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What they don't tell you about maintaining an open source project

andrej.sh

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Re: What they don't tell you about maintaining an open source project

#31

Post by SequoiaHope »

For anyone interested in this (and certainly for OP) I highly highly recommend the book Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software by Nadia Eghbal. When I was raising my profile on my open source farming robot, this book really helped me understand the types of projects one might want to foster, how to think about users, and generally gave me very helpful guidance on becoming an open source maintainer!

Take a look: https://press.stripe.com/working-in-public

Re: What they don't tell you about maintaining an open source project

#32

Post by bcrl »

dylan604 wrote: post #24
bcrl wrote: post #18

This is why I like building outside plant. You put the fibre up on poles or pull through ducts, splice it, bring it into the building, hook it up to the equipment, make sure it's working and.... you're done. It works until something breaks, usually for a very clear reason (power outage, drunk driver, rodent, vine, lawnmower man, fibre seeking backhoe, dump truck, direct lightning strike, thermal cycling of a marginal…

You're talking about being a tradesman on a forum dedicated to software and maybe making a company out of said software? If people liked the idea of being outside in the weather, doing manual labor as you've described, there is a very large chance they would not be on this forum.

Most of my career has been in software development. Running an ISP / carrier is more fun as there's more of a variety from day to day (as is the case for anything entrepreneurial) while still involving technical skills. There is a need for with some programming from time to time, but it is usually tied to solving a particular business need.

I'm sure there are other people out there frustrated with the software grind. My point is that change is always an option. There are interesting problems to solve in the world that exist outside of large software projects that most folks here have the required skill sets to tackle.

Re: What they don't tell you about maintaining an open source project

#34

Post by illusive4080 »

mtlynch wrote: post #15

> maintaining kaneo means helping people debug their setups. and honestly? it's taught me more than i expected. > people run kaneo on setups i never imagined: > behind corporate proxies > ... > in kubernetes with custom networking It's OP's project so they're welcome to support whoever they want but I definitely would not offer free support to customers who are obviously using the product commercially, especially in…

I wish. In my company that is an instant no. The amount of legal contracting bull we have to go through for that would quite literally take 9 months.

Re: What they don't tell you about maintaining an open source project

#35

Post by venturecruelty »

Klonoar wrote: post #20
mbirth wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the company wants a proper invoice. And not every single developer is interested in founding a Limited and getting the tax office breathing down their neck every year. Also, look at Gitea. People got paranoid and forked the project after the original author did exactly that.

> But the company wants a proper invoice. And not every single developer is interested in founding a Limited and getting the tax office breathing down their neck every year. I feel like it shouldn't be poor form to say on this site - a site that predominantly has been about building tech companies and revenue streams - to get over it and charge them .

Especially a site that frequently champions, shall we say... more creative forms of running a company in its early stages (like how Spotify started out charging money for pirated music). If it's okay for OpenAI to launder copyright, it's okay for you to send a net-30 PDF to a Fortune 500 company.

Alternatively, people could just stop complaining about it.

Re: What they don't tell you about maintaining an open source project

#36

Post by venturecruelty »

dylan604 wrote: post #24
bcrl wrote: post #18

This is why I like building outside plant. You put the fibre up on poles or pull through ducts, splice it, bring it into the building, hook it up to the equipment, make sure it's working and.... you're done. It works until something breaks, usually for a very clear reason (power outage, drunk driver, rodent, vine, lawnmower man, fibre seeking backhoe, dump truck, direct lightning strike, thermal cycling of a marginal…

You're talking about being a tradesman on a forum dedicated to software and maybe making a company out of said software? If people liked the idea of being outside in the weather, doing manual labor as you've described, there is a very large chance they would not be on this forum.

As we all know, the only real job is writing React web apps.

Re: What they don't tell you about maintaining an open source project

#37

Post by calvinmorrison »

mtlynch wrote: post #15

> maintaining kaneo means helping people debug their setups. and honestly? it's taught me more than i expected. > people run kaneo on setups i never imagined: > behind corporate proxies > ... > in kubernetes with custom networking It's OP's project so they're welcome to support whoever they want but I definitely would not offer free support to customers who are obviously using the product commercially, especially in…

> if you purchase a $500/yr support contract

500/hr more like.

Re: What they don't tell you about maintaining an open source project

#38

Post by timcobb »

mickael-kerjean wrote: post #22
groundzeros2015 wrote: post #4

I don’t understand. It’s your project, you do what you want and nothing more.

Yesterday I received this message from a random github user: "Seriously. No SSO at all in free version? This is poor. Very very greedy and poor" [1] If you do not spend a lot of time explaining things at length, people will link back to how much an asshole you are. [1]: https://github.com/mickael-kerjean/filestash/issues/661#issu...

Ew gross

Re: What they don't tell you about maintaining an open source project

#39

Post by venturecruelty »

mickael-kerjean wrote: post #22
groundzeros2015 wrote: post #4

I don’t understand. It’s your project, you do what you want and nothing more.

Yesterday I received this message from a random github user: "Seriously. No SSO at all in free version? This is poor. Very very greedy and poor" [1] If you do not spend a lot of time explaining things at length, people will link back to how much an asshole you are. [1]: https://github.com/mickael-kerjean/filestash/issues/661#issu...

In the words of Lizzo: "Let 'em say what they gonna say. They gonna feel how they gonna feel." Back in the day, we called this "feeding the trolls", and the advice hasn't changed: ignore them. You don't owe every single person online any part of your short, precious life. Issues have delete buttons (and there are other hosted SCMs besides GitHub). I encourage liberal use thereof.

Re: What they don't tell you about maintaining an open source project

#40

Post by ohyoutravel »

mickael-kerjean wrote: post #22
groundzeros2015 wrote: post #4

I don’t understand. It’s your project, you do what you want and nothing more.

Yesterday I received this message from a random github user: "Seriously. No SSO at all in free version? This is poor. Very very greedy and poor" [1] If you do not spend a lot of time explaining things at length, people will link back to how much an asshole you are. [1]: https://github.com/mickael-kerjean/filestash/issues/661#issu...

I would pull my hair out.
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