Christian Shadis

I will be spending my final semester at Worcester State University contributing to the LibreFoodPantry Humanitarian Free and Open-Source Software (HFOSS)¹ project. In reviewing the mission statement, values, and other biographical sections of their website, I was directed to a list of Heidi Ellis’ sixteen ‘FOSSisms’², advice primarily for developers new to open-source projects. There was a recurrent theme among some FOSSisms – a developer should contribute as much as they can, regardless of the size of the fix they provide, or how perfect the code is. Version control allows for easily fixing mistakes, and creating new branches allows for editing code without affecting the main branch. I have been a perfectionist throughout my college career, so I found that perspective both surprising and helpful. I plan to apply these (and the rest of the) FOSSisms in these coming months.

¹https://librefoodpantry.org/
²https://opensource.com/education/14/6/16-foss-principles-for-educators

From the blog CS@Worcester – Christian Shadis' Blog by ctshadis and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

One thing I found useful was reading the FOSSisms that came from the Values on the LibreFoodPantry website. FOSSism are pieces of wisdom for individuals who are about to work in an open source community. I will focus on the second FOSSism that stood out to me. This FOSSism instructed individuals to “Be productively lost”. This resonated with me because I feel like my technical skills still have a ways to go. It helped ease some of my anxiety around this topic because a period of feeling disoriented is described as being “perfectly natural”. Furthermore, I was advised to use this moment productively to learn more about the open source project/community I am about to be a part of. This was only one of the first FOSSisms that caught my eye but I would like to include the link here because there are many more I could write about.

FOSSisms Link: https://opensource.com/education/14/6/16-foss-principles-for-educators

From the blog Sensinci's Blog by Sensinci's Blog and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

After reading through the LibreFoodPantry website, I was really impressed by the code of conduct. I think it’s well written and very considerate of all parties involved. I liked how the pledge was explicit on what’s expected from members of the community. The standards were clearly stated, and the enforcement guidelines carefully explained. I also appreciated the fact that there are warnings and temporary bans for different offenses. I think it is very thoughtful to give members another chance to be better before taking any final decision.

I chose to write about it because I believe that making sure that all members of the community feel safe, respected and appreciated helps the company move forward. There is no way to produce an excellent job if the brains behind the work are somehow being marginalized or oppressed.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Delice's blog by Delice Ndaie and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

In the next few months, I’m going to be doing my capstone course for my computer science degree. It’s going to (possibly) involve working on the LibreFoodPantry project, so I decided to look over the website.

The first thing that stood out to me was the Coordinating Committee. Previously I had been picturing this project as essentially just something a handful of people were working on on the side. In reality it has slightly more people directing it than I imagined and also a much more rigorous organization and schedule than I had assumed.

More specifically, I thought that there being three versions of the software meant that there were three people managing a shop of developers, as the page says, but there’s actually six.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Tom's Blog by Thomas Clifford and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

In the Values section of the LibreFoodPantry documentation, there’s a section linked to 16 “FOSSisms” that I found particularly interesting. They are essentially maxims for students that are working on open source projects, like LibreFoodPantry. They explain how students should become involved in a project’s community, how they should contribute and start contributing, and in the end how they should leave documentation that is good enough for others to be able to carry the torch once the semester is over.

This section particularly spoke to me because I have never worked on an open-source project, and it is a little daunting to start on, so knowing that the values of the project are geared towards people in my position makes it all a little less scary. It shows that it is an organization geared towards learning and reassures me that it is alright to make mistakes here.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Kurt Maiser's Coding Blog by kmaiser and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

As some may know or not know, Libre Food Pantry is the work of several colleges around New England with the goal of creating software for food pantries everywhere to use in order to manage operations. Their mission is simple, create free software to be used at any and all food pantries in order to better serve their guests.

However, the most interesting part of this collaboration is that this is instructor led, and student built. Students have worked to create prototype software ranging from database solutions at Worcester State, to mobile app based solutions at Nassau Community College. These institutions assist and add to this software along with other contributors with the goal of helping those in need while furthering their own education.

Those who are interested as I am should take to their website to learn more about their story and how far they have come.

https://librefoodpantry.org/

From the blog CS@Worcester – George Chyoghly CS-343 by gchyoghly and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

The mission of the Libre Food Pantry is to offer free and open-source software to manage the logistics of operating a food pantry. The project is developed using agile values and adhered to FOSSisms which are a collection of quotes that relate to open-source software development. The code of conduct of the Libre Food Pantry is to not tolerate discrimination of any form and to operate with a strict equity policy. Those who contribute must follow the GPLv3 and attributions must follow the CC-BY-SA 4.0 where each sign-off follow the Developer Certificate of Origin 1.1 schema. The Libre Food Pantry acknowledgments detail the sponsors, software, clients, people, and institutions that make the project possible. A major sponsor is AWS which provides free hosting for the project. I chose to write about these details to familiarize myself with the details of the development process of this project.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Jared's Development Blog by Jared Moore and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

The LibreFoodPantry.org site allows for an easy onboarding, which is something I have been thinking a lot about this close to graduation.  The project is very well defined and spans a good number of educational institutions. I like that is not own by one but multiple responsible parties which to me lends it credibility. It was interesting to see the term FOSS mentioned with emphasis and I wasn’t sure what it was although I probably had used more than a few tools that meet the criteria. Contributing to a free and open source software that has charitable goals is a great way to learn and feel good about it.

From the blog CS@Worcester – technology blog by jeffersonbourguignoncoutinho and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

If you haven’t known yet, let me introduce this open-source software, LibreFoodPantry, from a group of professors from Worcester, Massachusetts. If you also weren’t familiar with the term open-source software, don’t let the term intimidate you, it is nothing but illustrating that the software is free to use and open for improvement. This project goal not only is a way to let students interact with practical problems but also helps local food pantries serve their guests.

Since this is an open-source repository, students can keep improving the software under its license, learn new materials and develop something that benefits the community. Currently, the project is still in the development phase by the time this blog is uploaded. Hopefully, by the end of this May, we can see its first launch to the community. 

From the blog CS@Worcester – Vien's Blog by Vien Hua and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.