Sorry everybody, I failed with you
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Sorry everybody, I failed with you
1–10 of 357 posts
Re: Sorry everybody, I failed with you
#2This may be an obvious point but how can you say you failed when due to the fact that it's open source, anybody could check out the code and start supporting it?
Re: Sorry everybody, I failed with you
#3> ...People want a lot of things from you and your project, big companies are using the project and need a lot of things as well from it in order to keep their projects healthy, but in most of the cases this is a talk in just one way. There are more people interest in have things from you, than help! And this crashed me
If they are all users of your open source software and are begging for features for free, ignore them and focus on yourself. This is why many developers always prioritise paid support or sponsors and the choice of license is also very important.
It's really simple, either the user does the work and contributes the fixes for free (depending on the license) or the user pays for the maintainer to prioritise the work at a cost.
Either way, I will never do free open source work on someone else's deadline and will always do it in my own time. Unless you're willing to pay me to add a feature or support.
Re: Sorry everybody, I failed with you
#4But what did you change, so that you have now time for the project?
Re: Sorry everybody, I failed with you
#5This may be an obvious point but how can you say you failed when due to the fact that it's open source, anybody could check out the code and start supporting it?
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Re: Sorry everybody, I failed with you
#6That's the dark side of open source.
Companies think these projects grow on trees and they use them without paying anything.
We need law changes to ensure that open source can be sustainable and companies pay the fair share of revenue they make by using it.
Re: Sorry everybody, I failed with you
#7Of course it's terrible to become burnt out and it feels awful not having enough time to work on an open source project that you love.
But, is it just me or has it become rarer for open source project maintainers to feel free to let projects go? I don't mean to let them die, I mean, to find like-minded individuals to which you can defer some or all of the work? I realize that as the original author one feels a sense of ownership, but if you want it to continue, and you don't have the time, there is nothing wrong with putting out a call for someone to take over maintainership.
Most projects that I've maintained have been my own work but I've also taken over maintainership from someone on a popular project, and it was a great experience. I got to work with a good code base, add my own ideas, offer some direction, and I learned a lot about maintaining code for longevity, integrating community contributions, and I cared about it probably more than I have for much of my own work, because I felt that I owed it to the original author to do a good job.
Now, several years later, I do not use it myself as much, and I am perfectly ready to find a new maintainer for it, should someone appropriate come along. (That hasn't happened but the project no longer takes a lot of my time. since new solutions have come along, so it's fine. If it did take more time, it would mean there were more users, and therefore probably there would be more interested parties in taking over maintainership.)
I encourage authors and maintainers who are feeling they are reaching this burnout stage to feel more comfortable putting out requests for help, it can be a good experience and even encourage community building around your work. You don't have to be a BDFL, you can be a temporary one.
Re: Sorry everybody, I failed with you
#8This may be an obvious point but how can you say you failed when due to the fact that it's open source, anybody could check out the code and start supporting it?
It's a common thing that a person imagines that he's responsible for something, can't keep up with it and finally feels himself failed, despite the fact that he wasn't really responsible in the first place. But it's still a source of misery and disappointment. I guess, it takes some time to understand what's the real responsibilities are and what's the imaginary responsibilities are. I agree that putting some code public with open source license does not bind author to any kind of responsibility and any continued work from him is just a charity to the world which he can stop providing at any time. If someone needs more guarantees, he can pay author or any other person (if code is open source) to provide those guarantees.
Re: Sorry everybody, I failed with you
#9Of course it's terrible to become burnt out and it feels awful not having enough time to work on an open source project that you love. But, is it just me or has it become rarer for open source project maintainers to feel free to let projects go? I don't mean to let them die, I mean, to find like-minded individuals to which you can defer some or all of the work? I realize that as the original author one feels a sense…
I think part of the worry of handing projects over stems from a couple of fairly high-profile events when projects were handed over to theoretically trust-worthy people who went rogue and used them as a platform for malware or spear phishing.
Suddenly, even just relinquishing control can be a bad thing for the community.
Re: Sorry everybody, I failed with you
#10That's the dark side of open source. Companies think these projects grow on trees and they use them without paying anything. We need law changes to ensure that open source can be sustainable and companies pay the fair share of revenue they make by using it.
How do you estimate a share? What's the share of libc in Google business? What's the share of openssl? What's the share of ncurses?