DEV Community: Bradley D. Thornton

YASH - Not the shell - Hacktoberbest :)

Bradley D. Thornton — Tue, 16 Nov 2021 03:10:50 +0000

Yes indeed, Yet Another Successful Hacktoberfest (YASH) has concluded, the PR counts are in and verified, Hactoberfest 2021 DEV.to badges have been claimed, and T-Shirts (or Trees to be planted) are on their way to all of the mailboxes of participants.

This annual celebration of the ending of Hacktoberfest, especially for those of us who have participated in it for the past several years, is an affirmation of the significance and benefit of FOSS and Open Source in general.

Each and every past participant knows the relevance of bringing the world of Open Source to the community at large - and not just programmers either! Many are authors and documentarians, more extremely important aspects of continuous integration and the usage of Linus Torvalds' creation in Git.

This time Both GitHub and GitLab were included as available resources for generating valid pull requests, and rightly so - because the creation of code and content aren't limited to just one single forge any more than the spirit of open source software is limited to an elite crew of mavericks - this is mainstream, and to be certain, something that over the last few years has been proven as one of the most significant disruptors in software development.

By incorporating the carrot and carrot approach we have been able to encourage thousands upon thousands of new onboarders to the world of open source, from neophytes to hobbyists to seasoned programmers from the world of proprietary closed source philosophies, the opportunity and importance of open source is unfolded, presented as something that all of us can gain advantage from the adoption of, and further, create a richer, more wonderful ecosystem of development in software engineering, publishing, and even sharing recipes.

With all of these things being realized, the closing of each years annual Hacktoberfest is not an ending, but indeed a beginning, for each new participant that we encouraged and welcomed to participate, and it heralds a new era for tomorrows magnificent possibilities.

Already, our sights are focused on this new beginning, and plans for the next, and best ever, Hacktoberfest 2022.

Thank you all for attending, and especially, a wholeheartedly congratulatory thanks to all of the newest members of the Hacktoberfest family who took the time to successfully complete their first year!

FOSS, open source, self-hosted, time tracking

Bradley D. Thornton — Tue, 03 Dec 2019 21:49:00 +0000

Options for FOSS based, self-hosted, Time Trackers.

I'm looking for an Open Source, self-hosted, timer/task tracking solution that I can use for billable time and other various categories, with decent reporting capabilities.

Using this for development projects to manage and calculate my time spent on various aspects of time spent, including billable time and other definable categories like phone support in customer interactions, writing emails, time spent on dev, testing, maintenance, security patching and updates, etc.

It would be nice if I found something that has cross platform support too, like Android and Windows clients and/or a web interface, but certainly a good self-hosted, sever based, UNIX (Linux) solution.

Ideally, the tracking system would be able to be sync'd with local offline databases (git repos or NextCloud would be awesome)when unable/inconvenient to connect with the server, and most especially, one that I can host on a server in the cloud.

Any comments, suggestions, are welcome :)

What is Hactoberfest to you?

Bradley D. Thornton — Sat, 02 Nov 2019 23:23:48 +0000

Well Hactoberfest 2019 has come and is in the process of winding down. For most, it's a matter of checking their mail for some really kewl schwag, a t-shirt (or two, if last year is any indication) and some neat laptop stickers to proudly announce that the owner of that deck lid is a certified FOSSie.

But what is the real value in Hactoberfest? Beyond the incentive to exchange scwhag for PRs? is it in recognition of services rendered? Is it in the self-gratification that a task was completed resulting in gifts of appreciation?

Therein lies the crux, I believe, contained right there in that last sentence - appreciation. Certainly, you're thinking, 'Yes, he's referring to appreciation from the FOSS community', but no, I think it's the appreciation of accomplishment that one derives from being first persuaded, and then astonished, that they too can actually be one of these enigmatic contributors to the community.

It's not about what we're going to get from it, it's about bringing people into the fold, showing them that they too can do this, can participate, be a valuable asset to the community, and welcomed for doing so.

It's about the appreciation that one has for one's self, in knowing that not only can someone else rely upon them, but that they can rely upon themselves. And in the end, they feel good about themselves moving forward with a new confidence to help as a contributor to FOSS and even, make new friends, mentors, and change the world we live in.

And.... Okay, sure. It's about the schwag too ;)