Week 6

HFOSS evaluation

Using open source software for humanitarian purposes is a very commendable endeavor. Open source principles are already very similar to those of humanitarian groups, in that they both promote transparency, empowerment, and work that serves to better the community as a whole.

With all that being said, I feel like it is more difficult to get started in these projects than other general open source projects. For one, there is a more mission critical aspect for HFOSS projects because they have real impact on people’s lives (Chamindra de Silva). These projects are also not created for other developers, so contributors need a good understanding of how to create software for untrained volunteers. It needs to be intuitive and easy to use. There is also a time sensitive nature for some of these projects (especially disaster relief ones) and therefore the community might not be able to compromise on time by helping newcomers learn the ropes. However, there are also HFOSS projects that aren’t mission critical and are beginner friendly. In those cases, it is probably just as easy to get involved as it is for any other project.

As a result of all the high quality work that needs to be done for these projects in such a short amount of time, and the fact that these contirbutors are helping save lives, there is probably more “prestige” attached to working in HFOSS projects. However, I doubt that most people contributing to these projects are doing so in order to gain “prestige”, and mostly care about helping others.

Ushahidi Project Evaluation

Project Name: Ushahidi

Finding info about contributing on the website.

In the following section you should only enter the information that you found on the project website. Some of the answers will be impossible to find, others may be very hard to find. Do not google for answers.

Project website: https://www.ushahidi.com/

What is the purpose of the project: To provide the public with real-time information about national elections

How easy was it to find information about contributing on the website? Listed in the README (very straightforward)

Contributing instructions: They have installation instructions as well as links for each types of contributions (documentation, bugs, fixes, features, security)

URL for the code repository: https://github.com/ushahidi/platform

Bug/Issue tracker link: https://github.com/ushahidi/platform/issues

Mailing list: can’t find

Chat channel: can’t find

Other communication channels: https://www.ushahidi.com/blog

Finding info at the project repository and bug/issue tracker.

License: GNU Affero General Public License

Is it OSI approved license: yes

Programming Language: PHP

URL for contributing instructions: https://github.com/ushahidi/platform/blob/develop/docs/contributing-or-getting-involved.md

Are the contributing instructions clear? yes

URL for code of conduct / community norms / community guildelines: https://github.com/ushahidi/platform/blob/develop/docs/code-of-conduct.md

URL for instructions for users to download and install the package: https://github.com/ushahidi/platform#installing-for-development

Are these instructions clear? Do you think they would be easy to follow? yes

Number of contributors: 34

Usernames of three contributors with largest number of commits; for each of them list the link to their latest commit:

  1. rjmackay https://github.com/ushahidi/platform/commit/a0013aa5c9aa60e3b74ca6f841834de789f31a33
  2. willdoran https://github.com/ushahidi/platform/commit/7918b7d6a252f1b656ece8bd1e2dfe4b47f2f0a7
  3. rowasc https://github.com/ushahidi/platform/commit/f23082ca7cb1f8afa3f2f8c4f624e54b23559f18

Number of commits: 5031

Latest commit

  • link to the commit: https://github.com/ushahidi/platform/commit/7b1aeafb2928dbee7b688a272bfc9d71c59779bd

  • who made that commit: Anna Iosif

  • what type of work was commited? (was it a fix to a bug, implementation of a new feature, …) change to binaries

Issues

  • how many open issues are there: 694

    • url for the last issue created: https://github.com/ushahidi/platform/issues/3528

    • how many users discuss the issue: 1

    • when was the issue reported: 15 days ago

  • how many closed issues are there: 2115
    • url for the last issue closed: https://github.com/ushahidi/platform/issues/3525
    • how many users discussed the issue: 4
    • when was the issue reported: 28 days ago
    • when was the issue closed: 28 days ago

  • how active is the discussion on the issues: not too active

    • example of a lot of good discussion: https://github.com/ushahidi/platform/issues/3527

    • example of an issue that does not have much discussion: https://github.com/ushahidi/platform/issues/3073

  • are there issues marked “good for newbies”, “beginner” or some other indicators that imply that they are good for beginner contributors:

    • how many of such issues are there?

    • look at a few of them, do they look beginner friendly?

  • are there issues marked “documentation” or some other indicators that imply that they are documentation (user or developer specific): yes

    • how many of such issues are there? 0

    • look at a few of them, do you think you could submit a fix? there are none

Pull requests

  • how many open pull requests are there: 15

    • url for the last pull request created: https://github.com/ushahidi/platform/pull/3526

    • when was the last pull request made: 25 days ago

    • url for the oldest pull request created: https://github.com/ushahidi/platform/pull/1929

    • when was the oldest pull request made: July 21, 2017

  • how many closed pull requests are there: 702

    • url for the last pull request closed: https://github.com/ushahidi/platform/pull/3479

    • how many users discussed the pull request: 4

    • when was the pull request made: January 29, 2019

    • when was the pull request closed: February 7, 2019

  • do maintainers respond quickly to pull requests when they are opened? yes

Summary assesment

How friendly is this project for beginner contributors? not very friendly

Do the maintainers respond helpfully to questions in issues? yes

Are people friendly in the issues, discussion forum, and chat (for example, IRC or Slack)? yes

Do pull requests get reviewed? for the mostpart

Do maintainers thank people for their contributions? yes

Written before or on March 10, 2019