Although Week 13 was the introduction to my bug-exterminating excursions, it came at the price of a lot of snot and tears. Some of the steps were harsher than usual, and documentation was awfully scarce. But, open source is a bustling marketplace of ideas and efforts, and I was willing to contribute mine.

When someone hears about open or free software, one immediately thinks about money. At least, I do. “How do you make money with that,” was my first question. The answer, it seems, is not exactly straightforward. I went from being convinced that open source is not viable because it makes no money, to thinking it makes all the money, to thinking it is not supposed to make money, to thinking it’s complicated. And, that is usually the truth.

One of the most monumental works on open source software is Eric Raymond’s The Cathedral and the Bazaar. I say monumental because it ushered in an understanding of how open source software provides and inherent benefit compared to proprietary/commercial software. In attempts to draw comparisons, Raymond often quotes the work of Frederic Brooks, The Mythical Man-Month. As someone who has read both publications and scrutinized the tenets, I daresay that Raymond provides an understanding of the inner workings of the open software models that is unparalleled. Notably, Brooks gives examples from his prestigious experience working on the OS/360 team to help elaborate the correlation between increasing the labor pool and increased complexity of the project. During these investigations, Brooks gets his hand dirty with examples, calculations, and even graphs to determine an exponential correlations; I find it interesting because of its counter-intuitiveness.

Wikipedia is, perhaps, the most contentious of all the platforms I have ever used. Its open-data nature has allowed it to reach heights that is impossible for products of its nature. Sadly, popularity is not always a blessing. In fact, the Linux kernel is the only project I have come across that has maintained its sense of purpose and effectiveness despite its ongoing popularity. Perhaps, it has something to do with the “benevolent dictatorship” paradigm it employs. Regardless, Wikipedia has spawned much controversy and will continue to do so because of clashing ideologies, worldviews, and backgrounds the people contributing to it come from. Now, Wikipedia does have its rules and regulations to maintain some form of neutrality; but, that can only go so far. Its fifth rule sums its entire process nicely.

Add to the fire

I had already read the guidelines on contributing to Wikipedia and the primer for newcomers. During my shenanigans around the website, I came across a few Talk pages that were mesmerizing; this was because of the nature of debate and interpretation that naturally takes place in such a public forum.

Wikipedia has no firm rules

The distinction between contributing to Wikipedia and another open-source/open-data project is that usually the contributions do not have such far reaching precautions. Indubitably, Wikipedia is usually the chief result in response to a search query via Google or other major search engines. It is natural to see, then, the discord that such power spawns.

Amidst all this chaos – about which I have written before – I decided to contribute to the greater community.

Hearsay

After making an account, I decided to find pages that were suited to my liking. Although, it was recommended to me to find something worthwhile earlier, I hold a maxim very close to my heart.

I will stop doing something once it becomes a chore

Now, before you accuse me of not being reliable – which might have some truth to it – this quote only applies to things that I find interesting at first, but make a job out of later on.

Keeping the above in mind, I began my digital stroll through the Wikipedia pages of Islamic History; specifically, pages related to Islamic scholars. I visited the likes of Ibn Qudamah, Ibn Rajab, and Diya al-Din. Although, a layperson living in America would not be able to pronounce – let alone know – these names, I hold these people’s works in high regard. Of course, if the global trend is any indication, I thought that information would be scarce on Wikipedia pages regarding these scholarly figures.

To my surprise, not only was the information usually very accurate, it was also concise, and to the point (unlike this blogpost). Anyway, being defeated, I turned my attention towards modern scholars and Jonathan A.C. Brown came to mind almost immediately. I was aware of some controversy surrounding him a few months ago, so I jumped to the Talk page, and –Lo and Behold! – people were debating each other about things he had supposedly said. Thankfully, Brown, being the knowledgeable person I know him to be, clarified his position in a number of subsequent publications, which caused that section to be removed.

One might ask, why is all this important?

Tiptoe

Ever seen a person who sneaks in while different parties are engaged in bickering, does something, and escapes? That’s what I felt like. I came in after all the controversy was over and simply added his upcoming book, Slavery and Islam under the bibliography section and left. I am eagerly looking forward to the book that is due Fall of 2019, and thought this was a great chance to make a contribution.

Whether or not it was non-trivial, is a different story.

One of the tenets of open-source software development that I always try to look up to is the communal bond. A community feels the need to come together to create something wonderful and in doing so, shifts the tides of software engineering as a paradigm. See, during my younger years I used to view software engineering – perhaps, engineering in general – to be a monotonous endeavour. I would imagine someone churning the gears of a car by themselves whilst musing about the intricacies of different techniques of using the wrench. Although some of that holds true in my mind till today, open-source software development has allowed me to zoom out and see all the scientific and not-so-scientific way software is produced. It is with great sadness, then, that I must report about my crisis with Mozilla’s latest undertaking.

There comes a time when the passion you show for something is not necessarily reciprocated. The world of open source, much like the real world, has real people in it; people interact with each other, comment on each other’s work, discuss new features, fight dragons, and shoot zombies. Okay, maybe not the last two actions. But, people certainly interact with each other to the same degree as they would in real life. You can imagine, then, that something like the fight from down the street could take place in the open source world, except in a more dramatic fashion with, perhaps, a greater fallout. Similarly, that nice lady at the pub could care less about your fishing rod and walk away after you have clearly shown interest; this, too, can be reproduced in the world of open source

Communities are places where we, as aspiring software engineers, go to grow. Whether it’s 48-hour long hackathons or going over some code in the lobby, programmers depend on communities to propel themselves and their ideas forward. As powerful as they are, communities work within a dynamic framework of living individuals – it cannot be generated, but harnessed. Well, at least according to Harvard. Like most powerful things, corporations have tried to leverage the power of community – often creating fake motives to better serve their agenda. Proponents of the Bazaar model of software development, like Eric Raymond, have duly noted that a community that is not driven from within is bound to perish.

Gamers run wild in the vast meadows of GPUs and hardcore computers. Being an occasional heavy gamer myself, I tremendously relate to the desire to push the boundaries of maximum framerates and ultra graphics quality.

The Bazaar model brings out the best in software – or so Eric Raymond thought. Throughout my excursions into the world of open source, I was more than willing to believe so. However, what about when some congressman rises through the ranks to “change the system” only to be devoured by it? What about people who become what they set out to defeat? I never thought I would meet such an ugly beast in the open-source world where merit is king. Unfortunately, I did.

The myth that open source requires the unadulterated attention of its copyright holder is not unfounded. If Kevin Fleming’s talk was any indication, determining the right license for copyrights is not a trivial task.

Today was disappointing to the maximum degree. I had taught myself to persevere in the face of technical difficulties and to march on despite the onslaught. That lesson did not help me. In the end, I realized it was better for me to surrender. Surrendering to the fate that lied ahead of me felt great, it felt liberating; perhaps understanding that paradox is the key here.

“All contributions are welcome”.

This is not the first time I have dabbled in open source software. From learning the minute details about git, navigating through BugZilla and issuing Pull Requests have all been a growing experience during the last semester and my small efforts are documented in my blog. But this blog is an effort to enhance those explorations and dive deeper to understand how open source continues to shape the lives of software companies, even though they may hate it at one point.