Ruby on Rails

Hi Wale

Many thanks 

Yes, I have been discussing that issue with IT people here 

And I would likely keep a developer on pay from the current team to serve that role 

Yes, the marketing is key! I would hope to continue to generate interest and convince the community this is worth doing 

I read  newsletters are still good way for that? 

What would your suggestions be?  

THanks 

David 

On Nov 14, 2018, at 5:23 PM, Wale Olaleye <railsfever.rb@gmail.com> wrote:

David,

Before you opensource the project, you will want to have a Senior RoR developer comb through to make sure the authentication credentials that should be private have been removed from the source code. These could be API keys, database passwords e.t.c. Even if it's removed from the current version of the source code this information is available in the git repository history, which is just a normal function of version control systems... they allow you to go back into the past. So if you just click the button and open source the project as-is you can open yourself to several security risks. Perhaps the idea will be to cleanup secret info from the app then port the files into a fresh git repo which of won't contain the history. You will also need to ensure that for new code development security errors like this are avoided. Same applies to the android app if you want to opensource that.

Essentially my point is that to be successful at running an opensource project in any language you need Sr software developers that are committed to being gatekeepers of the code, else things can go downhill pretty quickly. You might consider paying 1 or 2 trusted people to take on this role. Additionally to get code contributions from developers you will need to do some type of "marketing" to generate interest. Developers will not just contribute code and keep contributing simply because the software is opensource.

-Wale

http://railsfever.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/fullstackwebdeveloper

On Tuesday, November 13, 2018 at 3:25:21 PM UTC-4, David Hughes wrote:

Hi all

I am a scientist at Penn State University and the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation. I work to help poor farmers in Africa and elsewhere grow more food by combatting pests and diseases.  There are two ways we do this: an Android app that runs TensorFlow object detection offline inside the food without a web connection (see here). The other way is through an Open Access library on content called PlantVillage with a QA forum. This platform is 6 years old and had around 8 million visitors with around 80-100k new month.  https://plantvillage.psu.edu/  The platform is RoR

All of this is a public good, aimed at helping poor farmers who typically earn a few dollars/day. I am spending a lot of money on developers (in India) and  I raise money with grant writing etc. I am having issues around quality and cannot afford the necessary QA. 

I was wondering if I open sourced the site would your community be interested in helping? We work directly with farmers and through the United Nations. It really can be a very impactful project 

My goal is an AI-driven platform that is the number 1 resource in the world for smallholder farmers around the world. All ad free and without haresting their data to sell 

I would love to hear your views on whether open sourcing would be a good idea and would people  join in?

Thanks 

David 

David Hughes
Dept Entomology & Biology, 
Penn State 
https://sites.psu.edu/hugheslab/
https://plantvillage.psu.edu/
dhu...@psu.edu

@zombieantguy, @plantvillage
814 863 6073 (Office)

………………………………………..

2018-2019, UN FAO Fellow, Rome and visiting professor at La Sapienza, Rome 

………………………………………..

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