Comments on: PHP Depends On You

By: ozz

ozz — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 08:24:41 +0000

Of course there are guys who are just taking the code and don’t say even the mandatory “Thanks”…

By: Sebs

Sebs — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 21:04:15 +0000

> Doesn’t sound like he’s asking for that much.
Yes, Sir. Ack

By: Richard Lynch

Richard Lynch — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 18:10:11 +0000

I think the tone came off wrong, as well, but there is something to the idea that if you are using a ton of F/OSS, and making money off it, you should do *something* to contribute back to one of the communities.

Even if it’s just giving employees PTO to attend/lecture at conferences, or perhaps a few hours a week to work on whatever OS project they want to support, or…

Or, as he says, just contribute bug reports or an example in the docs or something.

Doesn’t sound like he’s asking for that much.

By: Les

Les — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 15:27:24 +0000

PHP depends on me?

That is not the feeling I am left with. I did not ask for the Namespace backslash but we got it so (cough) when the hell has the community listen to anyone?

I’m still a big fan of PHP so I ain’t going anywhere but what this does mean is that I will most likely remain with PHP5 rather than move to PHP6 once it’s available.

So my opinion is, f*** PHP6 and roll on PHP7 maybe by then they will have actually learnt something and changed how ache that Namespaces now is.

Doubt it :(

By: Jules Bravo

Jules Bravo — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 15:27:23 +0000

Good bug reports are probably the best thing the average PHP user can do to help the project. I would not want 99% of PHP programmers working on the PHP core, it’s not an easy task and I’ve seen some very bad PHP code floating out there.

By: MonkeyT

MonkeyT — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 15:24:20 +0000

There are many routes to take in supporting PHP. Donating man-hours to open source projects is only one of them. The vast majority of PHP developers will never directly contribute to any open source application, and that’s fine by me: We are already staking our careers on this language, pushing for it to be used within our companies and using it for our own purposes. Community leaders and open projects are great, but to most of the world, they are tiny, anonymous voices, mostly preaching to the choir. We, who simply use the language day-in and day-out are the front line. We are the ones who create the public profile for the language, more than any web article, application project or speech you give at conferences aimed at developers who are already convinced. We’re the ones literally forcing the doors open in person. We provide enough direct experience of PHP that employers can find the confidence to offer living wages using the language we prefer. We popularize the language within the business community, we evangelize it to other developers, we provide hands-on experience for the ones who actually make decisions in the business community, demonstrating PHP’s viability every single workday for 8 hours or more. I don’t care if a dev never donates a moment to a single open source application, so long as their work helps create enough awareness outside of the internet to keep PHP a viable option in the marketplace. Stop taking us for granted, and don’t ever call us thieves again. Please go on supporting the language itself – we’re the ones creating the market environment that will allow it to thrive in the wild.

By: Neil

Neil — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 14:35:15 +0000

I find the idea that not contributing to FOSS that you use is akin to stealing to be a repugnant idea and the bane of certain members of the FOSS community that have lost their way.

Also, the idea that all FOSS projects are generally written by volunteers is somewhat a myth – at least for some projects, such as the Linux Kernel: http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/08/20/1342223/The-Myth-of-the-Isolated-Kernel-Hacker

I don’t know the makeup of the core developers, documenters, and test writers of PHP, but I do know that some companies have specific interest in the advancement of the core language and are certainly devoting paid staff to write the language – Zend in particular comes to mind.

So bottom line – contributing is completely optional. If you want to, then awesome – welcome to the team and everyone who uses the FOSS project will be better for it. If not – welcome to the community and we hope you find it useful.

By: Sebs

Sebs — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 13:48:15 +0000

Brandon, Tobias, Eli:
Look like we are interested, i gurss the “where can you help” page needs a polishment. At php nothing is done by someone else, needs to be done by us ;)

By: Eli White

Eli White — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 12:50:11 +0000

Agreeing with the two previous posters. While a ‘call to action’ is a good thing, and it’s great when people contribute. The tone of this post is, IMO, over the top. If everyone followed the idea of “If you don’t contribute you are stealing, stop using it”. Then no major Open Source project that has gotten broad appeal, and has become compelling arguments to closed source versions. EVER would have.

Brandon, have you contributed to Apache? To Linux? How about to the device driver project that happens to power the IO interface with the SCSI drive on your webhost?

It’s a great and wonderful thing when people do decide to give back. But the point of open source, is that people are contributing the code WITHOUT requiring, or even requesting, any recompense, they are doing it because they want to do it.

By: tobias382

tobias382 — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 11:52:04 +0000

Can’t disagree entirely with Sebs. After all, look how well the stealing argument has worked for software companies or the music or film industries. ;) And I’d personally love to read his paper if the boss chooses to release it.

Another way people can contribute is to write tests, in order to ensure that issues they come across with PHP-based software they development are that much more likely to be an error on their own part rather than a bug in PHP itself. See this excellent blog post on the subject of contributing tests: http://www.rafaeldohms.com.br/2009/08/23/writing-tests-with-phpt/en/

By: Sebs

Sebs — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 10:29:03 +0000

As much as i agree with you i don’t with the tone and especially and i don’t agree with the part on “stealing”. I have never seen the part of the php license that says that we have to submit anything when we use it.
Writing in such a tone will not encourage anybody, it just makes it easier for you to argument. So if you want to encourage people to do something, and especially the millions of companies using php and earning money, you have to find good arguments and not rant them with “you steal”.

If you consider how hard it in fact is to contribute something or get enough karma to contribute easy, it makes the post even more questionable. How many people reading this post have seen the “bogus”-hammer before and stopped contributing bugreports?
I dont say it’s phps fault, no, there is a reason and its simply the effective managing of great numer of reports based on missunderstandings how php works. BUT: Enouraging people looks different than this post.

My Boss told me to prepare a paper how we interact good with open source project and how we can generate a win win situation on both sides by submitting (correct) bugreports. Maybe i can ask him to hand the paper out to the public when it’s done. When it comes to money or savings in spendings, companies always have a open ear. ;)