Ohloh Tracks Open Source Developers 115
eldavojohn writes "The startup company Ohloh has a database listing 70,000 developers working on 11,000 open source projects. Their aim is to 'rank' open source developers, which raises some interesting questions about exactly how useful this tracking company is. Questions like, 'Is there an accurate way beyond word of mouth to measure the importance and skill of a developer?' I found it slightly alarming that, to this site, the number of commits (with input from the number of kudos) tells how good a developer you are."
Same here (Score:5, Insightful)
And what about contributors who submitted patches that had to be committed by someone else? Or people who contribute by providing help on IRC channels, blogs, forums, or other mailing lists?
While ohloh metrics can be useful, they also need to be taken with a grain of salt, particularly the contributor metrics. They're a bit more useful on measuring a project as a whole (but they still miss a lot of activity).
Re:So What Metrics Do You Suggest? (Score:5, Insightful)
# of kernel builds
# of ICQ shouting matches ending in "Nazi!!!"
# of cans of Jolt consumed
# of steps from mom's basement to side door.
Or the old standby, lines of code (including comments, of course).
In short, there's no way to automatically judge the value of a programmer based on silly metrics. How would one score for "bugs not written" or "elegance of solution"/"nasty kludge avoided"?
FOSS is worth whatever the users and the coders say.
Would this discourage contributers to open source? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So What Metrics Do You Suggest? (Score:4, Insightful)
Flawed, but interesting. (Score:4, Insightful)
I would rather not have my real name attached to most of what I've contributed. One, because my code is so damn sloppy that it's embarrassing. Two, because I don't want the hassle of my real life - you know, offline - and my, uh, "digital lives" conflicting with each other. Three, if I was easy to find - online - I run the risk of being pestered with silly tech support questions.
UrCreepyNeighbor, while an accurate description of my personality, is one of many identities I have. Same could be said of almost everyone. I'm sure "HotChic17CA" doesn't use that username when she's talking with her grandmother, for example.
Re:Number of commits? (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyone who thinks they can produce bug free code first try is an idiot. Anyone willing to accept that there are always going to be bugs, and actively looks for them is a good coder.
Re:So What Metrics Do You Suggest? (Score:5, Insightful)
But what's the point? (Score:5, Insightful)
Some people will get a shiny glory and some will feel annoyed bbecause their projects/contributions have not been tracked.
Re:So What Metrics Do You Suggest? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What An Incredibly Inane Idea (Score:3, Insightful)