4 ms·
I would start by suggesting that the incentives and motivations aren't aligned but there's more to it than that. With open source projects, most commonly, ever
by rc00 4y ago
I would start by suggesting that the incentives and motivations aren't aligned but there's more to it than that.
With open source projects, most commonly, everyone wants to be there and has some level of the same objectives, possibly because they are consuming the final product as well as contributing to it. Here, the open source maintainer is a sort of shepherd for the flock.
As a software team in a company, not only is everyone not equally motivated, the incentives are also not the same. A company has a financial incentive that may not align with the technical one.
A company also has the pressure of deadlines where an open source project can be delayed or even in a state of maintenance mode. This drives a different culture as well. The purpose of the manager is to deliver value for the company while the role of the open source maintainer is to deliver value to the project.
I would simply posit that the two roles are not the same. There are maybe some overlaps from the standpoint of overseeing finished code and the delivery of releases, but the hierarchy, org structure, motivations, and incentives create very different situations.
- cma 4y agoIs there any example of a long-lived successful open source project from a non-technical manager that leads a team of people on board with his or her vision?
- rc00 4y agoIt depends on your definitions of long-lived, successful, and non-technical but Canonical/Ubuntu and Mark Shuttleworth seem like an apt example.
- cma 4y agoHe received an undergrad degree in information systems.
- rc00 4y agoBachelor of Business Science degree in Finance and Information Systems[1]. Depending on the curriculum and institution, Information Systems is not a technical degree in the same sense as Computer Science. That is why I quantified with "it depends on your definitions." I'm not sure if Bob Young (founder of Red Hat) meets the definition either since he is no longer involved these days. There's a bit of a theme developing in my mind clearly as these are all the enterprise and open source projects. I admittedly don't know much about the founder(s) of SUSE. (In my mind, I might be ascribing some notion of success to being a profitable enterprise. You may not feel the same.) Nonetheless, those are examples to the hypothetical and I have not researched any others though I am sure they exist. I think one important thing to keep in mind is the type of person/personality these projects tend to attract in the first place. That is likely why there are a predominant amount that are technical. This detracts from the original point though. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Shuttleworth#Early_life https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Shuttleworth#Early_life