[codr7]

I've found that just writing code only takes me so far, I need to share as well to feel good about it. But sharing anything outside of the ordinary with the world means painting a pretty big target on your back. On the positive side, it also opens up an avenue for getting paid.

My point is that if you start with the fun and let it grow from there, and you're willing to go through the discomfort of sharing, it doesn't have to be either or.

[mncharity]

> share as well to feel good about it. But

I wish to share, but not to helicopter parent. I've long felt this case ill served, from 1995 Perl CPAN's "you own the package name" (vs author-packagename-version triples), to 2025 github's impoverished support for communities of forks. No "past me wrote this; present me frees it to jam; future me isn't involved - play well together, and maybe someday I'll listen in or drop by". The emphasis has been on human ownership/control of code, and of limited human collaboration, rather than on code getting out there, building friendships and communities, having fun and flourishing with the humans.

[necovek]

That's only with GitHub. There are other platforms, obviously less popular, which don't take that approach.

Heck, most of the "real" free software world (the one building entire operating systems, desktop environments, programming languages, games... other than Linus with Linux) operate in that manner.

I am always perplexed when people ask me about my GitHub account for my opensource contributions: I point them at whatever the latest incarnation of ohloh (OpenHub) is where they can find thousands of my commits over hundreds of projects.

[mncharity]

https://openhub.net/ . Other platforms?

Any platforms emphasizing rendezvous? Like... Let me know whenever someone on my <fun people list> commits a new project, or is looking for help. Any meet-and-hacks later today, anywhere on the planet, which welcome virtuals? Happy to do 20 minutes of pair programming now - you know my profile - is anyone around? Text me whenever a flash-mob hackathon gets going. Notify me whenever code, any language, seeks help with <expertise domain>. Using my profile-3, find me a couple of candidate tickets for later. ... Sort of AI-facilitated social networking for humans and code.

[austin-cheney]

I used to think the same thing, that sharing was caring. Now, for me, I would rather share with non-coders. So now everything is communicated as a product summary, not a coding project.