Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder

Tag
Open Source and Free Culture

07 Apr 2017, 15:36 p.m.

Inclusive-Or: Hospitality in Bug Tracking

Lindsey Kuper asked: I’m interested in hearing about [open source software] projects that have successfully adopted an "only insiders use the issue tracker" approach. For instance, a project might have a mailing list where users …

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04 Apr 2017, 12:37 p.m.

How to Teach And Include Volunteers who Write Poor Patches

You help run an open source software community, and you've successfully signalled that you're open to new contributors, including people who aren't professional software engineers. And you've already got an easy developer setup process and …

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16 Mar 2017, 17:37 p.m.

What Does An Award Do?

I posted on MetaFilter about the new Disobedience Award that MIT Media Lab is starting (nomination deadline: May 1st). And in the comments there, I stumbled into talking about why one might found an award, …

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07 Feb 2017, 10:18 a.m.

Upcoming Talks

I happened upon the New York state Assembly's website last week,* and noticed an upcoming hearing about "Government oversight of forensic science laboratories" (PDF), hearing oral testimony by invitation only. I wondered: Who's on the …

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27 Dec 2016, 10:43 a.m.

Yuletide 2016 Recommendations

Every year the Yuletide fanfic exchange delivers a bounty of fun transformative works concerning books, movies, songs, games, news stories, and other parts of our media landscape. I myself have, as they say, committed fanfic …

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15 Oct 2016, 13:55 p.m.

New Zine "Playing With Python: Two of My Favorite Lenses"

MergeSort, the feminist maker meetup I co-organize, had a table at Maker Faire earlier this month. Last year we'd given away (and taught people how to cut and fold) a few of my zines, and …

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12 Oct 2016, 11:00 a.m.

Rough Notes for New FLOSS Contributors On The Scientific Method and Usable History

Some thrown-together thoughts towards a more comprehensive writeup. It's advice on about how to get along better as a new open source participant, based on the fundamental wisdom that you weren't the first person here …

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04 Aug 2016, 15:51 p.m.

Advice on Starting And Running A New Open Source Project

Recently, a couple of programmers asked me for advice on starting and running a new open source project. So, here are some thoughts, assuming you're already a programmer, you haven't led a team before, and …

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30 Apr 2016, 14:21 p.m.

Entertainment Benefits of IDNYC Card

The new IDNYC card is free, government-issued photo ID for New York City residents. "Immigration status does not matter." That is to say, people who are came to NYC from abroad, and currently don't have …

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29 Mar 2016, 20:01 p.m.

Tips To Increase Your Conference Talk Acceptance Rate

This year I submitted talks to several tech conferences and got a higher acceptance rate than I had been used to. For instance, this year I will speak for the first time at OSCON and …

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