The OSS Journey So Far

I started software development in 2007 with the .NET framework in Austin, TX. Little did I know at the time that it was located in a bubble that would heavily influence me. I got into open-source software shortly after that, not realizing that in 2010 Pablo’s Fiesta was there in that bubble too. Around that time, I started hearing about DevOps, again it was 2010 and in Austin, and that started driving my choices. GitHub was becoming a thing, so learning git moved up on the list, which brought more interest in Linux. GitHub was written in this thing called Ruby on Rails, and I started learning about that too. Shortly after, projects like Castle MonoRail and ASP .NET MVC began to come on my radar. Then ALT .NET was a thing, and we had projects like NancyFX, FubuMVC, etc. I was swimming in OSS and did not know what I was in the center of at that time.

My podcast listening was picking up in that time frame, and I started listening to .NET Rocks, The Changelog, the Ruby Rogues. I was learning about all of these things. At this time, I made my first commit to OSS software, and it was the Autofac project. I was learning how to use it and found some of the documentation wasn’t any longer correct. I created what I believe was my first fork and pull request ever to update the documentation. My contribution got accepted, and I was ecstatic. From there, I started chipping in with documentation and small fixes as I could. I was spending a lot of time learning how it works, and that is also roughly when I started my blog.

It wasn’t until the Cake Build Tool and Orchard projects that I got involved heavily in open source. I committed several bug fixes and improvements to Orchard. I even contributed the module for doing Azure AD auth to the project. With Cake, it started with creating addins that I needed for projects at work in my free time. Soon after, I started fixing open tickets that I could tackle, and a couple of years of contributions just happened. I learn a lot of things working on both projects. Things about workflows and style guides that I hadn’t been exposed to before. I also learned a lot about packaging .NET packages with NuGet. I have a few addins that were and still are heavily used.

These days, I am not as active as I once was. I do participate in Hacktoberfest, and I submit bug fixes and documentation fixes when I stumble across an issue with either. Outside of that, having a small child at home takes most of my spare time, and I wouldn’t have it another way. I still believe in open source, and I still desire to be a more significant part of the community. I am just looking for that project that creates the next spark.

Thanks for reading,

Jamie

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