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OR, - release it under a permissive license - wait until it reaches reaches a significant level of popularity for your purposes (see below) - fle

OR, - release it under a permissive license - wait until it reaches reaches a significant level of popularity for your purposes (see below) - flex it to get a good job at a good company - abandon the original project altogether or find new maintainers - focus on your new job, build skills and connections - invest most of your income in bonds and experiment with profitable side ventures which don't require much economic contribution from your side - most probably die relatively well-off

pradn 6y ago
So the plan is to abandon the project? It will work some individuals, but we need something more sustainable for the industry.
- shadowgovt 6y ago
  If the project is valuable, someone will step in to maintain it. If nobody does, its value didn't justify the cost of maintenance.
  - jlokier 6y ago
    Perhaps all the people using it value it enough that they might pay (if they had no other choice to keep it), but might not be able to maintain it. In that situation, it's valued but it only gets maintained if someone offers to do the maintenance for pay. If the current maintainer is stepping down from the project if they aren't paid, but willing to continue for pay, it makes sense for them to let everyone else know they are willing to continue if paid, doesn't it?
- AntiImperialist 6y ago
  If your finances are not in order, you can't be worrying about sustainability of some library or tool, or the industry for that matter. The industry is made out of people. If there are individuals who have to slave away to maintain an important tool or library, it's not going to be sustainable either.
nineplay 6y ago
There's an article that makes the rounds now and again on HN about a engineer who wrote a widely used opensource tool and then didn't get past the Google interview process. FAANGs are still more interested in seeing if you can solve the Knapsack Problem then seeing that you can write good, maintainable code.
- oakesm9 6y ago
  It was the developer behind the macOS package manager Homebrew https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768 https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768
  - nineplay 6y ago
    Sheesh I'd forgotten - he's right, everyone does use that tool. He backed off on a bit but the point still remains, I'm sure he's a better engineer than half of google. I wonder if they asked Pike and Thompson to invert a binary tree. https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-logic-behind-Google-rejecting-Max-Howell-the-author-of-Homebrew-for-not-being-able-to-invert-a-binary-tree/answer/Max-Howell?share=100e0bb6&srid=unBJ9 https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-logic-behind-Google-rejectin...
    - treis 6y ago
      I'm not so sure. By his own admission homebrew is not that great a piece of software. There's a lot more that goes into popularity than being good. Being first, marketing and network effects are as or more important than being good.
      - nineplay 6y ago
        He - acknowledges and understands the problems and - could certainly fix them if paid a Google-sized salary But he won't dance to the tune of the "Cracking the Coding Interview" juggernaut so to heck with him. Better to spend time memorizing the Floyd Cycle Detection algorithm than produce useful code. ( OK, I may be a bit bitter )
WalterSear 6y ago
No interviewer has demonstrated anything but perfunctory interest in my open source work, popular or not. It's a myth, like 'nobody cares where you went to school so long as you can do the work'.
- tathougies 6y ago
  I mean, I guess. On the other hand, if you have a niche side project (I have several in a rather niche language), then you become known in the community. Most people's 'side projects' don't shine on their resume because the side project is just a replica of one hundred other projects that do the same thing. In order to be known for a side project, you have to make sure the audience is small enough for it to make a difference, but large enough that there is commercial interest.
- WalterBright 6y ago
  I'm proud of the fact that many volunteer collaborators on the D project have, as a direct result, landed very well-paying jobs.
  - MaxBarraclough 6y ago
    I know it's not the point here, but do those jobs often involve D directly?
    - WalterBright 6y ago
      Yes, they do. I also get the impression that many employers are looking for people who are more broadly interested in programming beyond C/C++/Java and are willing to pay.
- jokethrowaway 6y ago
  That's fascinating, I had the opposite experience. Never once have I been asked which school I went to or anything about my CS degree. I had multiple people contacting me after finding me on Github (and my OSS work is very unpopular and mostly unmaintained) and one of them was a C-Suite who offered me a job. I never found a job with a recruiter - just networking, so it may be a form of self selection for more personal interactions.

pradn 6y ago

So the plan is to abandon the project? It will work some individuals, but we need something more sustainable for the industry.

shadowgovt 6y ago
If the project is valuable, someone will step in to maintain it. If nobody does, its value didn't justify the cost of maintenance.
- jlokier 6y ago
  Perhaps all the people using it value it enough that they might pay (if they had no other choice to keep it), but might not be able to maintain it. In that situation, it's valued but it only gets maintained if someone offers to do the maintenance for pay. If the current maintainer is stepping down from the project if they aren't paid, but willing to continue for pay, it makes sense for them to let everyone else know they are willing to continue if paid, doesn't it?
AntiImperialist 6y ago
If your finances are not in order, you can't be worrying about sustainability of some library or tool, or the industry for that matter. The industry is made out of people. If there are individuals who have to slave away to maintain an important tool or library, it's not going to be sustainable either.

nineplay 6y ago

There's an article that makes the rounds now and again on HN about a engineer who wrote a widely used opensource tool and then didn't get past the Google interview process. FAANGs are still more interested in seeing if you can solve the Knapsack Problem then seeing that you can write good, maintainable code.

oakesm9 6y ago
It was the developer behind the macOS package manager Homebrew https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768 https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768
- nineplay 6y ago
  Sheesh I'd forgotten - he's right, everyone does use that tool. He backed off on a bit but the point still remains, I'm sure he's a better engineer than half of google. I wonder if they asked Pike and Thompson to invert a binary tree. https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-logic-behind-Google-rejecting-Max-Howell-the-author-of-Homebrew-for-not-being-able-to-invert-a-binary-tree/answer/Max-Howell?share=100e0bb6&srid=unBJ9 https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-logic-behind-Google-rejectin...
  - treis 6y ago
    I'm not so sure. By his own admission homebrew is not that great a piece of software. There's a lot more that goes into popularity than being good. Being first, marketing and network effects are as or more important than being good.
    - nineplay 6y ago
      He - acknowledges and understands the problems and - could certainly fix them if paid a Google-sized salary But he won't dance to the tune of the "Cracking the Coding Interview" juggernaut so to heck with him. Better to spend time memorizing the Floyd Cycle Detection algorithm than produce useful code. ( OK, I may be a bit bitter )

WalterSear 6y ago

No interviewer has demonstrated anything but perfunctory interest in my open source work, popular or not. It's a myth, like 'nobody cares where you went to school so long as you can do the work'.

tathougies 6y ago
I mean, I guess. On the other hand, if you have a niche side project (I have several in a rather niche language), then you become known in the community. Most people's 'side projects' don't shine on their resume because the side project is just a replica of one hundred other projects that do the same thing. In order to be known for a side project, you have to make sure the audience is small enough for it to make a difference, but large enough that there is commercial interest.
WalterBright 6y ago
I'm proud of the fact that many volunteer collaborators on the D project have, as a direct result, landed very well-paying jobs.
- MaxBarraclough 6y ago
  I know it's not the point here, but do those jobs often involve D directly?
  - WalterBright 6y ago
    Yes, they do. I also get the impression that many employers are looking for people who are more broadly interested in programming beyond C/C++/Java and are willing to pay.
jokethrowaway 6y ago
That's fascinating, I had the opposite experience. Never once have I been asked which school I went to or anything about my CS degree. I had multiple people contacting me after finding me on Github (and my OSS work is very unpopular and mostly unmaintained) and one of them was a C-Suite who offered me a job. I never found a job with a recruiter - just networking, so it may be a form of self selection for more personal interactions.