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The Rust project has a burnout problem

jyn.dev

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Re: The Rust project has a burnout problem

#61

Post by jynelson »

PoignardAzur wrote: post #49

I've recently been contracted to do some open-source work in the Rust ecosystem, and this article feels like a warning from my future self to me. I'll make sure to heed it. > “it won’t get done if i don’t do it” and “i need to review everything or stuff will slip through” is exactly the mindset of my own burnout from rust. I've already caught myself getting into this mindset a few times. For one particular issue, I g…

yes, there are lots of things you can do to get work done that don't involve you personally writing the code. i would like to write a post about that at some point but i have at least 3 blog ideas up in the air currently so it might take a while

Re: The Rust project has a burnout problem

#62

Post by berkes »

sph wrote: post #44
markphip wrote: post #3

This is a good description of what life is like working on almost any significant open source project. The only thing not included was the comments from overly entitled users that saps whatever morale and energy you have left. Probably best he did not include that though as that is what all discussion would be about. I am not sure what to do about the burnout problem. The way he described it is very on point though.…

> This is a good description of what life is like working on almost any significant open source project. Open contributions project. An open source project does not necessarily have to accept random contributions, issues or hatemail from the general public. [1] They just need to make the source available with a permissive licence, period. I believe that Linux with its idiosyncrasies in its communication model (mailin…

I strongly believe GitHub has the same dynamics as most "big tech social media". Where anything that drives "engagement" gets prioritized. From algorithms that make alt-right/neo-nazi's more visible because the controversy drives "eyeballs" to features that are removed or never implemented because they would lower engagement.

I'm confident that GitHub has a good prediction on what will happen if they roll out features that lower the burden of maintaining a FLOSS repo. And am rather certain that several of these features also lower the engagement. And therefore will not be implemented. In other words: the needs and goals of GitHub/MSFT and those of Open Source maintainers don't align perfectly. Yet the power balance is way off, so open Source maintainers will experience pain to a level that they almost walk away in great numbers.

Re: The Rust project has a burnout problem

#63

Post by hannofcart »

What's not clear to me from the post is, is the author talking about just the rust-lang projects?

Isn't this a characteristic of active contributors of many (or I daresay, most) large open source projects?

I am not an active contributor to any big OS project but whenever I stumble across the Github issues sections for one of them, they are full of "by when can we expect to see this fixed?" kind of questions.

Re: The Rust project has a burnout problem

#64

Post by seagreen »

sph wrote: post #44
markphip wrote: post #3

This is a good description of what life is like working on almost any significant open source project. The only thing not included was the comments from overly entitled users that saps whatever morale and energy you have left. Probably best he did not include that though as that is what all discussion would be about. I am not sure what to do about the burnout problem. The way he described it is very on point though.…

> This is a good description of what life is like working on almost any significant open source project. Open contributions project. An open source project does not necessarily have to accept random contributions, issues or hatemail from the general public. [1] They just need to make the source available with a permissive licence, period. I believe that Linux with its idiosyncrasies in its communication model (mailin…

> Open contributions project.

That's a useful distinction and a good term.

So in total projects can be classified as:

    - Source available or not
    - Open source or not (a subset of source available)
    - Open contributions or not (also a subset of source available)
    - BDFL or community driven
That's a lot of variation and may explain why so many conversations about open source sound like people are talking past each other-- they're talking about different kinds of projects!

PS: Regarding:

> 1: Yet hell will freeze over before Github lets maintainers turn off the PR tab which would lessen this problem a bit.

I wish there was a standardized way of declaring this, I always feel so awkward writing the "no PRs" disclaimer on my toy projects.

Re: The Rust project has a burnout problem

#65

Post by jynelson »

tristor wrote: post #51
oaiey wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only open source. Also anyone taking ownership in companies end up like that. The difference is: The person gets paid and is ideally not emotional involved.

Unfortunately, people who take ownership and accountability are often the same people that take pride in their work, which means they aren’t emotionally detached. As long as you're emotionally attached to your work, burnout is a real risk whether you get paid or not. Ironically, the solution from my perspective is the opposite of most advice. It’s not for everyone to become drudging zombies apathetic about their work…

i think this is partially true, but i hesitate to call people zombies. the vast majority of people in the rust project are competent and engaged. the problem is they have different priorities and collaboration is hard when everything is bottom up. i have some more thoughts on this here: https://tech.lgbt/@jyn/111771440884089084

Re: The Rust project has a burnout problem

#66

Post by bombcar »

Waterluvian wrote: post #42
markphip wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I should have clarified, I meant I am not sure what an OSS Project can do about it. I think this ultimately has to be managed by the OSS contributor.

Ah yes. I wonder if an OSS project should set forth a time budget in some way? Hard to “enforce” though. And goes counter to wanting contributors to feel free to contribute on their terms.

The best I’ve seen is have additional contributors (often who just like the project but aren’t coders themselves) who run interference for the dev team. They can triage feature requests, filter out the spam and repeat issues, etc.

Also, and this can be the hard part, is sometimes you have to have someone who (even politely!) can be a bit of a dick when necessary. People scan be quite entitled and want to boss everyone around and tell them the project is run wrong - if you don’t actively run at least some of them off the devs will curl up and disappear.

Also having a defined procedure for “hiatus” helps quite a bit - make it easy for a dev to say “I’m off” and it can be indeterminate - this allows them to easily come back later. Encourage devs to use it liberally.

Re: The Rust project has a burnout problem

#67

Post by medo-bear »

> if you are paid to work on rust, you likely started as an unpaid contributor and got the job later. treat it like a job now. do not work overtime; do not volunteer at every turn; do not work on things far outside your job description.

But if I don't work overtime how can I rewrite everything in Rust?

Re: The Rust project has a burnout problem

#69

Post by test77777g »

PoignardAzur wrote: post #37
cjs_ac wrote: post #4

> the best way to help the project is to keep contributing for it for years. to do that, you have to avoid burning out, which means you have to treat yourself well. When I was a schoolteacher, the way I expressed this is that you have to do the job in such a way today that you're capable of doing it again tomorrow. This did not go down well and I am no longer a teacher.

I have a teacher friend who I've been pushing to adopt this mindset. She had a burnout last year because she kept putting off taking care of her health problems because she didn't want to miss a single day. Safety first, people. Take care of yourselves.

[flagged]

Re: The Rust project has a burnout problem

#70

Post by Loxicon »

markphip wrote: post #3

This is a good description of what life is like working on almost any significant open source project. The only thing not included was the comments from overly entitled users that saps whatever morale and energy you have left. Probably best he did not include that though as that is what all discussion would be about. I am not sure what to do about the burnout problem. The way he described it is very on point though.…

If I understand you properly, in the mailing list days, did EVERYONE get the email when someone sent in patches?
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