Sumana Harihareswara

“ I use these lessons in my open source work all the time. We know how to do this. It's the standard best practices & due diligence:
documentation, gardening, well-run events, responding to people who show up, having junior jobs, not putting up with sexism or racism or jerkitude I treat my own attempts like No Big Deal; compassion demands that I recognize my privilege and help others build their skills and confidence. Safe is better But all that writing and editing stuff was a hobby. My mom told me: it doesn't work to try to make money at what you love, because you'll get sick of it. ”

“ Have they grown up thinking safe is better than free? If their parents think our environment is unsafe, can we prove them wrong? Are we demystifying our processes, or is it all Sanskrit to them? And how can we help them get more maker time, or contribute in the little time they have? Closing So this is my origin story as an open source contributor. My anxieties and my skills.
And there are no accidents. There are no miracles. Everything is caused.
Seeing that causation, seeing the connection between what someone's doing now and all the causation that went before it, is empathy. ”

“ And It included ads for those Kannada Koota meetups, "how I started a Kannada Koota" articles, and tutorial exercises for "how to learn Kannada", for your kids. And I helped staple them, and stamp the envelopes.
One of the greatest gifts you can give your children, your employees, the people to whom you are a role model, is the knowledge that some field of endeavor is in a sense No Big Deal. Knowledge -- belief backed up by experience -- that they can do interesting and rewarding projects in it without fear of public embarrassment. ”

“ For a lot of people I'm sure it was TL;DR...
but for my colleagues in the audience, now you know where my taste for documentation comes from. It isn't enough that people just repeat "Om shuklam baradaram," or for that matter "git push origin master" - they have to understand why. No matter what you're teaching or leading, even if you are literally a priest in sacred clothes, you show people why they're doing what they're doing. Empowerment is like turtles, it goes all the way down. Family vs. self Dad was totally fine with me endlessly asking "why?" ”

“ I had the privilege of growing up in the US, so even though my family was stability-oriented and wanted me to achieve traditional success, I had a more independence-oriented mass media surrounding me, and educational system that encouraged independent research projects, and I got to go to a US university where I met hippies. ”

“ In their experience, the only kinds of men and boys who want to hang out alone with unmarried girls are dangerous and only bad can come of it -- my parents were specifically protecting me from sexual violence. ”

“ So instead, you should get a good job doing something else, and then have your hobby on the side, music or writing or something like that. They wanted me to be a doctor or engineer, or possibly a lawyer, preferably going into a government job, because government jobs are safe and stable. And of course they believed this was the best way; they'd grown up pretty damn poor. And my dad got laid off a few times, and times got tough. ”

“ And it's even harder for some other people. They might live at home till they get married, even during college, so their parents' doubts can still influence them. They might not have time, because they have to do a lot of babysitting. ”

“ Then, once they start trusting you, you can show them how to think in terms of abundance instead of scarcity, and how vulnerability -- public bug reports, questions on IRC, and playfulness in general -- is actually strength. Boys are trouble My parents wanted me to be safe, not vulnerable. ”