will still be there when she comes back, so she grabs the cookie, licks it, and puts it back on the plate, secure in the knowledge that no-one else will want to eat it.
Red Hat Community News
A New Metrics Well
A major component of the work being done within the Open Source and Standards team focuses on what we can do to make communities healthy and prosperous.
To that end, we are working with metrics to obtain quantifiable numbers about the projects with which we work, to identify areas of a project that are doing well or might need assistance. We are happy to working with Project CHAOSS for this, since this project has made great strides in determining what actually makes a community healthy.
The Danger of Devaluing Community Volunteers
It is a convenient myth for a lot of people in the free and open source software community that our projects have few barriers to entry beyond a base set of knowledge about the project new contributors want to try to join, and the skills need to contribute to a project.
Diversity, to a lot of people who buy into the pure meritocracy myth, is a problem that can be solved by accepting anyone who can contribute. It’s the contribution that matters, not the person’s race, gender, or other identifiable status. Train more people up, the meritocrats will argue, and the diversity problem will be solved.
DevConf.us: Launching a New Event
It takes a village to raise a child, so the saying goes. That is also certainly the case for launching a new tech event, as the attendees of the inaugural DevConf.us have learned this week.
DevConf.us has successfully started in the George Sherman Union on the campus of Boston University, and runs until this Sunday afternoon. Registration is free of charge, so developers from all across the New England area are welcome.
DevConf.us: Virtual GPUs and C/C++ Refinements
As DevConf.us approaches, speakers are putting the finishing touches on their talks before they set out for Boston University.
In this interview, Christophe de Dinechin takes a break from his preparations to discuss not one but the three talks that he’s giving during the inaugural edition of this conference.
DevConf.us: Web UI Testing for Beginners
Continuing our preview series of the speakers of the inaugural DevConf.us, today we’re sharing an interview with Og Maciel, Senior Manager of Quality Engineering for the Satellite team at Red Hat.
Maciel’s August 18 talk will focus on an introduction to Selenium, the portable testing framework for web apps, and how beginners can get started using the Selenium IDE.