Nolan Lawson

Being an open-source maintainer is really hard. A lot of people tend to act very entitled towards you, as if you "owe" them your time or your attention.

It's totally illogical: you put something out there for free, and now because of that, folks feel like they deserve more of it! And yet this is often the prevailing mood in OSS communities.

At the same time, you may start to believe this logic yourself, leading to "open-source guilt." This often ends in burnout.

Jan 20, 2018 at 7:00pmWeb
Show threadNolan LawsonJan 20, 2018

Here's a pattern I've often seen in open-source communities:

1. The maintainer(s) propose removing some piece of existing functionality, arguing that it's not useful enough to justify the maintenance costs.

2. A vocal minority protests, because *they* use that thing, or they think others may use it.

3. This minority is totally unmoved by the argument that the thing in question increases maintenance costs, because they don't pay the costs of maintenance.

4. *argument ensues*

Show threadNolan LawsonJan 20, 2018

I saw this happen in one community where the maintainers waffled for years and years, before the lead maintainer finally stepped in and said they was going to remove the functionality because it was effectively unmaintained anyway, and if the vocal minority still wanted it, they should just fork the project.

The thread got absolutely nasty. People accused the maintainer of all sorts of malfeasance. But of course, nobody stepped up to offer to maintain the code. So it got removed.

Show threadNolan LawsonJan 20, 2018

In short, I wish more people had empathy for open-source maintainers and tried to understand things from their point of view. I wrote this post to try to articulate my own feelings as I began to spiral towards my own burnout: https://nolanlawson.com/2017/03/05/what-it-feels-like-to-be-an-open-source-maintainer/

After I wrote that post, I was contacted by dozens of open-source maintainers who told me I captured exactly how they felt. So hopefully it stands as a good insight for anyone trying to understand the mind of an open-source maintainer.

What it feels like to be an open-source maintainer

Outside your door stands a line of a few hundred people. They are patiently waiting for you to answer their questions, complaints, pull requests, and feature requests. You want to help all of them,…

Read the Tea Leaves
Show threadNolan LawsonJan 20, 2018

I also got some follow-up posts from other folks in the community, trying to give me advice on how not to burn out:

- https://medium.com/@mikeal/time-to-leave-a68294ccb2af
- http://writing.jan.io/2017/03/06/sustainable-open-source-the-maintainers-perspective-or-how-i-learned-to-stop-caring-and-love-open-source.html

Ultimately, I followed Mikeal's advice and left the project. I was too burned out by that point.

Time to leave. - Mikeal Rogers - Medium

Nolan Lawson wrote a great piece about what it’s like to be a maintainer of successful open source projects. Nothing that I’ll say here is a contradiction of what Nolan has said. Nolan nailed a lot…

Medium
Show threadNolan LawsonJan 20, 2018

Here are some other great talks/posts on the subject of open-source guilt and maintainer burnout:

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIDb6VBO9os
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqcuzSwySR4
- https://www.michaelbromley.co.uk/blog/why-i-havent-fixed-your-issue-yet/
- http://thejameskyle.com/dear-javascript.html

dotJS 2012 - Fat - What Is Open Source & Why Do I Feel So Guilty?

YouTube
Show threadNolan LawsonJan 20, 2018
To conclude this thread: please don't treat open-source maintainers as the goose who laid the golden egg. They don't owe you anything. If they tell you it's too much work to maintain some piece of functionality, either offer to maintain it yourself or support them in their decision.
Show threadNolan LawsonJan 20, 2018
Open-source software can be a huge mental burden on those who write it, but it also adds some incredible beauty and value to the world. It's a rare kind of software that tends to be an expression of someone's passion rather than the goals of some corporation or organization. Let's make sure there's more of it in the world.
Show threadmicitommJan 20, 2018
@nolan so. what to do? new law? or better some GNU implementation !
Show threadNathan SchneiderJan 21, 2018
@nolan As someone who uses it extensively and gratefully, thank you to all those who put their time and energy into building it. Let's also make sure that more people from more backgrounds with more rationales can participate in creating it.
Show threadJzeroJan 21, 2018

@nolan Here are some thoughts on this general topic from one of our resident tech guys:

http://www.geo.coop/blog/belated-thoughts-peer-production-and-solidarity-economics-implications

The nut:

"Without a viable economic and political model that provides for the "employment" (compensation) of the Open Source Software developers at large, the Peer Production game is very much a playground of the bureaucratic-industrial complex."

Belated Thoughts on Peer Production and its Implications for Solidarity Economics | Grassroots Economic Organizing

Show threadIvan Sagalaev Jan 20, 2018
@nolan thanks for saying all that. It doesn't get said often enough.
Show threadHugh MessengerJan 21, 2018
@nolan a thousand times, this! I'm lucky enough to make a living from my open source project. Not much of a living, but for the last decade I've been able to work from home as my own boss. But it's a grind.
Show threadDownes 🍁Jan 21, 2018
@nolan interesting article. Well worth the read. I don't think this is an issue unique to open source. Volunteer burn-out is a problem across domains. So I think the feelings you have will resonate outside the oss community.
Show threadmDfRgJan 20, 2018
@nolan
Since it Foss,they can just pick where maintainers left and fork, can't they?
Show threadagony🐺Jan 20, 2018

@nolan
I believe it should work the other way around.

You put something out there for everyone to use and you're the one who deserves that those benefiting from it collaborate in the extend they're able to.

I feel like it's the least we can do in exchange for the time and effort developers put into it.

Show threadChrisFixedKittyJan 20, 2018

@nolan Sorry you're hit with this. It's one of the reasons that I dropped podcasting very early on when chronic illness overhauled my life. No, I cannot have a sucking wound in my time/creative energy supply. Particularly when MORE was 99% of the response I got from the void.

So, Thank you. Thank you for creating and maintaining this thing that makes us all a little less alone in our respective geographic places. For making me less alone when I can't leave the house. This really does help. Thx.

Show threadMr. BombasticJan 20, 2018

@nolan I may just be a stupid noob here. But I also think that a lot of people who feel entitled do this because they are not able to program, themselvs. So sucking up to maintainers is the only way in their world to get some "free software".

However. If they could learn to program. They would be able to create programs exactly the way they need them to function.

Show threadpenduinJan 20, 2018
@nolan i'm happy to say i have had mostly very good experiences. constructive bug reports, patches, patient fellow enthusiasts. but my projects are pretty niche; i imagine the more general-interest something is, the higher percent of its users are unhelpful and/or jerks.
#GoHumanityGo
Show threadGNUDufferJan 20, 2018
@nolan Thanks for sharing. These are really good thoughts.
Show threadErick Ruiz de Chavez 🇲🇽🇺🇸Jan 21, 2018

@nolan 100% related.

I saw this talk 2 years ago, https://youtu.be/PlagRkD4e8s

11. The Social Coding Contract - Justin Searls

YouTube
Show threadmindshaftJan 21, 2018
@nolan just know your boundaries, people just stay in your lane. Thanks for sharing your work. Where can I send a donation to by you a cup of coffee?
Show threadNolan LawsonJan 21, 2018
@mindshaft I'm okay, but thanks! :) Eugen has a Patreon though if you want to support Mastodon development: https://www.patreon.com/mastodon
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Show threadmnemeJan 22, 2018
@nolan I think the same is true for con-running.
Show threadKlaske Wijkstra 🌻Jan 25, 2018
@nolan Open source should be paid well.
Show threadmoving to [email protected]Feb 5, 2018
@nolan  maybe you could tell them: Free Software is about being free from corporations and business, rather than about technical perfection. And there is no "professional" and no "customer", and bugs may be fixed when you feel like it :-)