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Open source projects should run office hours

simonwillison.net

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Re: Open source projects should run office hours

#121

Post by GordonS »

whizzter wrote: post #114
matkoniecz wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I referred specifically to the title in my comment. It is part of things personally irritating to me, and something what is biggest threat to small open source projects that I like. People are mistaken in thinking that having an open source project implies any obligation beyond lack of malice. And people tired by dealing with that are one of top reason why open source projects disappear or are never created.

The title is kinda unclear for someone non-English/US, for me office hours only means the actual hours when things are worked on (rather than any kind of availability time). So skimming the title it quickly I read it as "Open source projects should run on office hours" since my mind filled that in, kinda implied that someone in another part of the world should adjust their life hours to contribute to OSS. (Yes after…

I am a native speaker (well, Scottish, so some may disagree ;), and I didn't get the title either. Maybe it's an American thing, by "office hours" to me means 9-5, local time - you know, the kind of hours that people typically work in an office.

Re: Open source projects should run office hours

#122

Post by KDJohnBrown »

akavel wrote: post #100
coliveira wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're completely right. However, I notice a change in behavior in developers during the last decade. They view open source as an extension of their duties as software developers, i.e., something that they have to do. Following this point of view, they consider that working on a project brings commitments as if they were in a paid job, and started projecting this belief on others. I think this is very disturbing.

You may have gotten this in reverse direction: it's rather that users of open-source software often desire support, and sometimes speak about it, and developers then tend to have hard time managing psychological boundaries with regards to answering that desire/expectation. Which is generally a nontrivial thing between people in any relation.

Interesting historical note, this is how Chef was born.

Adam Jacobs of Chef was running a Puppet consulting company (hjksolutions). He ran into a bug (#1010) that he couldn’t solve and used up a ton of Luke’s time. Luke worked hard on it but couldn’t reproduce it and after devoting a week or two on it told Adam that he was the only one with this problem and would need to pay him as a consultant for any further effort.

Adam was (is) an incredibly pushy jerk and demanded that Luke, who wasn’t making a penny off of Puppet, put his life on hold to fix this for Adam’s customers.

Luke basically said “fuck you, pay me” so Adam started Chef (a billion dollar company).

User’s sense of entitlement is powerful.

Re: Open source projects should run office hours

#123

Post by pbowyer »

stevoski wrote: post #77
haskal wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought "office hours" is a common term in universities?

I went to University in Australia and I don’t recall this term being in use. (Could be my faulty memory, though. It was a long time ago!) I’m still a little puzzled by exactly what is meant when people and orgs offer an “office hours” concept. I’d love a clear but concise definition that’s not simply “like office hours in university”.

I went to university in the UK 20 years ago.

A few of our lecturers had "office hours". It was a new phrase, and invariably they were younger and had worked in US universities. We could drop in between 3 and 5 one day a week to ask questions.

We thought them snooty.

The other faculty staff had an open door policy.

Now I'm their age, I appreciate how sticking to office hours helped these researchers to be productive. But as a student, open door flet more friendly.

Re: Open source projects should run office hours

#124

Post by excolleague »

It is unfair to propose this as a general idea when you're literally paid by a company to do whatever you want to do and work on your side projects on company time.

Not all open source maintainers are this lucky (or reached such a great level of success such as Simon in this case).

Most open source maintainers have real product obligations inside their companies and either have little company time for this or have to do it entirely in their own time. Scheduling office hours seems like a luxury in these situations.

Re: Open source projects should run office hours

#125

Post by corobo »

This but get it done in one. Get into live-streaming! The benefits of this office hours concept but with the potential for subscribers to the meeting-as-content.

It's not an easy run don't get me wrong, but it's gotta be easy than using up 25 minutes per person. Open source? Open meeting!

Grab yourself a copy of OBS. Get on Twitch/YouTube!

E: made it sound less of an ad? Idk that's the quickest I've ever been downvoted here haha. I watch open source coders stream once a week to like 200-400 people if the concept sounds bollocks.. That translates to beyond ramen for your Silicon Valley types and actual cost of living in other places :)

Re: Open source projects should run office hours

#126

Post by TeMPOraL »

EE84M3i wrote: post #44
thunderbong wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like you're drawing conclusions from the title, which I also did! Per the article, he's not saying you should work on the project during office hours. Instead, to get feedback from users, he's allocating some time where users can have a talk with him about the project. He's calling that 'Office Hours'. I think that it's a really valuable suggestion.

I don't understand what you're saying. How is time spent gathering feedback from users not time spent working on the project?

The article describes a practice for gathering feedback for your project: announce a set time when people can get on a call with you for a few minutes and discuss your project. The author calls this "office hours".

It's a useful piece of advice for people who are in need of such feedback, and can afford to block off a bit of time on their schedule on a regular basis. It doesn't apply to everyone, but it's a good trick if it does apply to you.

Re: Open source projects should run office hours

#127

Post by DocTomoe »

_0o6v wrote: post #119

I look forward to hearing how the mother who has kids to look after, and already has to work far beyond working hours to satisfy psychotic hiring practices focussing on algorithm knowledge and open source contributions, can then afford more time to do "office hours" with people using the software she has BUILT AND PROVIDED FOR FREE. Alternatively: Tech Bros go ahead!

I would suggest that you read the article. This is not about locking you down, this is about the benefits of opening a more direct communications channel with your users.

Generally, communication with your users is a good idea, because it gives you insights in how your tools are being used, and gives you a chance to - by asking the right questions - improve your code, and your relationship with the community.

It is about building and applying soft skills.

Your full-time-working, full-time learning, open-source-contributing mother of several children may choose not to do so. Or maybe she can cut some time from the full-time learning and train her people skills, and make her open source product better. Because in the end, a well-run, useful OSS portfolio helps building reputation that is more useful in a hiring situation than deep knowledge about the shortfalls of the Dijkstra algorithm for edge cases.

Re: Open source projects should run office hours

#128

Post by opk »

johannes1234321 wrote: post #68
haskal wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought "office hours" is a common term in universities?

It is a common term in different areas, however not everybody here comes from an English speaking country and is knowing all English terms. For many English is second or third language.

In this case, you need to be American to make sense of this. And possibly you need to have been to a US university. Took me years of seeing people put a confusing number 101 on the end of guides on blogs or whatever before I realised that meant introduction to Americans.

Re: Open source projects should run office hours

#129

Post by smashah »

imhoguy wrote: post #79
anonytrary wrote: post #32

OSS devs rely on donations, but office hours would be a great paid service. The demand for OSS is so high, depending on the centrality of your library, you could easily charge $10-$100 an hour for this. People always expect free Github replies and responses to PRs and issues. But it is almost taboo to expect free consultation and office hours. Great way to make some money if you have developed a popular library!

Does anyone have an experience to share how to organize such paid support session online and get paid?

You can use a platform like otechie. There people are required to put in their card details before starting a conversation. This is what I do with open-wa (https://github.com/open-wa/wa-automate-nodejs#support)

Because I sell license keys to unlock features, it allows me to provide generalized support and quick bug fixes via the discord for everyone for free. If people need help with integration in their specific code base then that's when I ask them to go through the "consulting route" - if it's quick they use otechie. If it's more involved (1+ days) then we work out a contract arrangement.

I hardly get any clients through these means but it does put a clear value on my time which results in the community appreciating the time and effort into the project and the real time support (via discord).

Re: Open source projects should run office hours

#130

Post by loosescrews »

I used to work on a reasonably sized open source project (10k+ stars on GitHub). We held approximately monthly office hours on Zoom. Very few people ever came to them. I think the average was less than one person.

And no, I don't think the issue was that no one had any questions. We got plenty of questions via Gitter chat, mailing lists and GitHub issues. We advertised the office hours on the same Gitter chat and mailing lists too.

We also tried moving the time around to various times of the day, also with minimal effect on attendance.

The only thing we had any success with at all was convincing a few larger users to give short presentations on what they were doing with the project and what their pain points were. When we did this, that user would come, but few other, non-project members would come.

I still really like the idea, but I am not sure that the open source community really wants office hours.

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