The Benefits of Releasing Software as Open Source
Friday, January 4th, 2008Just came across this post which talks about automating Facebook interaction to perform a request in a Facebook app.
Their ruby code is here (much of it based originally off mine — which is so cool).
For the longest time I didn’t get open source… why anyone would give away their hard-earned time (in the form of code) to everyone else.
It’s not some hippie thing though. The benefits are:
* expands your “street cred” in the community
* allows other people to enhance what you’ve done, and possibly, contribute back to the project
* fosters even more giving back by growing pie — it’s not a zero-sum game, as many would believe
In my case, I’ve almost always already written the software that becomes open source. Without releasing it, the code would simply rot on the vine. Usually within 2-3 hours (though I’m getting better), I can have the code cleaned up, tests added (if applicable) and released as an open source project.
The original Facebook automation article is here: HOW TO: Automate Facebook Interaction using Ruby and WWW::Mechanize.
More recent open source work: Sexy Temp Passwords (rails plugin), Dynamic File Store (rails plugin), and The Hydra Project.
