Gaining my voice in open source
I remember when I first started writing code, and for the first time in my life, I was using someone else’s software platform to build my software on. I ran into an issue with some functionality and I started googling around, and I discovered a GitHub repo where the open source project lived. I found in particular an issue describing my problem exactly. It was open and had been for a few weeks and no one else had commented on it.
I read it through maybe 3 or 4 times and double checked the behavior of my software at least a dozen times to confirm I was correct. I actually waited a few days and restarted my computer several times just to be safe. Finally I was convinced — I was truly experiencing this problem and this issue is relevant to me. So I navigated back to the issue, and I stared at it, probably for at least an hour trying to decide how to proceed. I looked at the profiles of everyone who had contributed to this project and the person who had open the issue. Almost every single profile belonged to people active on GitHub, in open source, and resoundingly, they were all men, or at least, they sure as hell didn’t look like me.
And after thinking about it for a while, I decided to do nothing. I didn’t comment on the issue, or let the person know I had been experiencing the same problem. In fact I was so terrified, I didn’t even emoji react to the issue. I would have been the only reaction and I thought that someone might see my name and visit my profile. I was so scared that someone would see my face and my lack of contribution history, and they would just know. They would know I didn’t belong here and that I didn’t know what I was talking about.
And so I left. I abandoned the project I had been working on, since I was stuck and had no one to ask for help. And I didn’t start participating in open source because I was scared. And open source was scary.
In between my first open source experience and now, GitHub had built a plethora of features to make open source more welcoming, and I really wanted to give it a second chance. I believed in open source on principle, but when it came to actually contributing I was still scared. Mostly because I didn’t feel like my voice or my opinions deserved to be heard, or that people would want to hear them.
My re-introduction to open source happened during my summer internship at GitHub. My main project was to create an open source project BehaviorBot, which is built on Probot (another open source project). At the beginning of my summer, I had to reach out for help from the creator of Probot and other engineers at the company because I was unsure of how things worked.
But things were different this time. I had done an engineering internship the past summer, and I was way more confident in both my code and my opinions.
So I started talking more about how to make Probot better, instead of just focusing on my main project, because it interested me. And I started contributing little things to Probot: docs, typos, clarifying language.
And I gradually became an important part of the direction of Probot. And a lot of that took place over slack DMs and in slack channels. But gradually when new people would start using Probot, they’d have similar ideas and open issues about them. And it became clear we needed to have more conversations out in the open.
And that led to the biggest moment for me this summer: I opened issues and I just wrote down what I thought. It was that simple. I just collected my thoughts and wrote them out and created and commented on issues. Yes, I still proofread my thoughts a few more times than I needed to. And yes I double checked that all my links worked and thoroughly researched the things I replied to. But I was putting myself and my voice out in the open for everyone to see.
And it was terrifying at first, truly. But gradually I realized that no one was watching my every move and judging my decisions and what I wrote on the internet. Nobody cared if I made a typo or didn’t know everything. In fact, people respected my opinion. I did belong here. And this was the moment where the power of open source truly sunk in for me.
