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On Being a Free Software Maintainer

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Re: On Being a Free Software Maintainer

#81

Post by coleifer »

Oh this is infuriating:

> You will be told that you need to develop a thick skin.

It's the equivalent of a bully taunting with "stop crying!"

I have been doing open source for about 10 years. A couple of my projects have 1000+ stars on gh for what it's worth.

Most people are chill. Some people disagree without being disagreeable. Then there's others who are completely toxic. A guy who was cto of a company and wanted to use one of my libraries made me absolutely miserable for weeks. Wrote about the experience here:

http://charlesleifer.com/blog/your-idea-sucks/

Re: On Being a Free Software Maintainer

#82

Post by revskill »

One serious problem with most of OSS libraries is that, no project will tell you, what's the upsides and downside of the project, or the things the project could do and couldn't do. So, most of the time, the user must spend serious efforts to evaluate if it's OK for them or not.

Of course, this is hard and often not reasonable to do. But at least, let's do things based on some assumption.

Re: On Being a Free Software Maintainer

#83

Post by pytester »

mikekchar wrote: post #26
iamgopal wrote: post #19

What is the latest, state of the art way to earn money this way ?

Completely not proven yet, but I'm convinced: ask for it. Make it easy for people to pay you. Find a way (and reason) for people to invoice you for payment. Tell people that you expect payment even if they don't legally have to pay. Make it part of the "community ethos" that payment is a natural and good part of working with the community. Free as in freedom, not beer. Ask for beer and give freedom in return. I have…

>Make it easy for people to pay you.

There's definitely a startup opportunity for this - making it super easy to receive payment as an OSS developer (either as a business or sole developer) and making it easy for businesses to pay.

If I saw a new issue on github and it came from a corporate "OSS gold account member" which potentially comes with $$$ attached I'd be much more inclined to implement it.

As it is my motivation drops off fairly quickly unless it's a serious bug or it's a relatively easy ask.

I think it would be much easier to get budget if the cost to get expedited OSS bugfixes were subscription based and accounts gets to deal with a professional billing department rather than "One Man and His Hat Inc. in Iowa".

Re: On Being a Free Software Maintainer

#84

Post by FigBug »

abhinai wrote: post #6

Are there any benefits to being a free software maintainer beyond the obvious pride and satisfaction that comes with the role? For example, is this something that people mention on their resumes? Does getting a job become easier and when you do, can you negotiate higher salaries? Our world is incredibly indebted to Free Software Maintainers and I wonder how we can pay them back in our little ways.

I maintain a small library of additional classes for JUCE. I was paid to make some improvements to some of the classes that turned into a small consulting gig.

All my consulting work is JUCE based, so having a library of my work is helpful. But what I do is a very niche field. I don't know if this would apply in general.

Re: On Being a Free Software Maintainer

#85

Post by nickpsecurity »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #36
vinceguidry wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Bible. Wish I could offer something more accessible. But a better read on the nature of hells, belief, faith, false gods, and how to find a true path to salvation can't be found. Haven't picked mine up in awhile. Should probably fix that. I spend my time these days writing rather than reading. Chasing my own muse. Quora is my usual outlet, though I'll occasionally feel compelled to comment on HN.

Having wasted a significant portion of my youth on said book I would not recommend it. The whole thing boils down to devoting yourself to a (IMO) demanding, bigoted, homophobic, and imaginary being. Whatever crumbs of truth (treat others like you want to be treated, life is short, etc.) included are better expressed elsewhere and without all the baggage.

As an ex-Christian, I can still offer a more charitable view: just read the Golden Rule, love your neighbor as yourself, practice virtues of Galatians 5:22-23, and read Proverbs. That's the best parts of it that even a non-religious, utilitarian society might want to keep. The Christians I know that practice what they can of those values with less focus on judging people are among the best people I've ever met. They do more good and less harm than average person.

So, there's good takeaways even if there's lots of bad stuff in there. I'll throw in Buddhism and Confucianism given they have some good advice. As always, keep the good tossing out the bad or questionable stuff.

Re: On Being a Free Software Maintainer

#86

Post by winter_blue »

dingallero wrote: post #4

This has been discussed before and it has been true for me as well. I don't have a large, super-popular package I maintain, but several lesser known ones, some of which I wrote, and several of which I just adopted and passively became a maintainer over time. At some point the pressure from the community made me pass the magical threshold between fun/useful/rewarding and downright chore. It has permanently changed my…

I think a good policy to have would be to tell everyone: "if you have a feature request or if you find a bug, make a pull request implementing it (or fixing the bug)".

For feature requests, perhaps it'll be good to encourage people to discuss it first, before they start implementing it.

But make it very clear that you're not doing free work for anyone simply because they ask. (And that this is open-source project, and everyone is expected to contribute.)

Re: On Being a Free Software Maintainer

#87

Post by jryb »

enraged_camel wrote: post #54

I use a lot of open source packages, and I’m immensely grateful to anyone who maintains one. I also want to mention that I donate whenever the option is available. However, here is my personal opinion that will most likely get downvoted to oblivion: if you are putting a tool out there for others to use (not just software but any tool), then you are responsible for its wellbeing and maintenance, regardless of whether…

I don't understand the downvotes for this. I feel that by making something public and open source, there is an implicit assumption (unless otherwise stated) that the software is worth sharing.

The problem is that this puts what I consider the right amount of responsibility squarely in the middle of a continuum: library authors shouldn't be totally free of obligations to others, but the insane abuse that people level against open source maintainers is also obviously unacceptable.

Re: On Being a Free Software Maintainer

#88

Post by detaro »

jryb wrote: post #87
enraged_camel wrote: post #54

I use a lot of open source packages, and I’m immensely grateful to anyone who maintains one. I also want to mention that I donate whenever the option is available. However, here is my personal opinion that will most likely get downvoted to oblivion: if you are putting a tool out there for others to use (not just software but any tool), then you are responsible for its wellbeing and maintenance, regardless of whether…

I don't understand the downvotes for this. I feel that by making something public and open source, there is an implicit assumption (unless otherwise stated) that the software is worth sharing. The problem is that this puts what I consider the right amount of responsibility squarely in the middle of a continuum: library authors shouldn't be totally free of obligations to others, but the insane abuse that people level…

I disagree with the idea that software is only worth sharing if it is updated. I've found plenty of value in code that hasn't seen a single commit after initial release. I'd consider it a bad thing if the people that made it available to me got shamed into not publishing it.

Re: On Being a Free Software Maintainer

#89

Post by bkovacev »

I definitely appreciate every free software maintainer out there. Hats off for your hard work.

What I appreciate a bit less is a burnt out maintainers that does not ask for help and has his hands full. Hats off for your hard work, we use your library and we want to help. You are not alone.

What I dislike is a burnt out maintainer / not so great person of multiple important libraries of a popular language that randomly closes issues and PRs without explaining the reasons and then blocking people once asked why he did close an issue that was still relevant.

If it's a personal project open sourced, sure, you have the absolute freedom to do whatever you like. If it's a multi-maintainer project that has a huge piece of the market, then that's absolutely not okay - it causes a toxic environment that only damages the library and it's future.

Re: On Being a Free Software Maintainer

#90

Post by dennisgorelik »

coleifer wrote: post #81

Oh this is infuriating: > You will be told that you need to develop a thick skin. It's the equivalent of a bully taunting with "stop crying!" I have been doing open source for about 10 years. A couple of my projects have 1000+ stars on gh for what it's worth. Most people are chill. Some people disagree without being disagreeable. Then there's others who are completely toxic. A guy who was cto of a company and wanted…

This is a good story to learn from.

I also found 1-year old follow-up discussion on Redit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/69ehe6/your_id...

That story can be useful for interviewing project managers and team leads for software projects.

Q1: Could you please read this story and identify the most significant mistakes key players made?

Q2: What would you do if you were one of these players?

Q3: Why?

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