Large migration projects are complex battles

After working as a developer for 9 years, I switched tracks to a manager position in 2021 (which is not very unusual in this industry). It’s been a bumpy road, but after 3 years I start understanding things and concepts that, retrospectively, were affecting me as a developer before. It looks like I’m starting to grasp them thanks to the fact that being a technical manager forces you to understand both software development and software business.

Today I would like to share some of these things with you.

Your Pull Request is not a gift

As a maintainer of several open source projects for now 3 years, I regularly meet people, mostly about an open source contribution. This allows me to experience all kinds of interactions. Most of them are collaborative and great, and keep me thrilled to work in open source. But some of them are spoiled by common beliefs or preconceived ideas about open source. So I’d like to bust one today.

Why should I contribute to Open Source?

When a user submits a bug report on PrestaShop open source project, we thank him for the report and ask if he is willing to submit a Pull Request to fix it. To which some people answers “I’m sorry? Why should I fix the bug myself? Why should I do your job?” and that is actually a very important and relevant question.