This week our class presented all the browser extensions we have made. There were a wide variety of extensions from the likes of funny to serious productivity boosters. The presentations were done very well and I have personally enjoyed the Q & A session at the end of each presentation. In our presentation the questions gave us new features to work on, something that people eagerly want. I have personally found the project tab-down to be really cool and something that I am willing to use when released. This extension makes it easier to have multiple tabs open without switching tabs!!

Presentations are not just about learning about other projects but also about learning how other teams have come up with their idea through the ideation process and how did they handle conflicts. Our group had pretty much a smooth run from the start, Paul and I have found a weird connection where we both agreed on most of the topics. To the point where we would try to purposefully try to disagree to see if our decision is the correct one. Working on this project has taught me how crucial it is to have discussions especially when working on open source software development. Nobody can one-off just work on something themselves and push a PR out of nowhere expecting it to get merged. It is crucial to communicate and explain one’s thought process so that not only everyone can be on the same page but also discover if the solution is the right one or there exists a better one.

During the class last week we watched a collection of videos from the Open Source Summit of North America (2024). While watching this video something that caught my attention is how dedicated some open source maintainers are to the idea of FOSS where the idea of free is freedom. Even when companies take the project to make money off of it, maintainers stick to the core principles. I found it to be very inspiring where the host has turned down significant potential money to stick to the principle of FOSS, where anyone can take the source code and do whatever they want with it according to the license.

This week was packed with various presentations from students to professional ones. One thing that I took away from these presentations is that speaking slowly and also being present matters a lot. The most enjoyable presentations were the ones given by the likes of Linus Torvalds, which did not seem like a lecture or talk but casual, funny and also informative. He would laugh and make jokes here and there which made the talk even more enjoyable. I have also noticed this during our presentations in class, where the most engaging presentations were by groups that were lively, present and interacted with the audience. I hope to implement these skills in the upcoming presentations.