Tool Suggestions

A list of tools like wine, Reactos could be mentioned which can (work often good to) start Windows programs. --Erkan Yilmaz 22:30, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Motivation

(I'm adding it here from the main article, because it now just gets in the way there.).

We've begun to write this document because it differs from the aims of these previous efforts, like so:

How to become a hacker

Eric S. Raymond (of the Cathedral and the Bazaar fame) has written this document:

http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html

It is a recommended read even if you're an experienced FOSS developer, and it's not too bad. However:

1. The license is not specified anywhere in the document. ("Copyright © 2001 Eric S. Raymond")
2. The original DocBook/XML appears to be missing. (Which we could remedy manually or automatically, so it's not critical).
3. I feel it is too condescending. Raymond kinda says "So you're a noobie and wants to be as l33t as us?" (not in these exact words).
4. It suffers from some ESR caprices - Python vs. Perl (or Ruby) ; Ubuntu vs. other distributions ; BASIC is evil and will forever cripple a budding mind. etc.
5. The discussion about the hacker mindset with its ideology and philosophy may be taking itself too seriously and intimidating. I agree with most of it (being a Randian Objectivist and all) but I think people can just contribute to open-source because they will enjoy it, and the ideals or spiritual enlightenment will follow later if at all.

Producing Open Source Software

Karl Fogel primarily intended this for experienced open source developers who wish to run their open source projects, not to contributors.

The Teaching Open Source Book (here)

I feel this book is too directed towards students, assumes too much knowledge, and may not focus enough on providing mental guidance for preparing people for the open source world. I may still borrow from the book (or vice versa) but still feel there's room for a better effort.