7 ms·

The peaceful transfer of power in open source projects

196 points by edent 11mo ago

JimDabell 11mo ago
A long-standing succession plan also reduces the likelihood of a supply-chain attack. A fed-up maintainer deciding to quit is the worst possible time to pick a successor.
- Joel_Mckay 11mo ago
  Considering the sustained harassment some targeted individuals endure, it is important FOSS keeps a healthy community around projects. =3
charlesdicken 11mo ago
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lapcat 11mo ago
I'm not sure there's much utility in this article. It feels like the point was mainly to dunk on Ruby on Rails and WordPress without mentioning them by name. And such dunking may be justified, but it's not particularly interesting and won't lead to an enlightening discussion. I think it's crucial to point out, though, that Eugen Rochko's motives for stepping down were explicitly personal. He's still quite young, Mastodon itself is still quite young, less than a decade old, and Rochko could have continued in his position for some time. He stepped down because he wanted to step down, not for some selfless reason like succession planning. And I'm not criticizing Rochko for that; he can live his life the way he chooses and do what makes him happy, avoid what he finds unpleasant. And he's to be commended for the mentioned peaceful transition of power. However, there's no inherent reason why Matt Mullenweg or DHH should step down just because Rochko stepped down; their personal goals are obviously different. And Rochko behaved very differently while he was still leading Mastodon. The author clearly wants those other leaders to step down because he doesn't like those leaders and how they behave, not because of some abstract idea of succession planning. I don't think the metaphor of a king's death is apt here, because nobody has died or become incapacitated. They've just become overtly contemptible.
- bayindirh 11mo ago
  I don't take the same thing from the article. Yes, it's lighter than Terence's standard writing, and a bit more closed than his usual style, but I feel that he just wanted to underline something he liked personally. In once sentence, the blog post reads: Hey, look, this guy did something nice, and was honest about it. That's all.
  - lapcat 11mo ago
    I wouldn't even call it "nice." Stepping down only 9 years after the introduction of Mastodon seems a bit premature. I wouldn't call it selfish, though some people might. Plus, Rochko did get paid 1 million euros in the transition. For all I know, Rails and WordPress already have succession plans, or if not, I'm sure they will eventually, as the founders get older. They're still relatively young.
- shkkmo 11mo ago
  > The author clearly wants those other leaders to step down I think you are putting words in their mouth. They could easily have explicitly called to those leaders to step down. > He stepped down because he wanted to step down, not for some selfless reason like succession planning. The praise of Rochko isn't for stepping down. The praise is for the way he setup sucession and governance as he did so. >> Simply, we are going to transfer ownership of key Mastodon ecosystem and platform components (including name and copyrights, among other assets) to a new non-profit organization, affirming the intent that Mastodon should not be owned or controlled by a single individual.
  - lapcat 11mo ago
    > I think you are putting words in their mouth. They could easily have explicitly called to those leaders to step down. Let me quote from the article: "The last year has seen several BDFLs act like Mad Kings. They become tyrannical despots, lashing out at their own volunteers. They execute takeovers of community projects. They demand fealty and tithes. Like dragons, they become quick to anger when their brittle egos are tested. Spineless courtiers carry out deluded orders while pilfering the coffers." Also, from a comment by the article author: "I feel that part of the problem with WordPress and Rails is that that there is no model for replacing poor governance." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45980607 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45980607 I don't think my interpretation is a stretch. > The praise of Rochko isn't for stepping down. The praise is for the way he setup sucession and governance as he did so. Was there a Mastodon succession plan before Rochko unexpectedly stepped down? I'm not aware of one. And how do you know that Rails and WordPress don't already have their own succession plans?
John-Tony12 11mo ago
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alphazard 11mo ago
Comparing software projects to governments usually produces the wrong intuition. The stakes are much lower, and risk tolerance should be much higher with a software project. Dictators are good, forks are good, even conflict can be good because it means people care. On the contrary, democracy leads to mediocre decisions, designs by committee, and sluggishness. Unlike with a government, you can easily walk a way from a software project or create a fork. There is almost zero friction to "voting with your feet" in software and it works.
- antonvs 11mo ago
  > Unlike with a government, you can easily walk away Part of me hopes for a Snow Crash future where if you don't like the services provided by The American Mafia (a bit of on-the-nose prophecy from Neal Stephenson), you can switch to Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong instead. Sadly, human rights would likely be a casualty in that overall scenario.
- purple_turtle 11mo ago
  Open source software project captured by evil people in the worst case results in a lot of confusion and annoyance. Countries captured by evil people in the worst cases that result in millions of dead people. Entirely different risks are acceptable.
- gwbas1c 11mo ago
  > There is almost zero friction Building consensus around which fork to use is going to be a high-friction process; it's going to require much more work than pushing the "fork" button and changing the name in all the assets.
  - j-bos 11mo ago
    Then make something so much better it's worth it to use. This is code, code is purpose driven first and foremost.
  - deleted 11mo ago
    [deleted]
John-Tony 11mo ago
[dead]
bArray 11mo ago
> Which is why I am delighted that the Mastodon project has shown a better way to behave. I think we should hold our breath for a moment. The wars waged over concession don't always happen immediately, and not always involving the expected parties [1]. > Today, we’re marking another momentous step in this ongoing process as our Founder and now former CEO Eugen Rochko begins his transition into a new role with Mastodon. We are thrilled that he will continue on in an advisory role with our team. The problem with the undead King is if they ever feel the need to exercise any form of power. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hastings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hastings
smashah 11mo ago
There should be P.E Firms run by OSS devs concentrating in being the succession and exit plan for OSS founders while charging big tech cos ($1bn+) for support. Might sound a bit evil at first but it is the way to bolster the whole xkcd issue.
- embedding-shape 11mo ago
  Or we could shame companies into action by refusing to use and pay to companies who use FOSS (all of them) but don't contribute back (most of them). Lastly, don't contribute to their FOSS projects, regardless of how nice they might look, if they're not contributing to the ecosystem overall.
  - jamesbelchamber 11mo ago
    And start putting flowers up our noses while we're at it!
  - iddan 11mo ago
    Any concrete idea how to peruse this idea? I can’t think of any realistic one
szszrk 11mo ago
I struggle to find out who is this aimed at, really. It's clear there is a lot of drama in Opensource projects lately, but there are countless projects where the maintainer would be thrilled to have one or two people that would actually want to invest their time into reviewing some code with him. Day they find others pumped by their work and willing to invest some time would be celebrated with cake each year. Just because someone else's broken CI pipeline does "Several thousands of downloads of NPM package per day" should not make you feel bad that you have not "Build an organisation which won't crumble" yet. That's backwards. You want to help those people? Create that organization. Create another Apache org and take over important projects that need that. It really feels like banging the wrong drum. Just another person having a broken curl setup and blaming Daniel Stenberg for it.
1970-01-01 11mo ago
Linux will be the ultimate test for this. Linus will eventually retire or die. The individual that takes it from there sets the future for all open source. I cannot imagine open source existing if the kernel maintenance is squandered.
- Matumio 11mo ago
  Disagree, Linux is too big to fail. Too many people depend on it. It may get chaotic, but worst-case distributions will start collecting patches, as they already do for many unmaintained projects. Eventually one or two of them will emerge as the new upstream.
  - purple_turtle 11mo ago
    I guess the worst case is that future Linux will end entirely controlled by Google/Facebook/, Microsoft.
    - tracker1 11mo ago
      While I dislike a lot of what comes out of the FAANG companies, even if the names change over time... I generally feel if most of them can agree on something, it's probably an okay direction. That's generally how politics works, where you find the common ground is generally the better option for everyone.
- zamadatix 11mo ago
  If it doesn't go to Greg Kroah-Hartman and continue much the same I'll eat my shoe.
  - layer8 11mo ago
    Greg is older than Linus.
- ema 11mo ago
  There has been open source before Linux and there will be open source after Linux. Yes Linux is a flagship project but the whole culture of open source is much broader than it.
gassi 11mo ago
I run a semi-popular open source project (https://romm.app/ https://romm.app/), and this is a topic we tend to revisit regularly. While there will always have to be someone at the top who owns the project, we've tried to organize ourselves in a way that should prevent a complete hostile takeover: * Gihub organization is co-owned (2 Owners) * I own the domain, they run the Discord server * Finances are handled by https://opencollective.com/ * All code is GPL or AGPL licensed In the event either (or both) of us step away, temporarily or permanently, the core team is has the power and permissions to continue running the project indefinitely. While I would be able to remove them as co-owner on Github in a takeover scenario, I won't have access to the finances or the Discord community.
- graemep 11mo ago
  > Name and branding are owned by The Project itself That is only meaningful if the project is a legal entity that can sue, otherwise it means "no one owns it" - which is fine if that is what you want.
  - gassi 11mo ago
    > otherwise it means "no one owns it" - which is fine if that is what you want. Thanks for pointing this out, I removed that line to clarify.
bodhi_mind 11mo ago
The whole “why I contribute to open source” has been on my mind lately after I published my first open source project and it’s gotten moderate attention from the data engineering community (200 GitHub stars): TinyETL - Fast, zero-config ETL in a single binary https://github.com/alrpal/TinyETL https://github.com/alrpal/TinyETL The transition from being the sole architect of “my” project into more of a maintainer, organizer, director, has been a unique experience and interesting to reflect on. What’s the future hold? I really don’t know.
- hobs 11mo ago
  Wow, really impressive, there's a lot of stuff going on in such a small package, great work!
  - bodhi_mind 11mo ago
    I appreciate the kind words!
- YouAreWRONGtoo 11mo ago
  [dead]
muragekibicho 11mo ago
'or if reading is too woke' Amazing piece and oddly relatable
purple_turtle 11mo ago
> I'm begging project leaders everywhere - please read up on the social contract and the consent of the governed. I do not need consent as I am not governing anyone like king or president governs. If someone is using my project they are also not really entitled to anything, beyond what stated in license and similar documents if any. If they dislike it, they can fork my project and go away. If someone wants to be entitled to anything, they are free to make a contract and pay for service they desire. But while many are happy to demand nearly noone is willing to help. Or even fork project. Instead they make entitled demand and treat open source developers as servants or slaves or their pets. No, you are not entitled to your preferred governance model to be used in my software project.
- edent 11mo ago
  I think you've read something into my post that I didn't intend. I'm specifically talking about the community of people who do contribute. If you look at the recent shenanigans of WordPress and Ruby, they are causing discontent within the existing organisation of contributors. Those contributors are, of course, free to fork off if they want. But if you're trying to build a long-term viable project, then you need a way to ensure that the people working with you are treated fairly.
  - purple_turtle 11mo ago
    Post explicitly makes request to all project leaders: "I'm begging project leaders everywhere". As one of them I want to state that others, including you, are not entitled to decide how I run my project. I want to express that I am thankful that this one is phrased as suggestion. But I utterly reject that open source project is substantially similar to governing a country in responsibility and preferred setup. So I reject your analogy and suggestions as highly flawed.
    - deleted 11mo ago
      [deleted]
    - glenstein 11mo ago
theoldgreybeard 11mo ago
Why would I care when I am dead. It's just software and "bloody civil wars" is not something that happens over software governance. Oh no, some people might say mean things to eachother and someone might fork the software. Big Deal. Figure it out for yourselves like adults. Remember, the license says AS-IS and NO WARRANTY. Use at your own risk. I don't owe you anything. If you want work done on it - do it yourself or pay me.
- Jolter 11mo ago
  I think you’re misunderstanding the point of the linked article. It’s obviously about community-run projects, with or without a dictator for life. If you are running a one-man show, obviously you’re in the right to do whatever you want. Why would you pick a successor?
ziml77 11mo ago
Sorry for commenting about the page itself, but did anyone else have to go into reader mode to read it? The page is bouncing up and down, the text is extremely blurry and varying in size letter by letter, and every element seems randomly slanted.
- edent 11mo ago
  I think you might have accidentally activated the page's "Drunk CSS" mode - https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/09/drunk-css/ https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/09/drunk-css/ Click one of the theme buttons at the top to restore normality.
  - ziml77 11mo ago
    That was the problem. Thank you!
asim 11mo ago
I have tried to hand off a project for years with many failed attempts. In the case of Mastodon they have some very high profile names that effectively want to relive the glory days of Twitter and take it over. In the case of smaller projects, you have to very diligent when deciding who to hand off too. I don't think there are great answers here. If anyone is interested https://go-micro.dev https://go-micro.dev
ferguess_k 11mo ago
I think it depends on what kind of OSP they are. For example, Linux kernel is definitely widely used and I'd argue that it is one of the few things that have achieved globally acknowledgement and usage, i.e. a "human" thing, as the aliens said. Such a project would naturally require some strong leader (Linus is famous for being straightforward and none-BS) and a bunch of able enforcers (maintainers). I don't think we are short of able enforcers, although the total number of Linux maintainers who understand the full picture may be small, but we don't need a lot of them anyway. The key is to elect an equally good and strong leader, without which the project may degrade slowly, like all human projects. I'd hope someone with both the technical knowledge as well a strong character to take over whence Linus retires -- but Linus is only 55 years old so I believe he and the community still have many years to search for the next leader.
Nevermark 11mo ago
> The great selling point of democracy is that it allows for the peaceful transition of power. This is the true benefit of democracy that it actually delivers. Most stated benefits of democracy are partially true, but with a solid remainder supplied via the rose colored lenses of denial and hope. There is much work that remains to be done.
riazrizvi 11mo ago
This is a testament to how we can get lost in the weeds with ideas. The economic reality is that there’s little money in open source, on an hourly pay basis. There’s no barrier to entry, put in the hours and you can have a reason to work in all your spare time too. It’s silly to compare how people treat positions of real economic power to them.
- shkkmo 11mo ago
  The leadership of large open sourcr projects do carry real economic power. WordPress and Ruby have real significant impact, Mastodon less so.
  - riazrizvi 11mo ago
    Then the behavior would follow the traditional path, and there’s nothing to write about, no?
andremat 11mo ago
> Build an organisation which won't crumble the moment its founder is arrested for their predatory behaviour on tropical islands. Or gets convicted of the first-degree murder of his wife.
ChrisMarshallNY 11mo ago
I authored a project. Basically a framework and API, that gestated for over a decade. During that time, I managed it pretty much alone. It was difficult. I could have easily considered it "mine, all mine!". When I first started handing it over to the team that now runs it, I considered being a BDFL, but found out that I couldn't let go, while still in the mix. So I walked away from it. I still chip in a peanut gallery comment on Slack, every now and then, but otherwise, I'm history. Best decision I ever made. The new team took it to the next level.
- the_biot 11mo ago
  That's great, but it doesn't always turn out that way. Twice now I've started open source projects, got them to varying levels of success, handed over to another maintainer, and watched it turn to shit. Luck of the draw, I think :-(
  - ChrisMarshallNY 11mo ago
    It's a matter of motivation. It's a long story, but part of the reason that it took ten years, was because I wasn't gonna hand it over to "just anybody."
m463 11mo ago
"The great selling point of democracy is that it allows for the peaceful transition of power." that is an interesting point I didn't realize.
smsm42 11mo ago
OSS projects are not governments, they are communities. You can't just come to a village and declare "I don't like how you live here, you therefore must have a plan of how to accommodate my wishes!" Nope, they don't. And the fact that you read entire two books on "consent of the governed" is irrelevant, because they are not trying to govern you. You are free to hit the road and go to another village anytime. When you become part of the community, contribute to it, gain share in building the common thing then you might gain some claim to participation in the governance. Or maybe not. And the beauty of OSS is that if you don't like that, you are free to fork it and establish your own community literally at any time. Yes, you'd be facing an uphill struggle to convince people your community is better and they should move over. That's exactly how it should be. If it's indeed better, they will come. If it's just your ego and delusion speaking, they will not. I don't have enough interest in Mastodon project to have an opinion about what happened there, but presenting it like every project founder owes to turn it over to the Committee of Concerned Citizens is nonsense. And, also, the description of "There are no VCs bringing in their MBA-brained lackeys to extract maximum value while leaving a rotting husk." may yet prove very false, as the project grows. Github was once a young, scrappy and full of inconvential management ideas, now it's literally Microsoft. Let Mastodon be governed by committee for 10 years and we'll see.

196 points by edent 11mo ago

A long-standing succession plan also reduces the likelihood of a supply-chain attack. A fed-up maintainer deciding to quit is the worst possible time to pick a successor.

Joel_Mckay 11mo ago
Considering the sustained harassment some targeted individuals endure, it is important FOSS keeps a healthy community around projects. =3

charlesdicken 11mo ago

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lapcat 11mo ago

I'm not sure there's much utility in this article. It feels like the point was mainly to dunk on Ruby on Rails and WordPress without mentioning them by name. And such dunking may be justified, but it's not particularly interesting and won't lead to an enlightening discussion. I think it's crucial to point out, though, that Eugen Rochko's motives for stepping down were explicitly personal. He's still quite young, Mastodon itself is still quite young, less than a decade old, and Rochko could have continued in his position for some time. He stepped down because he wanted to step down, not for some selfless reason like succession planning. And I'm not criticizing Rochko for that; he can live his life the way he chooses and do what makes him happy, avoid what he finds unpleasant. And he's to be commended for the mentioned peaceful transition of power. However, there's no inherent reason why Matt Mullenweg or DHH should step down just because Rochko stepped down; their personal goals are obviously different. And Rochko behaved very differently while he was still leading Mastodon. The author clearly wants those other leaders to step down because he doesn't like those leaders and how they behave, not because of some abstract idea of succession planning. I don't think the metaphor of a king's death is apt here, because nobody has died or become incapacitated. They've just become overtly contemptible.

bayindirh 11mo ago
I don't take the same thing from the article. Yes, it's lighter than Terence's standard writing, and a bit more closed than his usual style, but I feel that he just wanted to underline something he liked personally. In once sentence, the blog post reads: Hey, look, this guy did something nice, and was honest about it. That's all.
- lapcat 11mo ago
  I wouldn't even call it "nice." Stepping down only 9 years after the introduction of Mastodon seems a bit premature. I wouldn't call it selfish, though some people might. Plus, Rochko did get paid 1 million euros in the transition. For all I know, Rails and WordPress already have succession plans, or if not, I'm sure they will eventually, as the founders get older. They're still relatively young.
shkkmo 11mo ago
> The author clearly wants those other leaders to step down I think you are putting words in their mouth. They could easily have explicitly called to those leaders to step down. > He stepped down because he wanted to step down, not for some selfless reason like succession planning. The praise of Rochko isn't for stepping down. The praise is for the way he setup sucession and governance as he did so. >> Simply, we are going to transfer ownership of key Mastodon ecosystem and platform components (including name and copyrights, among other assets) to a new non-profit organization, affirming the intent that Mastodon should not be owned or controlled by a single individual.
- lapcat 11mo ago
  > I think you are putting words in their mouth. They could easily have explicitly called to those leaders to step down. Let me quote from the article: "The last year has seen several BDFLs act like Mad Kings. They become tyrannical despots, lashing out at their own volunteers. They execute takeovers of community projects. They demand fealty and tithes. Like dragons, they become quick to anger when their brittle egos are tested. Spineless courtiers carry out deluded orders while pilfering the coffers." Also, from a comment by the article author: "I feel that part of the problem with WordPress and Rails is that that there is no model for replacing poor governance." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45980607 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45980607 I don't think my interpretation is a stretch. > The praise of Rochko isn't for stepping down. The praise is for the way he setup sucession and governance as he did so. Was there a Mastodon succession plan before Rochko unexpectedly stepped down? I'm not aware of one. And how do you know that Rails and WordPress don't already have their own succession plans?

John-Tony12 11mo ago

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alphazard 11mo ago

Comparing software projects to governments usually produces the wrong intuition. The stakes are much lower, and risk tolerance should be much higher with a software project. Dictators are good, forks are good, even conflict can be good because it means people care. On the contrary, democracy leads to mediocre decisions, designs by committee, and sluggishness. Unlike with a government, you can easily walk a way from a software project or create a fork. There is almost zero friction to "voting with your feet" in software and it works.

antonvs 11mo ago
> Unlike with a government, you can easily walk away Part of me hopes for a Snow Crash future where if you don't like the services provided by The American Mafia (a bit of on-the-nose prophecy from Neal Stephenson), you can switch to Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong instead. Sadly, human rights would likely be a casualty in that overall scenario.
purple_turtle 11mo ago
Open source software project captured by evil people in the worst case results in a lot of confusion and annoyance. Countries captured by evil people in the worst cases that result in millions of dead people. Entirely different risks are acceptable.
gwbas1c 11mo ago
> There is almost zero friction Building consensus around which fork to use is going to be a high-friction process; it's going to require much more work than pushing the "fork" button and changing the name in all the assets.
- j-bos 11mo ago
  Then make something so much better it's worth it to use. This is code, code is purpose driven first and foremost.
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]

John-Tony 11mo ago

[dead]

bArray 11mo ago

> Which is why I am delighted that the Mastodon project has shown a better way to behave. I think we should hold our breath for a moment. The wars waged over concession don't always happen immediately, and not always involving the expected parties [1]. > Today, we’re marking another momentous step in this ongoing process as our Founder and now former CEO Eugen Rochko begins his transition into a new role with Mastodon. We are thrilled that he will continue on in an advisory role with our team. The problem with the undead King is if they ever feel the need to exercise any form of power. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hastings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hastings

smashah 11mo ago

There should be P.E Firms run by OSS devs concentrating in being the succession and exit plan for OSS founders while charging big tech cos ($1bn+) for support. Might sound a bit evil at first but it is the way to bolster the whole xkcd issue.

embedding-shape 11mo ago
Or we could shame companies into action by refusing to use and pay to companies who use FOSS (all of them) but don't contribute back (most of them). Lastly, don't contribute to their FOSS projects, regardless of how nice they might look, if they're not contributing to the ecosystem overall.
- jamesbelchamber 11mo ago
  And start putting flowers up our noses while we're at it!
- iddan 11mo ago
  Any concrete idea how to peruse this idea? I can’t think of any realistic one

szszrk 11mo ago

I struggle to find out who is this aimed at, really. It's clear there is a lot of drama in Opensource projects lately, but there are countless projects where the maintainer would be thrilled to have one or two people that would actually want to invest their time into reviewing some code with him. Day they find others pumped by their work and willing to invest some time would be celebrated with cake each year. Just because someone else's broken CI pipeline does "Several thousands of downloads of NPM package per day" should not make you feel bad that you have not "Build an organisation which won't crumble" yet. That's backwards. You want to help those people? Create that organization. Create another Apache org and take over important projects that need that. It really feels like banging the wrong drum. Just another person having a broken curl setup and blaming Daniel Stenberg for it.

1970-01-01 11mo ago

Linux will be the ultimate test for this. Linus will eventually retire or die. The individual that takes it from there sets the future for all open source. I cannot imagine open source existing if the kernel maintenance is squandered.

Matumio 11mo ago
Disagree, Linux is too big to fail. Too many people depend on it. It may get chaotic, but worst-case distributions will start collecting patches, as they already do for many unmaintained projects. Eventually one or two of them will emerge as the new upstream.
- purple_turtle 11mo ago
  I guess the worst case is that future Linux will end entirely controlled by Google/Facebook/, Microsoft.
  - tracker1 11mo ago
    While I dislike a lot of what comes out of the FAANG companies, even if the names change over time... I generally feel if most of them can agree on something, it's probably an okay direction. That's generally how politics works, where you find the common ground is generally the better option for everyone.
zamadatix 11mo ago
If it doesn't go to Greg Kroah-Hartman and continue much the same I'll eat my shoe.
- layer8 11mo ago
  Greg is older than Linus.
ema 11mo ago
There has been open source before Linux and there will be open source after Linux. Yes Linux is a flagship project but the whole culture of open source is much broader than it.

gassi 11mo ago

I run a semi-popular open source project (https://romm.app/ https://romm.app/), and this is a topic we tend to revisit regularly. While there will always have to be someone at the top who owns the project, we've tried to organize ourselves in a way that should prevent a complete hostile takeover: * Gihub organization is co-owned (2 Owners) * I own the domain, they run the Discord server * Finances are handled by https://opencollective.com/ * All code is GPL or AGPL licensed In the event either (or both) of us step away, temporarily or permanently, the core team is has the power and permissions to continue running the project indefinitely. While I would be able to remove them as co-owner on Github in a takeover scenario, I won't have access to the finances or the Discord community.

graemep 11mo ago
> Name and branding are owned by The Project itself That is only meaningful if the project is a legal entity that can sue, otherwise it means "no one owns it" - which is fine if that is what you want.
- gassi 11mo ago
  > otherwise it means "no one owns it" - which is fine if that is what you want. Thanks for pointing this out, I removed that line to clarify.

bodhi_mind 11mo ago

The whole “why I contribute to open source” has been on my mind lately after I published my first open source project and it’s gotten moderate attention from the data engineering community (200 GitHub stars): TinyETL - Fast, zero-config ETL in a single binary https://github.com/alrpal/TinyETL https://github.com/alrpal/TinyETL The transition from being the sole architect of “my” project into more of a maintainer, organizer, director, has been a unique experience and interesting to reflect on. What’s the future hold? I really don’t know.

hobs 11mo ago
Wow, really impressive, there's a lot of stuff going on in such a small package, great work!
- bodhi_mind 11mo ago
  I appreciate the kind words!
YouAreWRONGtoo 11mo ago
[dead]

muragekibicho 11mo ago

'or if reading is too woke' Amazing piece and oddly relatable

purple_turtle 11mo ago

> I'm begging project leaders everywhere - please read up on the social contract and the consent of the governed. I do not need consent as I am not governing anyone like king or president governs. If someone is using my project they are also not really entitled to anything, beyond what stated in license and similar documents if any. If they dislike it, they can fork my project and go away. If someone wants to be entitled to anything, they are free to make a contract and pay for service they desire. But while many are happy to demand nearly noone is willing to help. Or even fork project. Instead they make entitled demand and treat open source developers as servants or slaves or their pets. No, you are not entitled to your preferred governance model to be used in my software project.

edent 11mo ago
I think you've read something into my post that I didn't intend. I'm specifically talking about the community of people who do contribute. If you look at the recent shenanigans of WordPress and Ruby, they are causing discontent within the existing organisation of contributors. Those contributors are, of course, free to fork off if they want. But if you're trying to build a long-term viable project, then you need a way to ensure that the people working with you are treated fairly.
- purple_turtle 11mo ago
  Post explicitly makes request to all project leaders: "I'm begging project leaders everywhere". As one of them I want to state that others, including you, are not entitled to decide how I run my project. I want to express that I am thankful that this one is phrased as suggestion. But I utterly reject that open source project is substantially similar to governing a country in responsibility and preferred setup. So I reject your analogy and suggestions as highly flawed.
  - deleted 11mo ago
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  - glenstein 11mo ago

theoldgreybeard 11mo ago

Why would I care when I am dead. It's just software and "bloody civil wars" is not something that happens over software governance. Oh no, some people might say mean things to eachother and someone might fork the software. Big Deal. Figure it out for yourselves like adults. Remember, the license says AS-IS and NO WARRANTY. Use at your own risk. I don't owe you anything. If you want work done on it - do it yourself or pay me.

Jolter 11mo ago
I think you’re misunderstanding the point of the linked article. It’s obviously about community-run projects, with or without a dictator for life. If you are running a one-man show, obviously you’re in the right to do whatever you want. Why would you pick a successor?

ziml77 11mo ago

Sorry for commenting about the page itself, but did anyone else have to go into reader mode to read it? The page is bouncing up and down, the text is extremely blurry and varying in size letter by letter, and every element seems randomly slanted.

edent 11mo ago
I think you might have accidentally activated the page's "Drunk CSS" mode - https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/09/drunk-css/ https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/09/drunk-css/ Click one of the theme buttons at the top to restore normality.
- ziml77 11mo ago
  That was the problem. Thank you!

asim 11mo ago

I have tried to hand off a project for years with many failed attempts. In the case of Mastodon they have some very high profile names that effectively want to relive the glory days of Twitter and take it over. In the case of smaller projects, you have to very diligent when deciding who to hand off too. I don't think there are great answers here. If anyone is interested https://go-micro.dev https://go-micro.dev

ferguess_k 11mo ago

I think it depends on what kind of OSP they are. For example, Linux kernel is definitely widely used and I'd argue that it is one of the few things that have achieved globally acknowledgement and usage, i.e. a "human" thing, as the aliens said. Such a project would naturally require some strong leader (Linus is famous for being straightforward and none-BS) and a bunch of able enforcers (maintainers). I don't think we are short of able enforcers, although the total number of Linux maintainers who understand the full picture may be small, but we don't need a lot of them anyway. The key is to elect an equally good and strong leader, without which the project may degrade slowly, like all human projects. I'd hope someone with both the technical knowledge as well a strong character to take over whence Linus retires -- but Linus is only 55 years old so I believe he and the community still have many years to search for the next leader.

Nevermark 11mo ago

> The great selling point of democracy is that it allows for the peaceful transition of power. This is the true benefit of democracy that it actually delivers. Most stated benefits of democracy are partially true, but with a solid remainder supplied via the rose colored lenses of denial and hope. There is much work that remains to be done.

riazrizvi 11mo ago

This is a testament to how we can get lost in the weeds with ideas. The economic reality is that there’s little money in open source, on an hourly pay basis. There’s no barrier to entry, put in the hours and you can have a reason to work in all your spare time too. It’s silly to compare how people treat positions of real economic power to them.

shkkmo 11mo ago
The leadership of large open sourcr projects do carry real economic power. WordPress and Ruby have real significant impact, Mastodon less so.
- riazrizvi 11mo ago
  Then the behavior would follow the traditional path, and there’s nothing to write about, no?

andremat 11mo ago

> Build an organisation which won't crumble the moment its founder is arrested for their predatory behaviour on tropical islands. Or gets convicted of the first-degree murder of his wife.

ChrisMarshallNY 11mo ago

I authored a project. Basically a framework and API, that gestated for over a decade. During that time, I managed it pretty much alone. It was difficult. I could have easily considered it "mine, all mine!". When I first started handing it over to the team that now runs it, I considered being a BDFL, but found out that I couldn't let go, while still in the mix. So I walked away from it. I still chip in a peanut gallery comment on Slack, every now and then, but otherwise, I'm history. Best decision I ever made. The new team took it to the next level.

the_biot 11mo ago
That's great, but it doesn't always turn out that way. Twice now I've started open source projects, got them to varying levels of success, handed over to another maintainer, and watched it turn to shit. Luck of the draw, I think :-(
- ChrisMarshallNY 11mo ago
  It's a matter of motivation. It's a long story, but part of the reason that it took ten years, was because I wasn't gonna hand it over to "just anybody."

m463 11mo ago

"The great selling point of democracy is that it allows for the peaceful transition of power." that is an interesting point I didn't realize.

smsm42 11mo ago

OSS projects are not governments, they are communities. You can't just come to a village and declare "I don't like how you live here, you therefore must have a plan of how to accommodate my wishes!" Nope, they don't. And the fact that you read entire two books on "consent of the governed" is irrelevant, because they are not trying to govern you. You are free to hit the road and go to another village anytime. When you become part of the community, contribute to it, gain share in building the common thing then you might gain some claim to participation in the governance. Or maybe not. And the beauty of OSS is that if you don't like that, you are free to fork it and establish your own community literally at any time. Yes, you'd be facing an uphill struggle to convince people your community is better and they should move over. That's exactly how it should be. If it's indeed better, they will come. If it's just your ego and delusion speaking, they will not. I don't have enough interest in Mastodon project to have an opinion about what happened there, but presenting it like every project founder owes to turn it over to the Committee of Concerned Citizens is nonsense. And, also, the description of "There are no VCs bringing in their MBA-brained lackeys to extract maximum value while leaving a rotting husk." may yet prove very false, as the project grows. Github was once a young, scrappy and full of inconvential management ideas, now it's literally Microsoft. Let Mastodon be governed by committee for 10 years and we'll see.