'ProTalking' your way into Open Source

Greate introduction into Open Source, nice to include the audience with each step.

Including the audience at each step was certainly correct, liked that

Very inspirational talk. I can't wait to look for an open source project to contribute on. :)
I had already contributed a thing or two occasionally, but it's very nice to have someone take you by the hand and I've learned a lot of good practices and nice tools (hub).

I genuinely feel that any conference targeted at the newer or lower level developers should make this talk mandatory. Even given the high number of OS contributors I really enjoyed hearing other people's experiences of contributing.

Gread job Geekie ;)

Thanks for sharing this experience. It's good to know other open source contributors feel the same, that we have common problems and fears when we contribute. The way you involved the room was great. At first I thought it was a bit much. Certainly, not every speaker should try to do this, but the way you involved us was like open source itself.

I think you got a spot-on talk about working your way in to open source. It would be, as Gary mentions, a mandatory talk for every conference. I also liked your idea to open source your talk, which I hadn't experienced before.

However, I want to give some constructive criticism as well. I know it was your first talk, the nerves we're noticeable at the start and decreased during your presentation. Another thing is you touched quite a lot of different topics, which makes it hard to explain all well and make sure every listener comprehends everything. You talked about open source, git, GitHub, vagrant, open source licences, the culture and how to collaborate, interact and communicate with other developers from the community. And I might have forgotten something too. So while it's good to have an overview, it's on the other hand a talk about everything and nothing at the same time. Please don't get me wrong here, but this is always a difficult dilemma for talks.

A last thing: very few public speakers repeat the question, something very useful for the audience and video watchers. You were the only one I saw at PFC13 who did this. Chapeau!

Great talk for a first outing - nice to involve the audience, true to open source principles. The only issue I had was that there were times when the audience didn't have anything to contribute - be prepared to move on more quickly. Initial nerves were overcome well, so take confidence from this experience - on to the next time!

I felt every emotion you discribed contributing to OS , I'd say you hit that part out of the park! The interactive open-source talk was an excellent idea for this talk. The slides where really nice and well prepared.
To improve the talk, I'd say skip the Vagrant/setup bit. I think most developers are capable of getting a project going and if not, a small segment on Vagrant isn't going to help them *that* much. As for the nerves, they where certainly noticable but I hope you get to do this many many more times in the future!

A very inspiring talk, not only for newbies. The interaction made it work even better!

In my opinion, its a great thing that you talk about all the important topics regarding contributing to OSS, because that gives a clear picture about the process, for anyone who is not experienced on the subject.

As a suggestion, I think that some more technical information could be added to the talk, and maybe some testimonials from other developers on how the felt / how was their first contribution, the feelings involved, things like that =)

Great job!

Excellent talk describing all stages of OS contributing. Making use of the audience made it really fun.

this talk was full of good tips but there were a couple of things I might recommend you do differently next time. First of all, find a way to link your points together in a story. It started out really well but then turned into a list. secondly, now you have lots of advice, just share that with the audience. I felt terribly responsible for providing the content of the talk and would rather see you share what you know with authority than be trying to make an audience cooperate. I'm sure we didn't say much that you don't already know so feel free to give the advice as your own!

Nice speach! Beforehand I thought it would look a bit more hands-on and hoped you would address who finally decides if code is getting into the project or not. The way you present sparks interest and can mentioned as very inspirational. Certainly like to see more or these talks. Great job on this one!