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Contributing to Valetudo
Don't
Heh, I bet you weren't expecting that. But it is actually the answer you're looking for.
Code Contributions
Unless explicitly noted otherwise (e.g. in a Help Wanted issue), I'm usually not interested in any contributions to Valetudo.
This is because Valetudo is mature software that I'm personally using daily.
Due to that, pretty much all low-hanging-fruits are already gone and those that still appear 🍐 to be there are either not as trivial and simple as you'd think initially or conscious design decisions that should actually be like that.
Everything that isn't a low-hanging-fruit on the other hand usually turns out to be such an invasive change, that I won't be accepting any PRs for such changes, because I know from experience that after merging any such PR, I will be rewriting the whole thing anyway, which not only doesn't save me any time or effort but actually costs me even more.
Thirdly, Valetudo is not only mature software but specifically mature software that has become infrastructure. As such, the decision process is different from the one in e.g. a new fun side-project to play around with.
There are thousands of people using it. Not every one of them finds reinstalling nixOS/Gentoo/Arch every 72 hours enjoyable. Some of them might even have children or elderly to care about. Or they might just also have a life outside of IT.
Valetudo thus first and foremost needs to be dependable. It needs to work, and it needs to specifically work reliably for those main use cases that the majority will have. If there's an issue that affects 3% of users doing something arcane which can be fixed by either a large chunk of code or just by not doing that arcane thing, the latter will be the preferred solution.
Being infrastructure means accepting that covering 80% is good enough if that means less code, less potential bugs and less potential vulnerabilities.
Yes, this makes the project super boring. I know, I know. You bought a new Toy, you got root access on it, and now I'm telling you that there will be no cool improvements coming from that. Just cloud removal.
I know where you're coming from. Don't forget that I'm also a Hacker and I also enjoy playing around with technology.
I just also have different hats to wear. Some of them even look kinda funny.
Keep on hacking, but.. elsewhere, please. Thank you for understanding.
A word on documentation
Documentation is a similar story to what was said above. The docs - for the most part - are how they are supposed to be. I know that the project might not be immediately accessible to everyone without further research but that filtering is a feature and not an oversight.
I do quite enjoy writing documentation, so I generally don't need help in doing so. In fact, I think it's best if I do it,
because I know quite exactly how the software works.
Playing a game of telephone will already happen further down the information chain.
It shouldn't be part of the documentation itself.
The docs are the single source of truth, so they need to be truthy.
Some context
Because I support newcomers and long-time-users daily, I pretty much know exactly where the pain-points are, what issues there might be, which things people struggle with and what the scope should be. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that someone new to the project happens to see something obvious that all people just missed until they came along.
It might happen of course, but the chances of having another nonsense discussion are a few orders of magnitude higher.
I also have developed a quite good understanding of who this project is for and - more importantly - who it isn't for. I can tell who will struggle with it, what drama that will cause and if it is worth it. The docs take that into account and try to filter to avoid all this very exhausting drama.
On (not) growing the target audience
Please keep those filters as-is. Please do not invite people that clearly can't pass those filters to the project.
Please do not attempt to "make things more accessible". Please do not make any video-tutorials.
It's not helping anyone, because at the end of the day, it will still be yours truly that has to deal with the support requests resulting from that. Not only are my capacities limited but they also can't easily be scaled up by just throwing more resources at the problem.
While it is true that "the community" can sometimes in some cases take over some of that load, a look at other projects in the real world shows that this usually comes with a heavy penalty on quality and sanity.
The fact of the matter is that sustainable growth is slow, boring, iterative and usually doesn't provide any dopamine hits.
Side-note:
Half-baked "I'd like to do good" always just backfires and only increases the workload on the existing volunteer structures.
That is no FOSS-specific or even software- or IT-specific issue. It affects any "social" project/movement/idea.
Yes, short-term, numbers may go up and there may be some benefits, but there is no free lunch. These short-term gains
have to be paid back long-term and they have to be paid back with interest.
The problem is that often, projects then can't pay that interest and so they default.
You often have (well-meaning) third-parties that enter a project, make number go up, push the thing into long-term unsustainability and then leave with the proud feeling of having done "the right thing", never to be seen again to be held accountable once things start to fall apart later in direct consequence of their actions.
If you've ever seen a large corporation from the inside, this may sound familiar.
What I find fascinating about this is that the exact same thing not only keeps happening in "social" projects but also that it is being done by people that often have strong opinions against the business world. Go figure.
Being for everyone
A friend to all is a friend to none
― Taylor Swift
If there's one thing to take away from this text then it's that the opposite of "not for everyone" isn't "for everyone" but rather "for no one", because things trying to be "for everyone" will always collapse under their own weight.
Please also note the important distinction between "for anyone" and "for everyone".
Valetudo actually is "for anyone", because anyone can pick it up; no matter the specific selection of attributes such as
e.g., sex, gender, age, ethnicity and whatever other uncontrollable backgrounds you can come up with.
It is however not "for everyone", because "everyone" is a superset of "anyone" that then includes wants, needs,
ideas, behaviour and whatnot.
Basically everything the individual can and does control.
It is true that controlling those things can sometimes be more challenging depending on background, but we're talking about a cloud replacement for vacuum robots (read: luxury goods) maintained as a hobby project by some random guy on the internet.
Expectations need to be reasonable.
Expectation management
On that note, to set expectations, you can basically think of Valetudo as freeware with source available, so that others can learn from it, and you can be sure that I'm not doing something evil on your robot.
If you base the way you'd like to contribute something on that mental image, it's probably correct-ish.
Final remarks
I do want to point out that not only do I generally enjoy the exchange with other people regarding ideas, feedback, etc., but also that Valetudo wouldn't be where it is today without the many contributions; be it as code or as ideas or as feedback or just as listening and being present in the community.
I think the key takeaway from this page should be that generally, contribution is welcome, but the way useful contributions manifest for this project in this stage doesn't involve actively looking to contribute.
There was a time in the Valetudo lifecycle where it was different. For example, the Logo came to existence because a person was actively looking to contribute to open-source projects with no focus on Valetudo in particular. And at the time that was absolutely fantastic. It was exactly what the project needed and looking back you can really see how "just" having a proper logo made Valetudo a lot more "real".
But as said, Valetudo is now in a different situation with different wants and needs. Fear not however if you just want to contribute to something cool and FOSS because there are a ton of cool FOSS projects out there that would love to see your contributions :)