[@OKFNau] BudgetAus going open source

Fri Mar 7 00:44:09 UTC 2014

Hi Rosie,

yep, I’m a php’er.

I think its a great idea to take the opportunity to learn from other people
by open sourcing the code. Even for more experienced developers, it is a
VERY common concern that your work “isn’t up to standards” or “needs more
polish before public viewing” but don’t let that dissuade or delay you. My
biggest piece of advice would be to simply put it out there as is, and make
your improvements in the public arena. The vast majority of people will
simply applaud your efforts and offer some help - nobody was born with
perfect coding skills. Anyone who is judgemental or otherwise negative
towards your efforts will likely be rare and there is a very common
response to them - “patches are welcome” - which you may word differently,
but the point being that critiques of your code are welcome but are
contributes that improve it are what helps.

The only things you need to do before releasing the code are:
1) be comfortable with the license you choose, since sometimes it can be
hard to change that, but at the end of the day its 100% your copyright
(until you accept/incorporate other people’s contributions)
2) Remove any hard-coded passwords/keys/etc from your code. If it doubt,
just remove it - you can always add it back to the public code later.

release early, release often. :-)

On Thu, Mar 6, 2014 at 3:25 PM, Rosie Williams <budgetaus at hotmail.com>wrote:

> Hi Ryan,
>
> Your name rings a bell, are you a PHP-er by any chance? I'll be needing
> decent coders to help me bring my code up to standard. When I started
> BudgetAus it was my first database project and I had no inkling it was
> going to become what it has and will become. One of the reasons I'm open
> sourcing is because it is too big for one person and so that people can do
> their own implementations and features.
>
> I have to admit though that I have not been following a standard wrt
> indenting or documentation & other bits and pieces. I'm sure that will be
> an affront to more disciplined coders. I'm looking at this as an
> opportunity to take on board the standards I should be applying but I could
> do with some help.
>
>
> Rosie Williams BA (Sociology)
> Founder & Developer InfoAus.net
>    ABN 90 345 143 783
>                        Home <http://infoaus.net> | Blog<http://infoaus.net/wp>
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>
>
>
> ------------------------------
> From: ryanecross at gmail.com
> Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2014 19:15:33 +1100
>
> To: okfn-au at lists.okfn.org
> Subject: Re: [@OKFNau] BudgetAus going open source
>
> here are some additional resources depending on how much you want to
> understand your decision.
>
>
> http://opensource.com/law/13/1/which-open-source-software-license-should-i-use
> http://www.billthelizard.com/2012/05/which-open-source-license.html  <-
> useful and humerous
> http://blog.codinghorror.com/pick-a-license-any-license/
>
> http://notesfromheck.wordpress.com/2013/05/28/which-open-source-license-should-you-choose/ <-
> practical flow chart
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 4, 2014 at 7:09 PM, Ryan Cross <ryanecross at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Rosie,
>
> I see someone has already pointed you to http://choosealicense.com/
>
> I think you should consider 2 licenses. You need one for the code, and
> likely a different one for the data. Unless you decide to release all of it
> under the public domain.
>
>
> On Mon, Mar 3, 2014 at 8:17 AM, Rosie Williams <budgetaus at hotmail.com>wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> I've made a decision to open source the BudgetAus code (and data). I'd
> like feedback about which licence to use and the pros and cons of different
> licences or any other advice people have.
>
> If you wish, comments can go onto the forum at
> http://infoaus.net/forum/discussion/11/federal-budget#Item_7 if you want
> other people interested in budget transparency to read them.
>
> thanks
> Rosie
>
> Rosie Williams BA (Sociology)
> Founder & Developer InfoAus.net
>    ABN 90 345 143 783
>                        Home <http://infoaus.net> | Blog<http://infoaus.net/wp>
>   | Twitter <https://twitter.com/Info_Aus> | BudgetAus FB<https://www.facebook.com/pages/Expenseaus/244247399060027?ref=hl>
>   <http://www.facebook.com/budgetaus>| eXpenseAusFB<https://www.facebook.com/pages/Expenseaus/244247399060027?ref=hl>
>  | BudgetAus <http://infoaus.net/budget/budget_home.php> | eXpenseAus<http://infoaus.net/budget/expenses/expenses_home.php>|
> KnowYourPlace <http://infoaus.net/seifa/seifa_home.php> | InfoAus Shop<http://www.cafepress.com/infoaus>
>
>
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