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The Emacs package `Helm' is/was maintained by one guy alone named Thierry Volpiatto who is not even a developer. He is 57, and a mountain guide in the Alps! Se

The Emacs package `Helm' is/was maintained by one guy alone named Thierry Volpiatto who is not even a developer. He is 57, and a mountain guide in the Alps! See this rare interview from 2018: https://sachachua.com/blog/2018/09/interview-with-thierry-volpiatto/ https://sachachua.com/blog/2018/09/interview-with-thierry-vo...

graton 6y ago
I would consider him a developer if he developed this package. Maybe not a developer by professional occupation, but still a developer.
tyrust 6y ago
Does "developer" imply professional? By my definition they're definitely a dev.
- gjvc 6y ago
  All too rarely.
  - gjvc 6y ago
    "in a commercial context"
gogopuppygogo 6y ago
I think you meant he’s not a professional developer. Professional being a person who gets paid to do work. Clearly his development of software that is widely used is not in question.
- rgoulter 6y ago
  I think to say "not even a developer" connotes surprise. I wouldn't expect to see someone whose dayjob doesn't involve programming work on something like an Emacs package.
  - maxerickson 6y ago
    Sure. Doesn't make it a good way to communicate that surprise.
  - Mediterraneo10 6y ago
    > I wouldn't expect to see someone whose dayjob doesn't involve programming work on something like an Emacs package. Twenty years ago, I maintained some Free Software projects. I wasn't employed in IT at all, in fact at the time I was studying towards a soft humanities field, and all my knowledge of programming was self-taught. So much of the other Linux software I used seemed to come from similar people. After all, the draw of Linux and GNU tools was that you were free to tinker with your computer and teach yourself from books, no expensive commercial software required. I get the impression that laypeople developing and maintaining packages has become less common as the open-source movement took off and more paid employees at corporations started to do these kind of tasks. Similarly, the premiere "news for nerds" site today is Hacker News, which comes out of the corporate world, while its forebear Slashdot of the early millennium had a more varied mix of professional IT people and hobbyists.
    - Conan_Kudo 6y ago
      I think this is the biggest loss we've had in the past 20 years. The takeover of open source by "professionals" has lowered the diversity of perspectives in open source. Some of the most renowned folks from my generation or the one before me are not professional software engineers. And those people were the ones that valued Free Software more than the ones who are professional software engineers. I often wonder if this is one of the bigger reasons why FOSS is doing so much worse these days.
      - jhoechtl 6y ago
        Yes,yes, yes. Is it a cultural thing why this gets lost? Is it the abscence of an enemy (Microsoft?)? Is it the cultivatism of kids today who are willing to pay for the download while 20 years ago Napster boomed? Is it the everything can be monetized and professionalized attitute vs. amateurism? I truly wonder. I am 45 and I experienced the net and hackerism of 20 years ago as a wonderful world which it is no more today and I can't really say why.
patrec 6y ago
I find it pretty amazing that someone who's been working for 20 years as a mountain guide and spends as much time as possible outdoors picks up an obscure piece of niche software like Emacs, learns to program in his 40ies and then becomes one of the most significant package contributors, all as a side hobby to his outdoor interests.
- smitty1e 6y ago
  About as expected as the Spanish Inquisition.
- TaylorAlexander 6y ago
  Open source is pretty interesting in how it functions and it’s something I really want to understand more deeply.
  - creddit 6y ago
    https://www.amazon.com/Working-Public-Making-Maintenance-Software/dp/0578675862 https://www.amazon.com/Working-Public-Making-Maintenance-Sof...
    - submeta 6y ago
      Thank you for the book suggestion. It was recommended by Guido van Rossum recently: https://twitter.com/gvanrossum/status/1297043394712092672 https://twitter.com/gvanrossum/status/1297043394712092672
    - TaylorAlexander 6y ago
      Great! Ordered. Thank you!
  - patrec 6y ago
    Well, or functions not -- sadly. It seems possible that the reason Mr Volpiatto ceased development was because the burnout he had close brushes with before finally caught up with him. My impression is that most open source projects that do not habitually burn their creators are either strategic assets to a handful of multi billion dollar companies, in which case at least core contributors get a normal life and see some actual upside for their work; or part time labors of love of talented individuals who have either not hit the scale where they would need to engage with a large number of users or who are very good at saying No. Even the rare super-elite developers like Zig's Andrew Kelley who manage to get full-time funding for their work via patreon/github don't seem to pull in more than a fraction of what they'd make in normal employment as a single person for their whole project. Open source started out as asymmetrical warfare against The Man (personified to Microsoft) but by now has been mostly co-opted into a form of voluntary self-exploitation to enrich mega-corps. I wonder if there is a way out of that.

graton 6y ago

I would consider him a developer if he developed this package. Maybe not a developer by professional occupation, but still a developer.

tyrust 6y ago

Does "developer" imply professional? By my definition they're definitely a dev.

gjvc 6y ago
All too rarely.
- gjvc 6y ago
  "in a commercial context"

gogopuppygogo 6y ago

I think you meant he’s not a professional developer. Professional being a person who gets paid to do work. Clearly his development of software that is widely used is not in question.

rgoulter 6y ago
I think to say "not even a developer" connotes surprise. I wouldn't expect to see someone whose dayjob doesn't involve programming work on something like an Emacs package.
- maxerickson 6y ago
  Sure. Doesn't make it a good way to communicate that surprise.
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  > I wouldn't expect to see someone whose dayjob doesn't involve programming work on something like an Emacs package. Twenty years ago, I maintained some Free Software projects. I wasn't employed in IT at all, in fact at the time I was studying towards a soft humanities field, and all my knowledge of programming was self-taught. So much of the other Linux software I used seemed to come from similar people. After all, the draw of Linux and GNU tools was that you were free to tinker with your computer and teach yourself from books, no expensive commercial software required. I get the impression that laypeople developing and maintaining packages has become less common as the open-source movement took off and more paid employees at corporations started to do these kind of tasks. Similarly, the premiere "news for nerds" site today is Hacker News, which comes out of the corporate world, while its forebear Slashdot of the early millennium had a more varied mix of professional IT people and hobbyists.
  - Conan_Kudo 6y ago
    I think this is the biggest loss we've had in the past 20 years. The takeover of open source by "professionals" has lowered the diversity of perspectives in open source. Some of the most renowned folks from my generation or the one before me are not professional software engineers. And those people were the ones that valued Free Software more than the ones who are professional software engineers. I often wonder if this is one of the bigger reasons why FOSS is doing so much worse these days.
    - jhoechtl 6y ago
      Yes,yes, yes. Is it a cultural thing why this gets lost? Is it the abscence of an enemy (Microsoft?)? Is it the cultivatism of kids today who are willing to pay for the download while 20 years ago Napster boomed? Is it the everything can be monetized and professionalized attitute vs. amateurism? I truly wonder. I am 45 and I experienced the net and hackerism of 20 years ago as a wonderful world which it is no more today and I can't really say why.

patrec 6y ago

I find it pretty amazing that someone who's been working for 20 years as a mountain guide and spends as much time as possible outdoors picks up an obscure piece of niche software like Emacs, learns to program in his 40ies and then becomes one of the most significant package contributors, all as a side hobby to his outdoor interests.

smitty1e 6y ago
About as expected as the Spanish Inquisition.
TaylorAlexander 6y ago
Open source is pretty interesting in how it functions and it’s something I really want to understand more deeply.
- creddit 6y ago
  https://www.amazon.com/Working-Public-Making-Maintenance-Software/dp/0578675862 https://www.amazon.com/Working-Public-Making-Maintenance-Sof...
  - submeta 6y ago
    Thank you for the book suggestion. It was recommended by Guido van Rossum recently: https://twitter.com/gvanrossum/status/1297043394712092672 https://twitter.com/gvanrossum/status/1297043394712092672
  - TaylorAlexander 6y ago
    Great! Ordered. Thank you!
- patrec 6y ago
  Well, or functions not -- sadly. It seems possible that the reason Mr Volpiatto ceased development was because the burnout he had close brushes with before finally caught up with him. My impression is that most open source projects that do not habitually burn their creators are either strategic assets to a handful of multi billion dollar companies, in which case at least core contributors get a normal life and see some actual upside for their work; or part time labors of love of talented individuals who have either not hit the scale where they would need to engage with a large number of users or who are very good at saying No. Even the rare super-elite developers like Zig's Andrew Kelley who manage to get full-time funding for their work via patreon/github don't seem to pull in more than a fraction of what they'd make in normal employment as a single person for their whole project. Open source started out as asymmetrical warfare against The Man (personified to Microsoft) but by now has been mostly co-opted into a form of voluntary self-exploitation to enrich mega-corps. I wonder if there is a way out of that.