I’m a big fan of Open source and over the years I have seen that human beings are just very much like open-source projects in virtually all ramifications.
What if I tell you that we are all Open Source Projects?
Wait!! Oh ye corrupt mind. Am I pondering what you are pondering? 😱😱😱
PAUSE! Keep that thought, let’s analyze it critically, thou developer. 🤔🤔🤔
- When someone adds you as a collaborator, that’s LOVE right there. You guys are now in LOVE 😍😍😍. The moment he/she removes/kicks you out of the project, then y’all have broken up.😢😢😢
- When people clone and add you to several projects, it simply means you are very useful. Many people depend on you to make things happen. So, go ahead & do great things, push the frontiers of knowledge!!! 🙌🙌🙌
- Some people don’t have any form of contribution or PR guidelines. What does that mean? Does that mean you are loose? Does that mean you don’t stand for anything? Does that mean you are just open to anything? Well, I’ll leave that for you to decide. 🤐🤐🤐
- When there are too many open pending PRs( Pull requests ) on you. It simply means you snub people a lot. Why? Attend to them. Even if you don’t have the time, what about a simple “Can we talk about this in 3 days time?” or “I’ll try to look into it” or “I’ll introduce you to someone who can help” or “Sorry, I won’t be available for this”
- When there are too many issues on your tab. It simply means people want answers to everything. Well, I totally understand that you don’t have to answer everyone but have you submitted an issue to a popular open source project before, and someone actually replied/attended to you? Can you remember the feeling? Even when you didn’t really get the answer you were looking for, can you remember the feeling of importance that gripped you? 😊😊😊
- When someone reviews your pull request, that’s a constructive criticism on your way of life. Now, you can either say f**k it or actually go through those reviews & improve yourself in a new iteration. Aye, you are now version 1.5.4 — WIP 💪✌️👌
- When a collaborator wants to delete your project, that’s LOVE gone SOUR. By all means, let this not happen. People experienced in this department can offload several shitty experiences. And what if it happens? Is that the end of Life? No, f**k it! Life continues 🚀🚀🚀🚀
- When people send in pull-requests, they either want to make you GREAT or DESTROY your life. Be careful, the kind of people you let in. Now, the beautiful thing is that you can choose your relationships (well, apart from your parents & siblings), you can choose your colleagues, you can choose your neighbors. Don’t let anyone deceive you that all these people around you just came to be randomly. If you have accepted someone & damage has been done? Forgive, but REVERT!!!! 🏃🏃🏃
- When people FORK you, it means they are looking up to you. They have identified that your works & doings have resonated positively in them and are ready to have a copy of your works. They also want to do what you do and keep an eye on you always. So, keep inspiring people. ✊👍
- People use you and dump you everyday. Well, you use & dump open source projects daily too— sometimes people have spent years building that project, but really nobody cares. People just want something that’s very functional & fits their use case. So, when dealing with people, make yourself very useful because once a better alternative comes along, your ass will be dumped instantly! 😭😭😭
- What you do everyday are simply commits. You cleaned up your bedroom? that’s a chore right there. You repaired your phone? that’s a fix right there. You bought a new car? that’s a feature right there. You lost all your properties? that’s a “git reset — hard” right there. Life continues, because when there’s life, there is hope! 💃💃💃
At the end of the day, Life is just one big open source crowd funded micro-service. You can either live it & make impact or just become another open-source project just like one of those dead Yet-another Javascript frameworks!