PHPDeveloper.org

Elizabeth Naramore's Blog: Why People Don't Contribute to OS Projects, and What We Can Do About It

Thu, 01 Apr 2010 12:41:11 -0500

Elizabeth Naramore (co-founder of the PHPWomen group) has written up an excellent post sharing some research she did on why people don't contribute to Open Source projects (and what can be done to fix the situation).

As those in the open source community who either contribute to, use, or advocate open source projects, we understand the importance of keeping them vibrant and active. We understand how great it is to be a part of a growing project we believe in. We understand the benefits of being an active community member. We understand that it not only helps the good of those around us, but it helps us hone our own skills. So what can we all do to get more people to contribute?

The results from her completely non-scientific poll showed that the three largest factors people don't get involved were time commitments, unsure about where help is needed and a lack of confidence in their own skills. She offers some suggestions about what project leads and other developers can do to help bring more people in like:

Break up big jobs into little jobs
keep commitments minimal
Define exactly what's needed
Save the low-hanging fruit for those just coming in
Appoint an ambassador (especially useful on larger projects)

Community News: PHP & the Google Summer of Code 2008

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 11:15:50 -0500

Besides the more official list of projects happening for this year's Google Summer of Code, there's also been a lot of buzz in the community about the projects and calls for developers to help out on their project of choice. Here's just a few:

Jay Pipes on some of the projects for MySQL Forge
The PHP-GTK Community site on their project
Marcus Borger encouraging participation in this year's GSoC
Sara Golemon's pointing developers in the right direction
A proposal from the thyphp.com site for a WordPress category suggestor
Derick Rethans mentioning his "pet peeve", the optimizer for APC
Elizabeth Smith promoting participation in any of the list of ideas

Keep up to date on the happenings on each of the projects in the PHP group on this page on the PHP.net wiki.

Philip Olson's Blog: The day I became editor of the PHP manual

Tue, 22 May 2007 11:52:00 -0500

As mentioned by Elizabeth Naramore on the php|architect site today, Philip Olson has officially announced that he is now the editor of the PHP Manual we all know and love.

The request to take over as editor was not easy because it's a position that requires work and responsibility... and consistent time. [...] In these past years I've taken many breaks because breaks are good but today I'm required to do something, required to be responsible for being there. I happily accept this challenge and must confess... I love PHP.

He also adds in a note about the one thing the documentation team is in constant need of - "warm bodies to join the team". If you're interested, head on over and sign up to help - there's more than enough work to be done!