There are 3 fundemental problems with open source.
First, documentation. There's no more or less standard way to document systems and the kinds of people who think to spend 9 months building Widgets are usually doing it as a learning exercise. To pick up and maintain a large solution, you need documentation, and the OSS community has not, by and large, focused on utilities to automate the process and make that happen. It is a tough problem, but I would think developers would be self-interested in building the best possible developer tools and libraries. Instead I see Vi and Vim, and people talking about how visual studio is better.
Second, forever-copyright. The US has a forever-copyright which fundementally does not benefit the public as it does not meet the criteria of enriching the public domain. A key thinking exercise is, when has any commercial software, ever, involuntarily entered the public domain? Someone somewhere owns the rights. Literally you have Nintendo sueing ROM sites for stuff they made in the 1980's and largely on the argument "we need our customers playing new games to drive new sales". Without that flow from commercial to public domain, private companies are, over and over and over again, making the same mistakes and the same software. It's a subsidy to dim-witted management. Illustrating how ridiculous this is; Government thinks removing encyption from everything is necissary to secure the public, without realizing ensuring databases have horribly inaccurate and incomplete data with varying schema's is what drives labor expense in the software market; because of forever copyright, they now have a stenographic exercise when they wiretap.
Third, lobbying. The OSS Community views lobbying as something that people aspiring to be mass-murderers do. What they need to do is view lobbying as a personal investment oppertunity that far exceeds the return of 401k, ira, or any job change. If 1 million people donated 10% of their internet bill to the EFF per month just to bring anti-trust against ISP's and restore net neutrality, it'd take 5 years of investing to wrangle the beast, but after that, your internet bill halves and your speed doubles and the speed doubling is really key, that creates a cultural revolution. Similarily, if 100k developers donated $100 a month to a lobbying firm who's job it was to fix just copyright for software, the net payoff would be far in excess of the upfront investment. The correct question to ask here ultimately is "What would Ghengis Kahn give to see a nuke go off from a safe distance, or King Charles the V for a shot of Penecillin?". The monetary returns of the investment make sense, but ultiamtely, what DBA's and Systems administrators do are largely stewardship positions within organizations and their time is spent maintaining glue. Remove the glue, and you get a renissance. You want them engaging in inventive and academic exercises for organizations, and finding ways and spending time selling technology to the organization, whether OSS or not. To do that you need a market that supports models and standards.
And I honestly think the OSS community, if it doesn't start lobbying, is rather irresponsable. I think traditional labor organizations such as the AFLCIO\Teamsters would benefit tremendously from standing up labor collectives for IT People.
The problem is we have not found good ways to market and attract technical writers. Documentation is harder than testing and having people who are both good business analysts and good writers on a project are really important.
In my view consulting companies need to prioritize and bundle these skills.
I'm a writer by trade. I am routinely told by people on HN that writing is a worthless skill, that if I want to resolve my financial problems I should "get a real job" and I'm generally pissed all over.
Let me suggest that a first step would be to stop sneering at writers and telling them what total fucking losers they are for not being coders.
I briefly tried to get involved with Open Source. It went nowhere in part because of the enormous wall of contempt with which I am routinely met.
I'm a woman and people generally seem to feel that I should do things out of the goodness of my heart and not expect any benefit whatsoever in return. I have been met with open hostility for trying to figure out how to monetize my work, network professionally, etc.
If writers tend to skew female, that may also be a relevant issue to the problem space.
I've spent years desperately poor while people piss all over me for being poor and also piss all over the idea that I could possibly have anything of value to offer. I have six years of college. I was one of the top students of my graduating class. Etc.
As far as I can tell, sexism is a very large factor in my intractable poverty. For any other issue I have, I can find a male example of someone with the same type of issue who was, nonetheless, successful. But women just seem to not be taken seriously professionally, not be treated with the same respect, etc.
I'm angry. I'm less inclined to do stuff for other people than I once was because I have learned the hard way that it simply doesn't come back to me in a positive way in most cases. In fact, I have essentially been told by someone wealthy and powerful that someone I did a lot for continues to use their personal connections to wealthy people to tell lies about me and drag my name through the mud and this snake in the grass is apparently believed.
If Open Source is generally crapping all over writers half as much as I've been crapped on, there's your problem.
(I didn't downvote you, though I can think of several reasons why others did - and a few not to)
I'm sorry for the situation you are in. You are apparently angry at the world, and whatever led you to this, I hope you can fix it. Please don't take my words below in the wrong way, I mean well.
Playing "woman", "poverty" and similar cards usually doesn't help when getting a job / work. Managers (smart ones at least) will want to hire good hires, not because they are white / black / male / female / ..., but because they will do a good job. Even mentioning such things is a strong signal not to consider you for hire, because it tells the manager that you will bring a lot of baggage. Nobody wants that, they just want a capable writer.
Open Source is not about helping people. If you know how, you can use it to build a reference, if that's what is missing from your resume, if you have time, if you know how, and if you find a suitable project... a lot of ifs.
I know someone who used their sob story to get a relatively well paid job for their demographic through HN. I have never tried to do such.
I'm in no way trying to use my gender or social status to open doors. I appear to be the highest ranked woman on HN. If I can't open doors based on competence because my gender gets in the way, I imagine it's far harder for other women.
I didn't leave that comment to complain about my situation. I left it as "testimony" and constructive feedback for the person saying essentially "writers are desperately needed". I'm a writer. For a time, I was amenable to contributing my skills to open source. It went nowhere. Here are my thoughts as to why that might be so.
Yes, I'm angry. I said that, so I'm not hiding that fact. My anger is not unjustified, nor is it reason I can't seem to open doors. Cause and effect run the other way. I'm angry because I do the things I'm told I should do that apparently work for others and it doesn't work for me.
Perhaps I will get better at making it clear that such a comment isn't intended to solicit pity or advice or whatever. Perhaps not. People seem to routinely jump on giving advice to folks who leave such comments, whether it is me or not.
I have taken to flagging and downvoting advice replies given to folks saying "Yes, this broad issue (racism, sexism, whatever) is real. I have experienced it firsthand. Here is my testimony." because giving advice in such cases serves to reinforce the idea that sexism, racism etc aren't real issues, it is just some personal problem and you as an individual must be doing it wrong.
I appreciate the opportunity to clarify my intent. It occurred to me after I left the remark that it could be easily misinterpreted. I decided to leave it up anyway.
There are ways in which HN has been really good to me and I am very appreciative of that fact. I don't want people to get the wrong idea.
But that doesn't change the fact that a) writers get a lot of contempt from coders and b) sexism is alive and well. And it doesn't change the essence of my advice above that if you really feel you need more writers in (your) open source (project), then it might behoove you to look at factors like that.
Firstly, identity politics and group politics are a lie, and they keep you from being all you can be. Please ignore them. You are clearly too intelligent to waste your time with such garbage. Jordan Peterson does a good job prooving that out logically.
Secondly, you have to decide with what you are happy with in your life and seek that out. Literally, you have an entire group of rich people who have made the poor decision in life to tie their ego to a literal number, whom actually behave exactly like WOW or EVE gamers chasing the next shiney. And worst of all, they think its a great idea to run people around. Why are you wasting your time trying to get in with these people? Go somewhere else where you are respected and admired and be happy. Some of the best managers I've had were women, including one of the mechanical engineers who I work with who has showed me so much about how act, think, and question like an engineer. I have had people who have really inspired me in life and she is one of them.
You have a gift they do not have; you have a creative mind and a soul with drive. You cannot buy that with money or any amount of training. They are afraid of you and due to that, they view you with contempt. Ego is a nasty drug. Leave it behind.
Finally, If someone really is subjugating you, then either you have wronged them seriously and did not realize it and you need to appologize and get out of that social support group, or you have become an obsession of them because attacking you gives them something they are missing in life. Instead of being indignant, or allowing them to get reactions out of you, deal with the situation. Find someone sympathetic, spring a trap, document their statements, and take the individual to court and ensure the evidence will stick and the evidence is loud and proud on public record.
Do not be one of those people who is so hurt they are incapible of thinking straight and makes overly-broad statements like "OSS just craps over writers". Such behaivour is not befitting an engineer.
First, documentation. There's no more or less standard way to document systems and the kinds of people who think to spend 9 months building Widgets are usually doing it as a learning exercise. To pick up and maintain a large solution, you need documentation, and the OSS community has not, by and large, focused on utilities to automate the process and make that happen. It is a tough problem, but I would think developers would be self-interested in building the best possible developer tools and libraries. Instead I see Vi and Vim, and people talking about how visual studio is better.
Second, forever-copyright. The US has a forever-copyright which fundementally does not benefit the public as it does not meet the criteria of enriching the public domain. A key thinking exercise is, when has any commercial software, ever, involuntarily entered the public domain? Someone somewhere owns the rights. Literally you have Nintendo sueing ROM sites for stuff they made in the 1980's and largely on the argument "we need our customers playing new games to drive new sales". Without that flow from commercial to public domain, private companies are, over and over and over again, making the same mistakes and the same software. It's a subsidy to dim-witted management. Illustrating how ridiculous this is; Government thinks removing encyption from everything is necissary to secure the public, without realizing ensuring databases have horribly inaccurate and incomplete data with varying schema's is what drives labor expense in the software market; because of forever copyright, they now have a stenographic exercise when they wiretap.
Third, lobbying. The OSS Community views lobbying as something that people aspiring to be mass-murderers do. What they need to do is view lobbying as a personal investment oppertunity that far exceeds the return of 401k, ira, or any job change. If 1 million people donated 10% of their internet bill to the EFF per month just to bring anti-trust against ISP's and restore net neutrality, it'd take 5 years of investing to wrangle the beast, but after that, your internet bill halves and your speed doubles and the speed doubling is really key, that creates a cultural revolution. Similarily, if 100k developers donated $100 a month to a lobbying firm who's job it was to fix just copyright for software, the net payoff would be far in excess of the upfront investment. The correct question to ask here ultimately is "What would Ghengis Kahn give to see a nuke go off from a safe distance, or King Charles the V for a shot of Penecillin?". The monetary returns of the investment make sense, but ultiamtely, what DBA's and Systems administrators do are largely stewardship positions within organizations and their time is spent maintaining glue. Remove the glue, and you get a renissance. You want them engaging in inventive and academic exercises for organizations, and finding ways and spending time selling technology to the organization, whether OSS or not. To do that you need a market that supports models and standards.
And I honestly think the OSS community, if it doesn't start lobbying, is rather irresponsable. I think traditional labor organizations such as the AFLCIO\Teamsters would benefit tremendously from standing up labor collectives for IT People.