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On Being a Free Software Maintainer

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Re: On Being a Free Software Maintainer

#141

Post by mikekchar »

nine_k wrote: post #130
GorgeRonde wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is my project Ownership is essentially the main problem of OSS here. > If it stops being fun, I will stop working on it, which will pretty much kill the project. See what I mean ? Makes me think of Hickey's "Open source is not about you" rant and I can't prevent myself from hearing "It's about me". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18538123

It's easy. It's my project, I will lead it the way I see fit. I decide what gets merged, what issues have priority, what gets you banned. It's also open source. Fork it if you want, drive your fork's development the way you see fit. Now it's your problem, not mine.

When I do eventually write a COC for my project (i.e. when more than 0 people have seen it :-) ), this is an important section that I want to write. I choose free software licenses because I want my users to be as free as I am in their choices.

I thought long and hard about why I write free software. It's not for an altruistic reason. I do it because it is something important to me. If I allow others to dictate what I should be doing, then I lose my reason to write free software. The free software license is their guarantee that no matter what crazy thing I decide to do, or say, they can carry on without me. That's as fair as I want to get.

Re: On Being a Free Software Maintainer

#142

Post by dennisgorelik »

jlokier wrote: post #137
dennisgorelik wrote: post #95

I am running a free job posting website (postjobfree.com). Every day I receive about a hundred emails with various requests, questions and complaints (from recruiters, job seekers and operators of other job boards). Some of these emails are negative or even rude. But that negativity does not really bother me. I evaluate level of "Negativity" in the email to understand the nature of the request better (Is the request…

Even though bad faith criticism and complaints can be useful, I find there is a still an insurmountable problem sometimes: it can be too time- and energy-consuming to handle the sheer quantity and/or intensity. Sometimes, especially at "political moments" (like elections in a project I was involved in recently - and I wasn't even a candidate), it can feel like being overwhelmed by a tidal wave. If I only have 1 spare…

> If I only have 1 spare hour per day for a project

... then your project is unlikely to become useful anyway. 5-7 hours per week is just too little in order to make a meaningful progress in a software project.

And if you are not getting critical feedback from customers, you are unlikely to know the right direction to develop your project.

> https://www.slideshare.net/dberkholz/assholes-are-killing-yo...

According to Donnie Berkholz' definition - I do not communicate with assholes at all, because demanding and even rude feedback does not make me "feel oppressed, humiliated, de-energized, or belittled".

Re: On Being a Free Software Maintainer

#143

Post by dennisgorelik »

hutzlibu wrote: post #117
dennisgorelik wrote: post #95

I am running a free job posting website (postjobfree.com). Every day I receive about a hundred emails with various requests, questions and complaints (from recruiters, job seekers and operators of other job boards). Some of these emails are negative or even rude. But that negativity does not really bother me. I evaluate level of "Negativity" in the email to understand the nature of the request better (Is the request…

You run a comercial website, with a "free to use part" but want people to use the premium part. Nothing wrong with that, but that has nothing to do with a FOSS maintainer doing his work in his free time and getting insults for it. So if you enjoy insults and like to filter them out for technical feedback, good for you. But you make money with it. (I asume) So please advertise somewhere else.

> nothing to do with a FOSS maintainer

"FOSS maintainer" uses similar "fremium" model: basic product is free, but customization and support of that product typically requires to hire maintainer.

Alternatively, maintainers are getting hired by BigCo for brand recognition, improving hiring competitiveness of BigCo and other benefits that FOSS product brings.

Re: On Being a Free Software Maintainer

#144

Post by hutzlibu »

dennisgorelik wrote: post #143
hutzlibu wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You run a comercial website, with a "free to use part" but want people to use the premium part. Nothing wrong with that, but that has nothing to do with a FOSS maintainer doing his work in his free time and getting insults for it. So if you enjoy insults and like to filter them out for technical feedback, good for you. But you make money with it. (I asume) So please advertise somewhere else.

> nothing to do with a FOSS maintainer "FOSS maintainer" uses similar "fremium" model: basic product is free, but customization and support of that product typically requires to hire maintainer. Alternatively, maintainers are getting hired by BigCo for brand recognition, improving hiring competitiveness of BigCo and other benefits that FOSS product brings.

""FOSS maintainer" uses similar "fremium" model: basic product is free, but customization and support of that product typically requires to hire maintainer."

Not really. With FOSS the whole product and especially the sourcecode, is free. You can "maybe" hire the maintainer to do extra work and support for you, but you don't have to.

And the main point was, that this maintainer(and most others) did his work in his free time, not out of comercial interest, but altruism. You are doing your website out of altruism? I doubt it.

Re: On Being a Free Software Maintainer

#145

Post by detaro »

webmaven wrote: post #120
detaro wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Was the value you found use-value (ie. the software did something useful) or was the value to you more along the lines of "instructional" (ie. you learned something useful from studying it)? Because I've found that use-value often decays (or bit-rots) pretty quickly in unmaintained software, sometimes due to nothing more than changing packaging requirements.

Mixed. I guess most often library code that I integrated into my own projects, often by copy-paste instead of adding the entire project as a dependency. But I also have a folder full of random small utilities that I keep moving between my windows machines, and often is useful for years before it fails (Windows is probably more forgiving in that regard and provides a more long-term stable platform for existing binaries)

Re: On Being a Free Software Maintainer

#146

Post by webmaven »

cerberusss wrote: post #134
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…

Sometimes I open source small libraries. When I get feature requests, I have replied that "if you have a budget, then I'm willing to talk about the price for this feature". Does that fit the level of responsibility you require?

How about bug reports?

Re: On Being a Free Software Maintainer

#147

Post by cerberusss »

webmaven wrote: post #146
cerberusss wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes I open source small libraries. When I get feature requests, I have replied that "if you have a budget, then I'm willing to talk about the price for this feature". Does that fit the level of responsibility you require?

How about bug reports?

I haven't gotten those. I don't think my stuff is heavily used :D

However, I think that bugs would annoy me enough so I'd fix those. But I don't feel obligated. Nowhere do I state any level of support.

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