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This is (in a roundabout way) also the main problem with all the "FOSS maintainers don't get paid enough" threads IMO. The dream is to get paid purely for writi

by WJW 4y ago

This is (in a roundabout way) also the main problem with all the "FOSS maintainers don't get paid enough" threads IMO. The dream is to get paid purely for writing software, without having to do marketing, sales, support or any of the other things that come with running a company. You just write code for the features that excite you and then money somehow appears. Sadly the non-fun bits are crucial to the getting paid bits.

saurik 4y ago
Engh... I think the issue is that a lot of open source maintainers ARE doing that work but are doing it FOR FREE and it is burning them out, because they AREN'T doing the thing you are saying where they just write the parts that excite them: they are also triaging bugs and incorporating feedback and are having to constantly answer people demanding timelines... if they weren't doing all of that stuff we honestly wouldn't talk about the issue so much as we wouldn't be caught in a lurch when they stop providing us all that free value!
golergka 4y ago
> without having to do marketing, sales May be some open-source software becomes notable without any marketing or sales, but I constantly see a lot of very conscious effort by FOSS maintainers to popularise their work. They go to meetups, do talks, post on twitter and HN. And yet the most that majority of them can hope for is getting a boost to their resume and being hired as a distinguished staff/principal-level engineer somewhere because of their open-source clout.
pharke 4y ago
Money is information. If maintainers eschew their own marketing, sales, and (paid) support then they lose access to this information. When someone else interprets the information provided through payment and non-payment their interpretation flavored by their own goals and shaped by their (mis)understanding of the product will introduce noise (i.e. bullshit) into the signal. The goal for maintainers who dislike the business side of things should be to write code that makes those business activities as painless as possible for the maintainer themselves. In writing such code they will develop a greater understanding of the process and may even learn to appreciate it. A true win would be to generalize that code so that other maintainers can use it to make their lives easier while still being able to glean valuable information from it.

by WJW 4y ago

saurik 4y ago

Engh... I think the issue is that a lot of open source maintainers ARE doing that work but are doing it FOR FREE and it is burning them out, because they AREN'T doing the thing you are saying where they just write the parts that excite them: they are also triaging bugs and incorporating feedback and are having to constantly answer people demanding timelines... if they weren't doing all of that stuff we honestly wouldn't talk about the issue so much as we wouldn't be caught in a lurch when they stop providing us all that free value!

golergka 4y ago

> without having to do marketing, sales May be some open-source software becomes notable without any marketing or sales, but I constantly see a lot of very conscious effort by FOSS maintainers to popularise their work. They go to meetups, do talks, post on twitter and HN. And yet the most that majority of them can hope for is getting a boost to their resume and being hired as a distinguished staff/principal-level engineer somewhere because of their open-source clout.

pharke 4y ago

Money is information. If maintainers eschew their own marketing, sales, and (paid) support then they lose access to this information. When someone else interprets the information provided through payment and non-payment their interpretation flavored by their own goals and shaped by their (mis)understanding of the product will introduce noise (i.e. bullshit) into the signal. The goal for maintainers who dislike the business side of things should be to write code that makes those business activities as painless as possible for the maintainer themselves. In writing such code they will develop a greater understanding of the process and may even learn to appreciate it. A true win would be to generalize that code so that other maintainers can use it to make their lives easier while still being able to glean valuable information from it.