Want to join, but want to ask your opinion first

the NEW Marketplace
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Hello
My name is Maciej and I am a software developer, with 6 years of commercial experience.
For my entire career I worked on proprietary/closed base software, and I would like to have some code/tests I wrote I can show others.

BEFORE I START - I AM A PERSON WHO ASKS FOR HELP ONLY WHEN I CANNOT DO SOMETHING MYSELF AND ALREADY TRIED.
The thing is - i browsed through hundreds of repositories and came to conclusion that nearly everyone (i mean numbers wise) on github/gitlab etc. starts their owne new project for themselves/on their own and its pretty much standard procedure.
Then they are the BOSS, they control everything, its surely FEELS GOOD for them, but in my humble opinion its irrational. There is no one to give them CR and once they decide either that they no longer care (a lot of developers unfortunately love to start something and then leave it as they please at their whim) they won’t even DESCRIBE in readme.md in which state they abandoned it (complete, MVP, 30% complete - not even that). Not to mension that even if there is a description usually its written in a way that only people who are in some extreme niche (like a build planner for specific mmorpg game that 100 people plays) without even containing information what is the niche name. Its free for all ,whatever author likes even if he don’t know what he/she likes".

Therefore there is a lot of abandoned repositories is shitty state on Github, I already checked few hundreds of them.

But I have to do this since at the beginning I just picked a repository I liked that seem not abandoned (commits this year), there was some instructions how to get started… So I did. And then I needed more information. Test Data, Information WHAT PROGRAM ACTUALLY DOES/HOW DO YOU USE THIS (you would be surprised how many devs do not care to include it. It is scary how majority of Github projects look like someones summer hut abandoned for the rest of the year).

I am tired of this. What I look for is a project WITH COMMUNITY. I want to dedicate at least 10h per month to this project either writing some features (I like this least), fixing some bugs (This is what I like the most. Seriously I prefer to edit existing code than writing a new one) or writing autormation Tests with Selenium.

But I need there 2 things from community that (and IF, ok?) would be willing to accept my free labor

  • HAND HOLDING - YES! Especially in the beginning. And I do not mean to tell me what code to write ALL THE TIME. But I expect some instructions and help if I am stuck for too long when setting up dev environment for example on Docker, Code Review - and If my code displeases you, I expect you to tell me HOW to do it better and then review my attempt. I am more than willing to do the same FOR YOUR CODE.
  • To not throw me out - yes, if my code/way of thinking/level of expertise will turn out to be not enough to your taste, i expect for you to tell me where to find materials, then i go there, study, get better. what i do not want is to join a community that only accepts dev with job-ready skills and if i show any struggle - community choses easy and lazy way and just tell me to go away after accepting me before. if you have any doubt about me - show me to the door now instead of when i spend 30hrs getting started and invested just to be thrown out because you did not care cause its not you who has the problem. you can thrown me out if i am ahole to other people or if i try to monetize/rip you off - because i know this is not going to happen.
    In other words, I would like to join a project and give you value, but with these 2 requirements. I am sorry if I came off as rude, but I already spend many hours in my life doing something for someone just to be told after I invested over 40hrs that they actually are not interested and I can go fk myself. I do not want to waste my time. And I assume you are awesome people but in any place where someone don’t need to pay for others time there are lurking smug and selfish idividuals and those are the one I wish to avoid.
    Do not get me wrong - i want to contribute, for free, regularly and this will not change. i just want a community to accomodate me or tell me to go away.

If your community can do just that, I would like to join. Please tell me what to do, or how to find what to do by myself in a way that is beneficial to the project.

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Hi @MaciejKmon,
thank you for your open words and honest thoughts!

  1. I am part of this community since about three years. The posts in this forum are moslty about how to configure stuff, how to get it working, and stuff like this. Discussions about code, style in the code, and those things are mostly in github. This does not mean: please to go github and ask there, it is just for the full picture to make a decision.
  2. behind Graylog, there is a company who employees some devs to add features/fix bugs and also selling commercial versions of the software with extra features. I think this could be a difficult game to develop stuff on Graylog without beeing “in the loop” with them all the time. I have good experiences with technical tickets on github I opened so far (Example1, example2), but I’m more in the world of using Graylog then developing it. So I can not realy judge/recommend something based on this experience.
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Hello @MaciejKmon

Adding on to @ihe

Here is a couple linksto a look at. Hope that helps.

1 Like
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Hi @MaciejKmon,

First, let me welcome you to the Graylog community. I spoke with our PM about this post and asked if he could offer any guidance.

He said that, because this is an open source project that also has a commercial team working on it, it may limit the kinds of work that community members may contribute to. It might not be as rewarding for someone wanting to make a difference with their contributions as a purely open source project.

That said, there are certainly gaps in the product, and those gaps could be addressed with plugins the come from community devs. If that is where you would like to put your efforts, I’m sure there would be people on this forum who would be happy to work with you to design and test your ideas.

Whatever you decide, I wish you luck in your search and encourage you to hang around and get to know the place.

Have a good weekend,

Chris

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Hi Chris.

I am a team player, I do not look to forcefully disrupt the flow you have in order to show myself off as a rockstar.

I have absolutely no desire to ,make enormous difference" before breakfast each day so that I can… I don’t know boast about it or something.

I will adjust to any flow and project dynamics you have NOW. Its like going into existing code base that lets say already has snake case code standards. In this situation a good developer and a good team player SHOULD use whatever standards are already in place instead of enforcing ones he/she prefers and considers better. Because doing so will cause confusion in the project.

I actually like the fact that you have professional team working on it because it will ensure stability and I will not find out in 3 months that project is abandoned.

So did I understood you correctly - Commercial teams work on GrayLog Core and contributors work on Plugins? So I should install Core and develop plugins for it?

Well, what is important for me is to not write stuff from scratch, do these plugins have multiple contributors on them or 30 contributors means 35 plugins?

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Hi

Your information was very insightful - thanks.

By using Graylog you mean as a monitoring tool doing something completely unrelated to GrayLog (as a tool like… Keepass or something) or using GrayLog while developing plugins for it?

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I’m using Graylog as a Logmanagement/SIEM in several places. Editing the server.conf in vi is the most lowlevel-stuff I am doing - I almost never have a look in the code.

1 Like
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I’m not trying to discourage you. I’m just passing along what another open source contributor, who happens to be a PM here mentioned when I brought your post to his attention.

Personally, I think if you enjoy working with Graylog and you can find projects that solve problems for you or other community members, that would be great. I just don’t know how much you would work on the core Graylog code itself.

Glad to have you and I wish you luck either way!