21 ms·

Why we never thank open source maintainers

382 points by Windson 9y ago

brepl 9y ago
Some people, rightly or wrongly, feel that their use of an open source library is endorsement and thanks enough, at least until you meet the maintainer in person or have other cause to be in contact with them.
- xstartup 9y ago
  Yes, I believe it's net positive for a project because I tell other what I am using and they get interested, this helps a project get more mindshare and some of them will eventually contribute.
donpark 9y ago
Thanking is beneficial mentally to the thanker. Do it for yourself.
AdmiralAsshat 9y ago
Interestingly, I tried asking this on Reddit once, and the majority of replies indicated they didn't want a thank-you letter: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/71fupc/foss_developers_would_you_like_to_receive_a/ https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/71fupc/foss_develope...
- JetSetWilly 9y ago
  It seems like they didn't want a form letter, ie thoughtless spam. They seemed OK with getting personal thank-yous where the writer put some effort into it.
greysteil 9y ago
Great post. Amazing what a big difference a simple "thank you" can make, and surely helps reduce burnout.
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naturalgradient 9y ago
As the maintainer of a reasonably popular library, I actually get irritated by a lot of 'thanks', because they are in the form of this sentence: 'Hi, can you implement <Feature that takes a month of work>? Thanks!' Usually from people who have never contributed anything. Honestly, being thanked in any shape or form does nothing for me, Id rather have users be more considerate of our time and not abuse issues and the community for supporting their laziness.
- Windson 9y ago
  I'm agreed. That's not the thanks we need. That just an excuse to ask people for help just like lots of stackoverflow questions. However, not everyone is maintaining a popular library. So I think some kind word may help them to make their library popular.
- notzorbo3 9y ago
  Ways I deal with this as an open source maintainer of various projects: 1. Severely restrict the scope of the project (i.e. do one thing and do it well) 2. Don't feel guilty about saying "no" 3. Realize that people have no malicious intent or are lazy when they request <feature X that takes two months>. It's just like a normal customer in a business: they often have no idea of the cost and difficulties in implementing things. That's okay, it's my duty to inform them of that. 4. Refuse pull requests for features that I don't feel like maintaining. I always try to keep people from wasting their time and ask them to confer before implementing a feature. I don't feel animosity towards people who (even rudely) request such things. But they can expect a short reply in the form of "I'm sorry, that feature is outside the scope of the project / is going to take too much of my time."
  - arca_vorago 9y ago
    I very much agree with your first point, largely because, would you fancy that, that's the original *nix philosophy.
  - groue 9y ago
    I agree. Sometimes, I explain that the feature request can be implemented, but not for free. I flag such issues with the "needs sponsoring" tag.
notzorbo3 9y ago
> It is true that some of you guys can build a tool in a hackathon I've kept some data on how much time I've spent on a somewhat popular open source project (+/-1000 stars on github, if that means anything). Time to implement to scratch my own itch: +/- 24 hours Time to write documentation, package, etc: +/- 70 hours Time to handle bug and feature requests, support: +560 hours So that's an overhead of around 2500%. If I was paid to do that, it would have cost around €130,000.- (and would have netted me around €5, because dutch taxes ;-) ) The emails and other forms of thank-you's from users make it more than worth it. Plus, I get to give back to the community.
- chrisper 9y ago
  I'd also say that if you are not paid you approach the work differently. Like you can take your time with certain things maybe. A lot less stress, I'd imagine. (Depends on the project obviously. If you get yelled at by Linus, you probably should be more careful!)
  - notzorbo3 9y ago
    True, but expectations are sometimes also higher. Documentation etc has to be of good quality. Packaging. Stuff like that. There's really no comparing it with a paid job IMHO. It's more fun i'd say.
- StavrosK 9y ago
  What do you do that you charge 200 eur/hr?
  - notzorbo3 9y ago
    Thats the fee for my part-time freelance consulting. 200 is on the low end.
    - StavrosK 9y ago
      Huh, I'm way undercharging.
speps 9y ago
BTW this is actually to promote this: http://www.thankyouopensource.com/ http://www.thankyouopensource.com/ Putting the link here might make it more obvious.
- rekado 9y ago
  It's a pity that this website is exclusively for repositories on Github and thus contributes to the harmful idea that free software only exists when it is on Github.
  - Windson 9y ago
    We will add other platforms later.
  - srtjstjsj 9y ago
    eh, github is hosted git, it costs approximately nothing to export your project to github, and it's a great way to "market" your project.
    - rekado 9y ago
      There is a systemic cost: the cumulative effect of encouraging the expectation to find things on Github. It also costs time to maintain an additional remote if you want to interact with potential contributors. Using Github only to say "hey, don't forget about this piece of software that you shouldn't be looking for on Github" is a terrible habit as it artificially inflates the importance of Github for Free Software and ... we already have search engines for that kind of thing.
rsync 9y ago
Anytime I find a very useful tool[1] or get help from a maintainer or author I always offer them a lifetime, free rsync.net account. A fair number of them have taken me up on it. [1] Some examples of useful tools include: TextBar for OSX, git-annex assistant ... someone wrote a great encfs tutorial ... etc.
- notzorbo3 9y ago
  That's an awesome way to reward people! I've gotten offers for money, but actually getting to money to me is more of a hassle than it's worth, so I just decline.
  - stanmancan 9y ago
    Not sure what your market is but given where we are, accepting bitcoin would probably be easy :)
  - davidjnelson 9y ago
    What makes receiving money difficult?
    - jakobegger 9y ago
      Not the OP, but if you run a business, you must be very careful to correctly declare all your income, make sure you invoice properly, pay taxes, etc. Just because soneone “donates” money, it doesn’t mean that you don’t have to pay taxes. So in general it only pays off if it is above a threshold. If a company offers to donate 2000€, I would find a way to make it work. But if it’s just a one off donation of 10€, I’d rather not bother my accountant with it.
    - notzorbo3 9y ago
      Not being in the US, not trusting PayPal and wanting absolutely nothing to do with any kind of blockchain currency. It's interesting that we have much simpler payment methods available in the EU, but apparently EU people don't like to pay for things.
- 9y ago
inglor 9y ago
Actually, in all projects I've been involved in I've gotten more than enough thank you emails. Not to mention hooks for consulting gigs (which I dislike and _rarely_ do), conference invites and job offers. Open source has been _tremendously_ cost-effective for me. I do it for fun and because I genuinely like building open tools people like using. This is me https://github.com/benjamingr https://github.com/benjamingr https://stackoverflow.com/users/1348195/benjamin-gruenbaum https://stackoverflow.com/users/1348195/benjamin-gruenbaum - I have done some work but there are _a lot_ of people who have made bigger contributions than me. Wondering if other people feel the same way or not. I _do_ give around ~30$ a month on patreon to projects I like just as a nice "thank you for maintaining this".
- amelius 9y ago
  > conference invites and job offers. Don't we all get spammed by these, regardless of where we work? Also, conference invites usually cost money rather than return money.
  - inglor 9y ago
    Conference speaking invites usually cover the hotel and flight fares (in all honesty, I couldn't really afford attending otherwise). Some conferences also offer to do paid workshops which are a big factor too.
    - ghaff 9y ago
      Both you and the parent are right. A lot of conferences will cover your main travel costs for a speaking invite. But there are often other travel-associated costs so it's usually not really free if it's out of your own pocket. Conference speaking is often worth it if it's effectively part of your job that someone else is paying for or (selectively) if the exposure for marketing yourself is worth it.
- billmalarky 9y ago
  Thanks for working on bluebird, it's a great library :-)
mosselman 9y ago
I interpreted the title as 'We have the policy not to thank maintainers of open source tools. Here is why.' glad it was quite the opposite.
SadWebDeveloper 9y ago
I think maintainers would definitely love more some monetary support rather than just a thank you, specially those doing it in their free time (since some maintainers of big open source projects are well established paid employees).
- wolfgke 9y ago
  The problem is that it is hard to transfer money over the internet. I just wanted to know what bureaucratic hurdles one has to jump in Germany to even be able to receive donations on your webpage. I don't want to go into the gory details, but just come with something that I say for years very often: The surest way to become a terrorist very fast is to read up into law. And this is only for being legally able to receive and not about the taxation issues that arise when you concretely receive donations. Also in countries there are lots of preferred ways on the methods for money transfer. For example in Germany many people don't want to use a credit card and prefer SEPA money transfer/direct debit for paying in the internet. Yes, of course one could use some fancy cryptocurrency, but the legal/taxation issues remain.
  - jb55 9y ago
    > Yes, of course one could use some fancy cryptocurrency I paid a bug bounty to someone in Germany from Canada with Bitcoin. I guess I'm a terrorist now.
    - wolfgke 9y ago
      I don't know much about Canadian law, so I cannot say that you did a criminal act. But I would wager that the receiver (accidentally!) did tax fraud, since the legal situation around taxation of Bitcoin payments in Germany is not really clear. I can nearly say for sure that if he is not a professional who specializes in international taxation laws (or at least has access to an expert in this area) he probably did a criminal act (which does not imply that he will be prosecuted etc.). Also I would bet he did something wrong in the accounting of these donation (which can easily happen, since there are so many formal details to consider - do something wrong and you are in trouble). Again a source for big legal trouble. This will rarely be prosecuted, but is nearly always a sword of Damocles.
ddevault 9y ago
Chiming in as a maintainer who gets lots of thanks. Typically they're genuine. I get thanked 3-5 times a week with no strings attached. It definitely helps me want to do more! I actually use it as a gauge for which projects to spend more time on.
chrisdone 9y ago
I have a bunch of open source projects; I'm getting quite good at giving my projects new homes because I don't want to maintain them anymore. Speaking for myself, thanks is fine but I don't need it; thanks doesn't do anything for burnout. People using my software is enough thanks. The biggest thanks is someone contributing a useful bug fix or needed feature. Time and effort is the currency in open source.
mangix 9y ago
This reminds me of the Linux kernel build bot. Hi X, I love your patch! Yet something to improve:
j_ereth 9y ago
Just want to say thank you for that article.
throwaway0071 9y ago
Let's not forget companies that provide free services to open source projects.
- celeritascelery 9y ago
  Such as?
  - saganus 9y ago
    I believe Netlify[0] does that, and I've heard of others but can't remember right now. Edited to add a link [0]https://www.netlify.com/open-source/ https://www.netlify.com/open-source/
  - davidjnelson 9y ago
    Jetbrains offers free intellij licenses for open source. Sauce Labs and Browserstack offer free selenium vm’s for open source too.
jasonmaydie 9y ago
I thought maintainers did it because they are passionate, not because they are being forced to.
- emh68 9y ago
  It's mostly a plus for their resumes.
hellow42 9y ago
Went to try it and couldn't write at least 300 characters so I filled with line breaks thinking it would be removed when displayed. Sorry if I made the front page a bit messy!
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louthy 9y ago
As a maintainer of a relatively successful open source project [1], I find I get a lot of thanks. Yes, it usually comes attached to an issue or a question, but there's not really an easier avenue to just say "thanks" either. So it doesn't bother me too much. The thank you that comes attached to issues does make me more inclined to help quicker, because I just feel the person is being polite and respectful of the effort. [1] https://github.com/louthy/language-ext https://github.com/louthy/language-ext
bnastic 9y ago
It’s such an unfortunate word to use, “maintainer”... Sounds like a thing that had reached its full potential long ago and the “maintainer” is there to keep it on the road in one piece, for a while yet. It’ll never get better, it’s only ever downhill from there. (Admittedly, that does describe a certain %age of open source projects).
- srtjstjsj 9y ago
  That's exactly the maintainer's job. To keep it alive while the world is changing, so the software can continue delivering value. The maintainer might also be a developer, or other people might be developers, or possibly no one is developing that project.
andrew_ 9y ago
Thanks for a nice writeup. Now please add some open graph sugar to your markup so I can share it with a nice preview. :)
mtnygard 9y ago
Why does the author refer to the site as an NGO? Is this in the sense of "Non-governmental Organization?" If so, it seems like an odd thing to emphasize. If not, what is the correct expansion of that TLA?
Feniks 9y ago
Fine. Shout out to everyone who worked on ublock origin and the filters. Doing God's work, death to advertising.
sigzero 9y ago
I received a lot of help when I was implementing mailman from Mark Shapiro a few years back. I asked what I could do in thanks and he pointed me to his public Amazon wish list. I purchased something off of that for him. I try to make sure I am thanking people for their work that I am benefitting from.
tomxor 9y ago
I thank authors and maintainers and I expect others do too. I just don't do it publicly. I've thanked authors of small projects which are unique and useful to me just by dropping a short email (not en masse) - Not out of some obligation, but because it's an encouraging thing to receive. I want them to know someone is finding utility in what they have done and appreciates it enough to tell them. I don't think the larger projects are in need of this though, it would just become noise. This is probably just the cynical misanthrope in me speaking but I can't help but think it looks more like a popularity contest when it's public like this... not that i'm suggesting it could be done any other way for large projects, but then, who is going to read all of them if it's a large project?
- hartator 9y ago
  I maintain a fairly popular repository, and it does brighten my day when I receive an email like this! Unfortunately, you are getting more random malformated issues (ie. “DOESN’T WORK. WHEN FIX”) than thanks!
  - dictum 9y ago
    Sometimes even a well-formatted, respectful issue feels like a thank you.
    - anarazel 9y ago
      > Sometimes even a well-formatted, respectful issue feels like a thank you. Very much so. I like if people find actual issues in software I helped write and report them. At least if there's some information to go on, or friendly asks for pointers what information to provide. It's the "BROKEN! NEED FIX URGENTLY" without further information that's insulting. I'm even OK with somebody expressing urgency, as long as it's clear they're willing to invest enough time themselves.
  - tomxor 9y ago
    Please don't feel disheartened by those types of issues. They seem to pop up on all kinds of projects after some threshold of popularity. I haven't originated any popular repos myself, but of the few I have contributed to, these types of issues can be quite common. One of the projects is a math library and a swear 1/2 issues are people discovering for the first time how floating point math behaves and complaining profusely that it's the authors fault. If you can gain some contributors to help you do the weeding in your issues list it can help with your sanity greatly. This is one feature that I wish hosting platforms like github/gitlab etc had to help authors and maintainers: ability to grant issue management permissions (separately from full repo access).
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grsblk 9y ago
Simply using open-source projects is definitely a way to say thank you. I have several projects on github and I am very grateful for developers trusting and using my code. It says much more than a 'thumps up'.
_sqhj 9y ago
As an author of dozens of open-source projects, I was really surprised how entitled / rude people can be. I was even told f-word just because I used babel for compiling JS. I was like WTF. Some people act as if they are my paying customers when I get zero compensation from my open source projects. I just share my work because I think they can be useful for some. I don't have any obligations to solve their problems.
- boxerab 9y ago
  yes, the sense of entitlement of some people is very surprising.
  - sheetjs 9y ago
    "If you give a mouse a cookie, the mouse will ask for a glass of milk"
    - iagooar 9y ago
      That's a fun expression, first time I hear it! In Polish, you would say "you give a finger, and they'll take the whole hand".
      - analogmemory 9y ago
        It's the title of a popular children's book :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_You_Give_a_Mouse_a_Cookie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_You_Give_a_Mouse_a_Cookie
      - deleted 9y ago
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      - cutcss 9y ago
        In many Spanish countries we have a similar one: "le das la mano y agarran el codo", which translates "you give them a hand and they'll grab the elbow".
corford 9y ago
"Maintainers are the friends we want and the employees companies look for. They have passion, willingness to share, and persistence. They are the real MVP and they deserve a thank-you note." ^^ I liked this. Very nice and very true.
wdiamond 9y ago
I recommend to keep open source, but not clear issues not related to your own infrastructure.
wdiamond 9y ago
I recommend to keep open source, but not to clear issues related to other people infrastructure, just about your own infrastructure.
a_w 9y ago
I just wanted to thank NoScript maintainer Giorgio Maone, as he is currently working really hard to fix issues. NoScript was my favorite add-on and I have no doubt that it will be once again, but it really is heartbreaking to read some of the reviews[1]. Constructive feedback is a good thing, but I just don't understand why some people feel that they have a right to use the f* word when reviewing the new version. Just simply describe what is broken and say you have disabled it until the issue is resolved, and thank the man for his hard work. Thanks again, Giorgio Maone! [1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/noscript/reviews/?src=api https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/noscript/revi...
pixelbeat__ 9y ago
Some thanks would definitely be appreciated at least to balance out the negative minority. As a maintainer of a project¹ that many use, I've had private messages encouraging me to commit suicide etc. Not ideal. ¹ https://www.gnu.org/s/coreutils https://www.gnu.org/s/coreutils
- gitgud 9y ago
  Whoah that's messed up! Who are these people? Other developers or users?
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bhauer 9y ago
The author is promoting gratefulness, and that is awesome. I try to do my part when I can with hand-crafted emails or messages. For what it's worth, in our work on the TechEmpower Framework Benchmarks [1], we have received a great deal of positive feedback and gratefulness. We really appreciate it since it makes the project so much more fun and meaningful for us when we hear that people have found it useful (or at least interesting). We never cease to be amazed at the generosity of the community. All of this often makes me wish we could spend more time on the project. (We're working on getting Round 15 out soon!) [1] https://github.com/TechEmpower/FrameworkBenchmarks https://github.com/TechEmpower/FrameworkBenchmarks
laurent123456 9y ago
I think sending "thank you" notes to someone is rare because it's a bit odd to contact a complete stranger and thank them. Personally I would "thank" someone for example by upvoting their post, commenting on it, or posting their project here or on Lobster, staring their GitHub project, etc. Those are more concrete stuff and personally I would appreciate this kind of actions more than a thank you note.
webjunkie 9y ago
I was once looking for a specific library that does one thing – and found exactly something like it on Github. It did the job so well and without a hitch, that after seeing it has only a few stars and no PRs, I left an Github issue saying thank you to the maintainer.
j_s 9y ago
It would be nice if more of the communication with maintainers was done in public. Then discussions such as these could be filled with links demonstrating best practices (or suggestions) in action. (Some people like me may be wary of tying their HN account so permanently to a project.) Right now in this discussion there are a lot of recommendations but without knowing more about the context in which they are applied it is hard to take them seriously. Specifically, are commenters making the suggestion having put it into practice in an open source project/community, and (if so) what impact has it had there? As an attempt to provide something similar to what I am suggesting, here is an anonymized conversation regarding a tool I have barely maintained for a few years (merging bug fixes). The tool is used by many database administrators so not programmers but technical. It provides some of the functionality that commercial software charges hundreds of dollars to provide, so it is easy to suggest paying someone else real money to solve any problems. >On Sat, Jul 4 at 8:06 AM, Maintainer (me) wrote: I will not be able to resolve these issues in what it sounds like is the timeframe you need. My recommendation would be that you install the trial version of a tool on the list of commercial alternatives (link). One that I have very limited experience with is [specific recommended alternative]. The page also lists all of the free tools that I am aware of. Thanks for reporting these problems; I will create issues to track the progress of resolving them. >On Fri, July 3, User wrote / forwarded: Can you please help me? >On Fri, Jul 3, User (#2?) wrote: I'm getting another one issue. Ie the [tool] generate the script like "ALTER TABLE ... ALTER COLUMN ... [bigint] IDENTITY (1,1) NOT NULL". While i'm executing this script i'm getting error like "Msg 156, Level 15, State 1, Line 1 Incorrect syntax near the keyword 'IDENTITY'". [tool] generate a is wrong one? Let me know the reason for this one . and Please address the above issues . I'm eagerly wait for your response.
oblib 9y ago
I have to admit I haven't sent a personal note to all of them that I should, not even close, but I have to a few. I have asked a few for help or clarification too and thanked those who responded. And I have bought a few a beer or beverage of their choice when I could by donating, but that's really not much at all for what I got. I have never asked anyone to add a feature or fix a bug, but I've not run into to many. I have offered a few hacks when I thought they were worthy of review but it's been a pretty long time since I've done that. Since it's "Thanksgiving Day" here I will say I am very thankful for the work they do and freely give, and I know I couldn't do what I do without them. Not even. It's truly an amazing thing for me. I grew up building "custom cars" and worked my ass off to buy tools to make things. Early on I spent at least half of every paycheck to buy tools. Now, I use tools that are "free" and it's amazing what you can build with them. Very little in the history of man can compare to it. It's one of the most amazing and best things I've ever seen happen and I've lived in one of the most amazing eras ever.
- davidjnelson 9y ago
  Right on! I’m also super grateful for all the amazing open source available these days. It’s indeed truly fantastic.
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im3w1l 9y ago
Because the friction is too high.
dopeboy 9y ago
I try to do what I can but I'll admit I'm not consistent. Ranked in order of how useful the project is to me, I will: Star their repo Tweet or email them my thanks Donate cash If I make it to the point where I develop strong competency with the project and have something meaningful to contribute, I'll start looking at issues and helping people troubleshoot.
QittyQat 9y ago
I help maintain an open-source project for AWS. The only thanks I need is that you come by the booth at re:Invent and give me a big hug. I'll be the one winking at everyone assuming they remember this comment from HN.
- gitgud 9y ago
  Which project? I won't be there, but here's a cyber hug to thankyou for your efforts ＼(^o^)／
futhey 9y ago
Not nitpicking, but “Github uses Rails on Ruby” gave me a jolly laugh.
tobbyb 9y ago
Open source is a huge achievement. The sheer diversity, wealth and value of the ecosystem is priceless. A true achievement of our times and Stallman and all the pioneers deserve a gigantic kudos. Any human group has all the problems that comes with us. Some people are insensitive, self centred, selfish, entitled, immature but there are also others who are helpful, warm, polite, genuinely wonderful human beings. There is little reason for cynicism or negativity. You get to meet and interact with all kinds which in itself opens your life up to a whole new set of experiences.
gitgud 9y ago
There's some pretty bad thankyou's on the front page of: https://www.thankyouopensource.com https://www.thankyouopensource.com [1] https://www.thankyouopensource.com/letter/155/Fucking-dead/ https://www.thankyouopensource.com/letter/155/Fucking-dead/ [2] https://www.thankyouopensource.com/letter/154/Fuck-%22Open-Source%22/ https://www.thankyouopensource.com/letter/154/Fuck-%22Open-S... These are terrible people
Windson 9y ago
Source code link https://github.com/Windsooon/thanks-open-source https://github.com/Windsooon/thanks-open-source
benoror 9y ago
I recently did just that: https://github.com/mhgbrown/cached_resource/issues/36 https://github.com/mhgbrown/cached_resource/issues/36
btczeus 9y ago
Check out http://utopian.io http://utopian.io You can reward developers with just an upvote

382 points by Windson 9y ago

Some people, rightly or wrongly, feel that their use of an open source library is endorsement and thanks enough, at least until you meet the maintainer in person or have other cause to be in contact with them.

xstartup 9y ago
Yes, I believe it's net positive for a project because I tell other what I am using and they get interested, this helps a project get more mindshare and some of them will eventually contribute.

donpark 9y ago

Thanking is beneficial mentally to the thanker. Do it for yourself.

AdmiralAsshat 9y ago

Interestingly, I tried asking this on Reddit once, and the majority of replies indicated they didn't want a thank-you letter: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/71fupc/foss_developers_would_you_like_to_receive_a/ https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/71fupc/foss_develope...

JetSetWilly 9y ago
It seems like they didn't want a form letter, ie thoughtless spam. They seemed OK with getting personal thank-yous where the writer put some effort into it.

greysteil 9y ago

Great post. Amazing what a big difference a simple "thank you" can make, and surely helps reduce burnout.

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naturalgradient 9y ago

As the maintainer of a reasonably popular library, I actually get irritated by a lot of 'thanks', because they are in the form of this sentence: 'Hi, can you implement <Feature that takes a month of work>? Thanks!' Usually from people who have never contributed anything. Honestly, being thanked in any shape or form does nothing for me, Id rather have users be more considerate of our time and not abuse issues and the community for supporting their laziness.

Windson 9y ago
I'm agreed. That's not the thanks we need. That just an excuse to ask people for help just like lots of stackoverflow questions. However, not everyone is maintaining a popular library. So I think some kind word may help them to make their library popular.
notzorbo3 9y ago
Ways I deal with this as an open source maintainer of various projects: 1. Severely restrict the scope of the project (i.e. do one thing and do it well) 2. Don't feel guilty about saying "no" 3. Realize that people have no malicious intent or are lazy when they request <feature X that takes two months>. It's just like a normal customer in a business: they often have no idea of the cost and difficulties in implementing things. That's okay, it's my duty to inform them of that. 4. Refuse pull requests for features that I don't feel like maintaining. I always try to keep people from wasting their time and ask them to confer before implementing a feature. I don't feel animosity towards people who (even rudely) request such things. But they can expect a short reply in the form of "I'm sorry, that feature is outside the scope of the project / is going to take too much of my time."
- arca_vorago 9y ago
  I very much agree with your first point, largely because, would you fancy that, that's the original *nix philosophy.
- groue 9y ago
  I agree. Sometimes, I explain that the feature request can be implemented, but not for free. I flag such issues with the "needs sponsoring" tag.

notzorbo3 9y ago

> It is true that some of you guys can build a tool in a hackathon I've kept some data on how much time I've spent on a somewhat popular open source project (+/-1000 stars on github, if that means anything). Time to implement to scratch my own itch: +/- 24 hours Time to write documentation, package, etc: +/- 70 hours Time to handle bug and feature requests, support: +560 hours So that's an overhead of around 2500%. If I was paid to do that, it would have cost around €130,000.- (and would have netted me around €5, because dutch taxes ;-) ) The emails and other forms of thank-you's from users make it more than worth it. Plus, I get to give back to the community.

chrisper 9y ago
I'd also say that if you are not paid you approach the work differently. Like you can take your time with certain things maybe. A lot less stress, I'd imagine. (Depends on the project obviously. If you get yelled at by Linus, you probably should be more careful!)
- notzorbo3 9y ago
  True, but expectations are sometimes also higher. Documentation etc has to be of good quality. Packaging. Stuff like that. There's really no comparing it with a paid job IMHO. It's more fun i'd say.
StavrosK 9y ago
What do you do that you charge 200 eur/hr?
- notzorbo3 9y ago
  Thats the fee for my part-time freelance consulting. 200 is on the low end.
  - StavrosK 9y ago
    Huh, I'm way undercharging.

speps 9y ago

BTW this is actually to promote this: http://www.thankyouopensource.com/ http://www.thankyouopensource.com/ Putting the link here might make it more obvious.

rekado 9y ago
It's a pity that this website is exclusively for repositories on Github and thus contributes to the harmful idea that free software only exists when it is on Github.
- Windson 9y ago
  We will add other platforms later.
- srtjstjsj 9y ago
  eh, github is hosted git, it costs approximately nothing to export your project to github, and it's a great way to "market" your project.
  - rekado 9y ago
    There is a systemic cost: the cumulative effect of encouraging the expectation to find things on Github. It also costs time to maintain an additional remote if you want to interact with potential contributors. Using Github only to say "hey, don't forget about this piece of software that you shouldn't be looking for on Github" is a terrible habit as it artificially inflates the importance of Github for Free Software and ... we already have search engines for that kind of thing.

rsync 9y ago

Anytime I find a very useful tool[1] or get help from a maintainer or author I always offer them a lifetime, free rsync.net account. A fair number of them have taken me up on it. [1] Some examples of useful tools include: TextBar for OSX, git-annex assistant ... someone wrote a great encfs tutorial ... etc.

notzorbo3 9y ago
That's an awesome way to reward people! I've gotten offers for money, but actually getting to money to me is more of a hassle than it's worth, so I just decline.
- stanmancan 9y ago
  Not sure what your market is but given where we are, accepting bitcoin would probably be easy :)
- davidjnelson 9y ago
  What makes receiving money difficult?
  - jakobegger 9y ago
    Not the OP, but if you run a business, you must be very careful to correctly declare all your income, make sure you invoice properly, pay taxes, etc. Just because soneone “donates” money, it doesn’t mean that you don’t have to pay taxes. So in general it only pays off if it is above a threshold. If a company offers to donate 2000€, I would find a way to make it work. But if it’s just a one off donation of 10€, I’d rather not bother my accountant with it.
  - notzorbo3 9y ago
    Not being in the US, not trusting PayPal and wanting absolutely nothing to do with any kind of blockchain currency. It's interesting that we have much simpler payment methods available in the EU, but apparently EU people don't like to pay for things.
9y ago

inglor 9y ago

Actually, in all projects I've been involved in I've gotten more than enough thank you emails. Not to mention hooks for consulting gigs (which I dislike and _rarely_ do), conference invites and job offers. Open source has been _tremendously_ cost-effective for me. I do it for fun and because I genuinely like building open tools people like using. This is me https://github.com/benjamingr https://github.com/benjamingr https://stackoverflow.com/users/1348195/benjamin-gruenbaum https://stackoverflow.com/users/1348195/benjamin-gruenbaum - I have done some work but there are _a lot_ of people who have made bigger contributions than me. Wondering if other people feel the same way or not. I _do_ give around ~30$ a month on patreon to projects I like just as a nice "thank you for maintaining this".

amelius 9y ago
> conference invites and job offers. Don't we all get spammed by these, regardless of where we work? Also, conference invites usually cost money rather than return money.
- inglor 9y ago
  Conference speaking invites usually cover the hotel and flight fares (in all honesty, I couldn't really afford attending otherwise). Some conferences also offer to do paid workshops which are a big factor too.
  - ghaff 9y ago
    Both you and the parent are right. A lot of conferences will cover your main travel costs for a speaking invite. But there are often other travel-associated costs so it's usually not really free if it's out of your own pocket. Conference speaking is often worth it if it's effectively part of your job that someone else is paying for or (selectively) if the exposure for marketing yourself is worth it.
billmalarky 9y ago
Thanks for working on bluebird, it's a great library :-)

mosselman 9y ago

I interpreted the title as 'We have the policy not to thank maintainers of open source tools. Here is why.' glad it was quite the opposite.

SadWebDeveloper 9y ago

I think maintainers would definitely love more some monetary support rather than just a thank you, specially those doing it in their free time (since some maintainers of big open source projects are well established paid employees).

wolfgke 9y ago
The problem is that it is hard to transfer money over the internet. I just wanted to know what bureaucratic hurdles one has to jump in Germany to even be able to receive donations on your webpage. I don't want to go into the gory details, but just come with something that I say for years very often: The surest way to become a terrorist very fast is to read up into law. And this is only for being legally able to receive and not about the taxation issues that arise when you concretely receive donations. Also in countries there are lots of preferred ways on the methods for money transfer. For example in Germany many people don't want to use a credit card and prefer SEPA money transfer/direct debit for paying in the internet. Yes, of course one could use some fancy cryptocurrency, but the legal/taxation issues remain.
- jb55 9y ago
  > Yes, of course one could use some fancy cryptocurrency I paid a bug bounty to someone in Germany from Canada with Bitcoin. I guess I'm a terrorist now.
  - wolfgke 9y ago
    I don't know much about Canadian law, so I cannot say that you did a criminal act. But I would wager that the receiver (accidentally!) did tax fraud, since the legal situation around taxation of Bitcoin payments in Germany is not really clear. I can nearly say for sure that if he is not a professional who specializes in international taxation laws (or at least has access to an expert in this area) he probably did a criminal act (which does not imply that he will be prosecuted etc.). Also I would bet he did something wrong in the accounting of these donation (which can easily happen, since there are so many formal details to consider - do something wrong and you are in trouble). Again a source for big legal trouble. This will rarely be prosecuted, but is nearly always a sword of Damocles.

ddevault 9y ago

Chiming in as a maintainer who gets lots of thanks. Typically they're genuine. I get thanked 3-5 times a week with no strings attached. It definitely helps me want to do more! I actually use it as a gauge for which projects to spend more time on.

chrisdone 9y ago

I have a bunch of open source projects; I'm getting quite good at giving my projects new homes because I don't want to maintain them anymore. Speaking for myself, thanks is fine but I don't need it; thanks doesn't do anything for burnout. People using my software is enough thanks. The biggest thanks is someone contributing a useful bug fix or needed feature. Time and effort is the currency in open source.

mangix 9y ago

This reminds me of the Linux kernel build bot. Hi X, I love your patch! Yet something to improve:

j_ereth 9y ago

Just want to say thank you for that article.

throwaway0071 9y ago

Let's not forget companies that provide free services to open source projects.

celeritascelery 9y ago
Such as?
- saganus 9y ago
  I believe Netlify[0] does that, and I've heard of others but can't remember right now. Edited to add a link [0]https://www.netlify.com/open-source/ https://www.netlify.com/open-source/
- davidjnelson 9y ago
  Jetbrains offers free intellij licenses for open source. Sauce Labs and Browserstack offer free selenium vm’s for open source too.

jasonmaydie 9y ago

I thought maintainers did it because they are passionate, not because they are being forced to.

emh68 9y ago
It's mostly a plus for their resumes.

hellow42 9y ago

Went to try it and couldn't write at least 300 characters so I filled with line breaks thinking it would be removed when displayed. Sorry if I made the front page a bit messy!

deleted 9y ago

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louthy 9y ago

As a maintainer of a relatively successful open source project [1], I find I get a lot of thanks. Yes, it usually comes attached to an issue or a question, but there's not really an easier avenue to just say "thanks" either. So it doesn't bother me too much. The thank you that comes attached to issues does make me more inclined to help quicker, because I just feel the person is being polite and respectful of the effort. [1] https://github.com/louthy/language-ext https://github.com/louthy/language-ext

bnastic 9y ago

It’s such an unfortunate word to use, “maintainer”... Sounds like a thing that had reached its full potential long ago and the “maintainer” is there to keep it on the road in one piece, for a while yet. It’ll never get better, it’s only ever downhill from there. (Admittedly, that does describe a certain %age of open source projects).

srtjstjsj 9y ago
That's exactly the maintainer's job. To keep it alive while the world is changing, so the software can continue delivering value. The maintainer might also be a developer, or other people might be developers, or possibly no one is developing that project.

andrew_ 9y ago

Thanks for a nice writeup. Now please add some open graph sugar to your markup so I can share it with a nice preview. :)

mtnygard 9y ago

Why does the author refer to the site as an NGO? Is this in the sense of "Non-governmental Organization?" If so, it seems like an odd thing to emphasize. If not, what is the correct expansion of that TLA?

Feniks 9y ago

Fine. Shout out to everyone who worked on ublock origin and the filters. Doing God's work, death to advertising.

sigzero 9y ago

I received a lot of help when I was implementing mailman from Mark Shapiro a few years back. I asked what I could do in thanks and he pointed me to his public Amazon wish list. I purchased something off of that for him. I try to make sure I am thanking people for their work that I am benefitting from.

tomxor 9y ago

I thank authors and maintainers and I expect others do too. I just don't do it publicly. I've thanked authors of small projects which are unique and useful to me just by dropping a short email (not en masse) - Not out of some obligation, but because it's an encouraging thing to receive. I want them to know someone is finding utility in what they have done and appreciates it enough to tell them. I don't think the larger projects are in need of this though, it would just become noise. This is probably just the cynical misanthrope in me speaking but I can't help but think it looks more like a popularity contest when it's public like this... not that i'm suggesting it could be done any other way for large projects, but then, who is going to read all of them if it's a large project?

hartator 9y ago
I maintain a fairly popular repository, and it does brighten my day when I receive an email like this! Unfortunately, you are getting more random malformated issues (ie. “DOESN’T WORK. WHEN FIX”) than thanks!
- dictum 9y ago
  Sometimes even a well-formatted, respectful issue feels like a thank you.
  - anarazel 9y ago
    > Sometimes even a well-formatted, respectful issue feels like a thank you. Very much so. I like if people find actual issues in software I helped write and report them. At least if there's some information to go on, or friendly asks for pointers what information to provide. It's the "BROKEN! NEED FIX URGENTLY" without further information that's insulting. I'm even OK with somebody expressing urgency, as long as it's clear they're willing to invest enough time themselves.
- tomxor 9y ago
  Please don't feel disheartened by those types of issues. They seem to pop up on all kinds of projects after some threshold of popularity. I haven't originated any popular repos myself, but of the few I have contributed to, these types of issues can be quite common. One of the projects is a math library and a swear 1/2 issues are people discovering for the first time how floating point math behaves and complaining profusely that it's the authors fault. If you can gain some contributors to help you do the weeding in your issues list it can help with your sanity greatly. This is one feature that I wish hosting platforms like github/gitlab etc had to help authors and maintainers: ability to grant issue management permissions (separately from full repo access).

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grsblk 9y ago

Simply using open-source projects is definitely a way to say thank you. I have several projects on github and I am very grateful for developers trusting and using my code. It says much more than a 'thumps up'.

_sqhj 9y ago

As an author of dozens of open-source projects, I was really surprised how entitled / rude people can be. I was even told f-word just because I used babel for compiling JS. I was like WTF. Some people act as if they are my paying customers when I get zero compensation from my open source projects. I just share my work because I think they can be useful for some. I don't have any obligations to solve their problems.

boxerab 9y ago
yes, the sense of entitlement of some people is very surprising.
- sheetjs 9y ago
  "If you give a mouse a cookie, the mouse will ask for a glass of milk"
  - iagooar 9y ago
    That's a fun expression, first time I hear it! In Polish, you would say "you give a finger, and they'll take the whole hand".
    - analogmemory 9y ago
      It's the title of a popular children's book :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_You_Give_a_Mouse_a_Cookie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_You_Give_a_Mouse_a_Cookie
    - deleted 9y ago
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    - cutcss 9y ago
      In many Spanish countries we have a similar one: "le das la mano y agarran el codo", which translates "you give them a hand and they'll grab the elbow".

corford 9y ago

"Maintainers are the friends we want and the employees companies look for. They have passion, willingness to share, and persistence. They are the real MVP and they deserve a thank-you note." ^^ I liked this. Very nice and very true.

wdiamond 9y ago

I recommend to keep open source, but not clear issues not related to your own infrastructure.

wdiamond 9y ago

I recommend to keep open source, but not to clear issues related to other people infrastructure, just about your own infrastructure.

a_w 9y ago

I just wanted to thank NoScript maintainer Giorgio Maone, as he is currently working really hard to fix issues. NoScript was my favorite add-on and I have no doubt that it will be once again, but it really is heartbreaking to read some of the reviews[1]. Constructive feedback is a good thing, but I just don't understand why some people feel that they have a right to use the f* word when reviewing the new version. Just simply describe what is broken and say you have disabled it until the issue is resolved, and thank the man for his hard work. Thanks again, Giorgio Maone! [1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/noscript/reviews/?src=api https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/noscript/revi...

pixelbeat__ 9y ago

Some thanks would definitely be appreciated at least to balance out the negative minority. As a maintainer of a project¹ that many use, I've had private messages encouraging me to commit suicide etc. Not ideal. ¹ https://www.gnu.org/s/coreutils https://www.gnu.org/s/coreutils

gitgud 9y ago
Whoah that's messed up! Who are these people? Other developers or users?

deleted 9y ago

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bhauer 9y ago

The author is promoting gratefulness, and that is awesome. I try to do my part when I can with hand-crafted emails or messages. For what it's worth, in our work on the TechEmpower Framework Benchmarks [1], we have received a great deal of positive feedback and gratefulness. We really appreciate it since it makes the project so much more fun and meaningful for us when we hear that people have found it useful (or at least interesting). We never cease to be amazed at the generosity of the community. All of this often makes me wish we could spend more time on the project. (We're working on getting Round 15 out soon!) [1] https://github.com/TechEmpower/FrameworkBenchmarks https://github.com/TechEmpower/FrameworkBenchmarks

laurent123456 9y ago

I think sending "thank you" notes to someone is rare because it's a bit odd to contact a complete stranger and thank them. Personally I would "thank" someone for example by upvoting their post, commenting on it, or posting their project here or on Lobster, staring their GitHub project, etc. Those are more concrete stuff and personally I would appreciate this kind of actions more than a thank you note.

webjunkie 9y ago

I was once looking for a specific library that does one thing – and found exactly something like it on Github. It did the job so well and without a hitch, that after seeing it has only a few stars and no PRs, I left an Github issue saying thank you to the maintainer.

j_s 9y ago

It would be nice if more of the communication with maintainers was done in public. Then discussions such as these could be filled with links demonstrating best practices (or suggestions) in action. (Some people like me may be wary of tying their HN account so permanently to a project.) Right now in this discussion there are a lot of recommendations but without knowing more about the context in which they are applied it is hard to take them seriously. Specifically, are commenters making the suggestion having put it into practice in an open source project/community, and (if so) what impact has it had there? As an attempt to provide something similar to what I am suggesting, here is an anonymized conversation regarding a tool I have barely maintained for a few years (merging bug fixes). The tool is used by many database administrators so not programmers but technical. It provides some of the functionality that commercial software charges hundreds of dollars to provide, so it is easy to suggest paying someone else real money to solve any problems. >On Sat, Jul 4 at 8:06 AM, Maintainer (me) wrote: I will not be able to resolve these issues in what it sounds like is the timeframe you need. My recommendation would be that you install the trial version of a tool on the list of commercial alternatives (link). One that I have very limited experience with is [specific recommended alternative]. The page also lists all of the free tools that I am aware of. Thanks for reporting these problems; I will create issues to track the progress of resolving them. >On Fri, July 3, User wrote / forwarded: Can you please help me? >On Fri, Jul 3, User (#2?) wrote: I'm getting another one issue. Ie the [tool] generate the script like "ALTER TABLE ... ALTER COLUMN ... [bigint] IDENTITY (1,1) NOT NULL". While i'm executing this script i'm getting error like "Msg 156, Level 15, State 1, Line 1 Incorrect syntax near the keyword 'IDENTITY'". [tool] generate a is wrong one? Let me know the reason for this one . and Please address the above issues . I'm eagerly wait for your response.

oblib 9y ago

I have to admit I haven't sent a personal note to all of them that I should, not even close, but I have to a few. I have asked a few for help or clarification too and thanked those who responded. And I have bought a few a beer or beverage of their choice when I could by donating, but that's really not much at all for what I got. I have never asked anyone to add a feature or fix a bug, but I've not run into to many. I have offered a few hacks when I thought they were worthy of review but it's been a pretty long time since I've done that. Since it's "Thanksgiving Day" here I will say I am very thankful for the work they do and freely give, and I know I couldn't do what I do without them. Not even. It's truly an amazing thing for me. I grew up building "custom cars" and worked my ass off to buy tools to make things. Early on I spent at least half of every paycheck to buy tools. Now, I use tools that are "free" and it's amazing what you can build with them. Very little in the history of man can compare to it. It's one of the most amazing and best things I've ever seen happen and I've lived in one of the most amazing eras ever.

davidjnelson 9y ago
Right on! I’m also super grateful for all the amazing open source available these days. It’s indeed truly fantastic.

deleted 9y ago

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im3w1l 9y ago

Because the friction is too high.

dopeboy 9y ago

I try to do what I can but I'll admit I'm not consistent. Ranked in order of how useful the project is to me, I will: Star their repo Tweet or email them my thanks Donate cash If I make it to the point where I develop strong competency with the project and have something meaningful to contribute, I'll start looking at issues and helping people troubleshoot.

QittyQat 9y ago

I help maintain an open-source project for AWS. The only thanks I need is that you come by the booth at re:Invent and give me a big hug. I'll be the one winking at everyone assuming they remember this comment from HN.

gitgud 9y ago
Which project? I won't be there, but here's a cyber hug to thankyou for your efforts ＼(^o^)／

futhey 9y ago

Not nitpicking, but “Github uses Rails on Ruby” gave me a jolly laugh.

tobbyb 9y ago

Open source is a huge achievement. The sheer diversity, wealth and value of the ecosystem is priceless. A true achievement of our times and Stallman and all the pioneers deserve a gigantic kudos. Any human group has all the problems that comes with us. Some people are insensitive, self centred, selfish, entitled, immature but there are also others who are helpful, warm, polite, genuinely wonderful human beings. There is little reason for cynicism or negativity. You get to meet and interact with all kinds which in itself opens your life up to a whole new set of experiences.

gitgud 9y ago

There's some pretty bad thankyou's on the front page of: https://www.thankyouopensource.com https://www.thankyouopensource.com [1] https://www.thankyouopensource.com/letter/155/Fucking-dead/ https://www.thankyouopensource.com/letter/155/Fucking-dead/ [2] https://www.thankyouopensource.com/letter/154/Fuck-%22Open-Source%22/ https://www.thankyouopensource.com/letter/154/Fuck-%22Open-S... These are terrible people

Windson 9y ago

Source code link https://github.com/Windsooon/thanks-open-source https://github.com/Windsooon/thanks-open-source

benoror 9y ago

I recently did just that: https://github.com/mhgbrown/cached_resource/issues/36 https://github.com/mhgbrown/cached_resource/issues/36

btczeus 9y ago

Check out http://utopian.io http://utopian.io You can reward developers with just an upvote