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Good negotiation skills, GitHub’s Octoverse, container security and personal politics in open source. What do these topics all have in common? In the last few months, we’ve asked the open source community about each of them. In an utter shock to us all, the results show you have opinions and lots of them. So, without further ado, see if you voted with the majority or struck out alone in defense of your unique beliefs.

Follow These 5 Steps for Effective Salary Negotiation

Voter turnout was especially high when we asked you about salary negotiation tactics, and a significant majority agreed on the importance of simply asking for the raise or salary you feel you deserve. After all, as Malini Bhandaru wrote, “if you don’t stand up for yourself, who will?”

GitHub’s 2019 Octoverse Report

Not every poll can have such a clear victor though. When we asked about the most surprising elements of GitHub’s 2019 Octoverse report, the candidates finished in a dead heat. Those who chose “Python topping Java as the most used GitHub language” as the big surprise won a narrow victory, though one riled up Twitter user did point out, “C# > Python > Java.” Regardless, the results and sheer number of votes do showcase the excitement surrounding open source as it enters a new decade.

Introducing Clair: A Powerful Tool for Container Security

No matter which programming language dominates the roaring 2020s, containers will play a key role in software development. Judging by all the input we received, the open source community is well aware of this fact. By asking about containers, we also became aware of another fact: container security is a source of significant uncertainty. In addition to the answer choices provided, respondents identified service availability and redundancy while patching and investigating issues as other key challenges. Luckily, Clair is an open source tool that scans for vulnerabilities before service availability can ever become an issue.

Navigating the Personal Politics of Open Source

Finally, we asked you about the best way to make open source friends, not enemies. Two clear winners emerged: the first social and the second technical (-ish). Respondents said it was important to get a profile picture on GitHub and avoid overcommitting to projects and, thus, underdelivering. One of the more unique answers we received said to “use multiple devices, accounts and usernames to keep personal and work life separate.” Not a bad idea for open source hobbyists trying to avoid sharing corporate data by accident.

For more updates on community sentiment, check back for our next poll recap on the Open Source Blog and stay tuned for new polls on our Twitter channel (@vmwopensource).

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