2010/1/8 sankarshan <foss.mailingli...@gmail.com> > > I might not be comprehending this properly. Why would participating in > online coding contests be a deterrent to contributing to Free and Open > Source Software ?
People who participate in programming contest arenas spend a lot of time getting accustomed to the arena rules and keep practicing whenever they are free. These arenas have a ranking schemes which require consistent performance. If you are a student, you generally choose what you want to do with your free time. Why dont these people choose to contribute to free software instead? The biggest reason is the learning curve. Going through the process of interacting with developers online, making sure that a particular feature is indeed required and then going to work on it. I remember Vignesh, my college friend, deciding to get a patch upstream. It took him many months to get a sorting bug fixed with a few lines of code (I think). For the coder who spends his day writing O(log n) code to lookup n-ary trees in limited time in programming contest arenas, looking for similar issues/challenges of similar level in real world projects requires an insane amount of time investment and also a lot of luck Hence, from what I have seen is that the really good programmers who are hooked onto the contest scene never look back at anything else. They just keep going. Can these people be converted to contribute to Free Software? Sure. We need to ask them one question: What is your code being used for? Is it doing anyone except you any good? That may be the only way to convert the best of the lot. After that active mentoring and hand holding for a little while is desirable. > Although, considering the part within parenthesis, > if that is how it is projected, will obviously skew the participation > in a way that nothing can counter. > No one projects that in that manner. That is how the world perceives it naturally. However, we as FOSS enthusiasts need to find ways to put across the right message. A few mails back on this thread Aanjham told his own story. We need people who can tell stories like these. People will always be motivated by an inspiring story. It is my opinion that the better story/better presentation has the strength to influence more people than a drab talk by an accomplished contributor. Roshan realises this, and hence wants good speakers with excellent presentation skills. -- Regards, Debayan Banerjee
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