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Open Source Roles: Starters vs. Maintainers (jlongster.com)

Posted by Soulskill on from the boredom-vs-dedication dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Mozilla developer James Long has posted a sort of internal monologue on the difficulties of being a hobbyist open source project maintainer. He says, "I hugely admire people who give so much time to OSS projects for free. I can't believe how much unpaid boring work is going on. It's really cool that people care so much about helping others and the community. ... There are two roles for any project: starters and maintainers. People may play both roles in their lives, but for some reason I've found that for a single project it's usually different people. Starters are good at taking a big step in a different direction, and maintainers are good at being dedicated to keeping the code alive.

I am definitely a starter. I tend to be interested in a lot of various things, instead of dedicating myself to a few concentrated areas. I've maintained libraries for years, but it's always a huge source of guilt and late Friday nights to catch up on a backlog of issues. ... Here's to all the maintainers out there. To all the people putting in tireless, thankless work behind-the-scenes to keep code alive, to write documentation, to cut releases, to register domain names, and everything else."

77 comments

  1. Bird! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Bird is true

    1. Re:Bird! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bird == word

    2. Re:Bird! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      liar

  2. Who would want to be a maintainer? by speedplane · · Score: 1

    I'm not sure this is accurate. If it were, why would anyone choose to be a maintainer, stuck fixing small bugs for years on end and having little to do with the movements forward?

    --
    Fast Federal Court and I.T.C. updates
    1. Re:Who would want to be a maintainer? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Well, I do both. I maintain a few packages in a fairly popular GNU distribution. It can take some time but I have plenty left for working on my own projects and contribute to a number of upstream projects that I'm interested in. It takes some planning though. I've always been fascinated by how much time a lot of people just throw away.

    2. Re:Who would want to be a maintainer? by FunkSoulBrother · · Score: 0

      There are a lot of degrees on the autism spectrum, look at Wikipedia.

    3. Re:Who would want to be a maintainer? by Kjella · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm not sure this is accurate. If it were, why would anyone choose to be a maintainer, stuck fixing small bugs for years on end and having little to do with the movements forward?

      Hardly anybody starts as a maintainer, it just creeps up on you. Like some years ago I was busy trying to get some games to work under WINE, filed some bug reports and found various tweaks to make them work. Since there wasn't a maintainer in the appdb, I signed up. And then it just became a habit to fire up the games when new versions came out, even some I'd grown tired of just to check that it was still working or if there were regressions, if the tweaks were still necessary and so on. Once they totally broke some games and I bisected it back to the commit and it got fixed. Maintenance is what keeps things working, you do it a little bit for yourself and a little bit for the public good.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    4. Re:Who would want to be a maintainer? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If it were, why would anyone choose to be a maintainer, stuck fixing small bugs for years on end and having little to do with the movements forward?

      Some people choose to fix the things they like to use, and they know others like to use. Others prefer to blaze new ground.

      This is a world of many many many different kinds.

    5. Re:Who would want to be a maintainer? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I tend to take on the maintainer role. A lot.

      What I usually find is someone creates a tool/game/daemon I find useful. I start using it and submitting feature requests or bug reports. Then the original developer reports they are not longer working on the project or don't have time to address bug reports.

      I end up patching the software and maintaining it for myself and publishing the code for others to use. Then people start e-mailing me and asking me to fix other bugs or add a new feature or port the software. I usually am happy to do these things in my spare time.

      It may seem odd, but I've done this for about a dozen open source projects now. My SourceForge/GitHub accounts are almost entirely populated with project's I have "rescued" from the trash bin and kept on life support. Originally for my own benefit, but eventually for use by thousands of others too.

    6. Re:Who would want to be a maintainer? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm not sure this is accurate. If it were, why would anyone choose to be a maintainer, stuck fixing small bugs for years on end and having little to do with the movements forward?

      I actually enjoy being a maintainer and I do not like being a starter. I don't have creative ideas to be able to start something from nothing however I do have the skill to review existing code, debug if needed, and do updates and upgrades as needed.

    7. Re:Who would want to be a maintainer? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I would do it if I didn't have to work for a living.

      Work like that, even if boring, gives a sense of significance to one's life. That's an important psychological need.

      As it stands, paying the bills demands too much of my time.

    8. Re:Who would want to be a maintainer? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sure you do.

    9. Re:Who would want to be a maintainer? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My question is, what stops these people from coming to the conclusion that their software is crap and not to be used (the way most users do and why most open source projects get badly forgotten after a little while)

      Sure there are a few exceptions (Linux - the product of a narcissist, emacs - the product of a Marxist, etc), but without a psychological disorder or political motivation it is definitely hard to justify.

    10. Re: Who would want to be a maintainer? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If it's doing something you like or love, is that really time thrown away? I'd say slaving for a company in a 9 to 5 is time thrown away. IMHO.

    11. Re:Who would want to be a maintainer? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If your project has no maintainers then the cost of using your software shoots up. In an organization that's well-factored into business units this can mean the difference between adopting an internal technology and going off-the-shelf. The maintainers make your software provable, extendable, understandable and reliable. Software maintainers give the quality to the software that makes people want to use it.

      Starters create ideas - usually unpolished ones. They prove a point, generate a discussion and set a direction but they're more ADHD than OCD. Once these new projects run into complexity the creator usually abandons it out of frustration because the pace doesn't meet their expectations or because the challenges turn into maintenance challenges. Starters make something that works. Maintainers keep it working, for everyone.

      That doesn't mean either group should berate the other. This is a symbiotic relationship in a software team. We don't berate the maintainers because what they do is boring or not challenging. We don't berate the starter because what they do is destructive. These statements might be subjectively true but it doesn't matter - without these people on your team you're toast.

    12. Re:Who would want to be a maintainer? by KGIII · · Score: 2

      Actually, you might be surprised at what some of us do under a different moniker and in our spare time. Many of us here give back to the community in multiple ways. Some even belong to multiple communities and do things just for the sake of helping out, out of curiosity, or out of need. It's not always altruism but it does happen.

      Some careful searching might find a whole host of (quite old) commits, and even whole projects, with documentation that reads slightly like someone who was poor at articulating clearly, very verbose, and may have some familiar verbiage. Sometimes, you grow tired of the project, the people, or just move on and leave it and someone picks up the pieces and carries on - or not. There's no obligation to maintain it just as there's no obligation to create it.

      However, given the nature of this site - it's quite possible that the AC you replied to is directly involved in assisting a variety of projects in some meaningful fashion.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    13. Re:Who would want to be a maintainer? by houstonbofh · · Score: 1

      Well, I used m0n0wall in my work. So when it folded, I needed a replacement, and forked http://www.smallwall.org/ which I maintain with a lot of help. :) In other words, I also make some money on it with clients.

  3. not quite like that by rubycodez · · Score: 1

    plenty of people get paid to "do open source". plenty of people even contribute and maintain while on company time because their company lets them be involved. others do it anyway on the clock because it's the same as being on slashdot at work only of more benefit to others (tsk tsk, shocking I know). speaking of which, back to work for my lazy self....and later I'm going to do a commit to something at least a quarter of you all use, even though my employer might not appreciate that. shame for same...

    1. Re:not quite like that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > and later I'm going to do a commit to something at least a quarter of you all use

      wow, a quarter of us! you're surely referring to brains

    2. Re:not quite like that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He probably means a web browser or core operating system component. We can exclude Windows since it isn't an open source project, and Chromium is supported by Google(a for-profit enterprise) so I'm guessing he's referring to Mozilla Firefox which is much more dependent on volunteer labor while simultaneously having a large market share.

      Otherwise: we're talking about some sort of core web technology like Node.js but I doubt it since web browsing habits vary on a per-user basis so it would be presumptuous to take a metric like "25% of web apps run node.js" and assume that 25% of Slashdot users are equally representative of the general population.

    3. Re:not quite like that by houstonbofh · · Score: 1

      I have seen submissions written on company time at the company request because it fixed something for them. And once accepted, it was now supported. :) They like that!

  4. Almost everyone's a 'starter' by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 1

    ...which is why open source and Linux have worked so well together over the years. Most specifically, Linux has always been about "do one small thing but do it well" so the "10 starters to 1 maintainer" ratio in the open source community works.

  5. That's one of the biggest problems with OSS by NotDrWho · · Score: 1

    Everybody wants the cool job of being one of the original coders. Nobody wants the not-so-cool job of actually maintaining it over the long-term, writing documentation for it, supporting it, etc. That's what often separates the OSS stuff from the commercial stuff, especially over the long-haul (and why companies are willing to spend extra money on commercial, proprietary software even when an OSS alternative exists).

    --
    SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
    1. Re:That's one of the biggest problems with OSS by MacDork · · Score: 1

      Everybody wants the cool job of being one of the original coders. Nobody wants the not-so-cool job of actually maintaining it over the long-term, writing documentation for it, supporting it, etc.

      I don't see it that way at all. I find that the maintainers are there because the code is useful to them. It's far easier to take what's there and fix a few bugs than start a whole new version just for the sake of having written it yourself.

      Sometimes starting a project is simply implementing something from one language in another. The 'starter' is only interested in getting it to the "good enough" stage that he can use it. I don't consider that cool at all. That's just work. And the starter is just a porter. I'd rather have an existing library that does what I want to do in my language.

      Starting a project can happen for more reasons than, "Look at me! I'm reinventing the wheel!" Sometimes, there's one bug that simply can't be fixed in an existing implementation, because it would break literally all the code. Take the '+' operator, for instance. What's 100 + 100? -56 of course! You can't just fix overflow in C or Java or whatever. You have to start something from scratch that does things differently.

    2. Re:That's one of the biggest problems with OSS by Kjella · · Score: 1

      Everybody wants the cool job of being one of the original coders. Nobody wants the not-so-cool job of actually maintaining it over the long-term, writing documentation for it, supporting it, etc. That's what often separates the OSS stuff from the commercial stuff, especially over the long-haul (and why companies are willing to spend extra money on commercial, proprietary software even when an OSS alternative exists).

      I think that's very variable, there is a lot of proprietary code that happens to solve their one particular use case as long as you use it exactly that way, but if you want to use it some other way you can't. Open source is used by many different people with many different needs so you usually get flexible solutions. Like for example WordPress has become the most popular CMS because it can morph into almost anything. Linux runs on everything from cell phones to supercomputers. Long haul you very rarely see a market revert back from open source to more proprietary once it's first taken hold, no matter how fantastic you make it.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    3. Re:That's one of the biggest problems with OSS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Frankly, I haven't seen high quality documentation as the standard in ANY domain and I consider that a consequence of poor tools.

      "Self documenting code" obviously isn't and until Google Now/Cortana/Siri learn to comment source code: I don't expect that to change as commenting code takes more effort than writing code(and the programmer is only occasionally the person who benefits from those comments).

      One possible way to fix that would be embedding the programmer's Dogecoin/altcoin addresses in comments such that downstream users who benefit from those comments can "tip" with a browser extension.

      This would be similar to a sales job with low commissions in most cases where only the best technical writers will even bother because the incentives represent such a low hourly wage for writing skills. There would be a clamor to comment frequently used software and you would end up with wikipedia style moderation edit wars over whose comments were the most effective at communicating code intent. This could be measured quantitatively using altcoin transaction histories of course.

      Maybe we finally have a legitimate use-case for altcoins?

    4. Re:That's one of the biggest problems with OSS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >Nobody wants the not-so-cool job of actually maintaining it over the long-term, writing documentation for it, supporting it, etc

      Yeah, because that is the real product stuff that takes a 60% product to 100%. That is why building the world on the shoulders of free labor is a bad idea. I pay my plumber and my doctor because I want quality work. I'm going to skip the free doctor who has a regular full time job elsewhere.

    5. Re:That's one of the biggest problems with OSS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes and no...

      As someone who generally does "maintenance" on both commercial and open source... Its actually more of a thing of the surrounding ecosystem, politics,etc...

      In more than a few instances, I could have written something better, but then all the tools and libraries that interface with it would have to be rewritten as well. And if you can't or won't promote it enough it just isn't worth the effort to go through all of that.

    6. Re:That's one of the biggest problems with OSS by houstonbofh · · Score: 1

      Nobody wants the not-so-cool job of actually maintaining it over the long-term, writing documentation for it, supporting it, etc.

      This right here! You want to learn a new bit of software and get the attention of the dev team? While learning, write new user documentation. You will have the dev team's full and undivided attention! I know a lot of project leads that started by writing documentation for another project.

    7. Re:That's one of the biggest problems with OSS by tlambert · · Score: 1

      Nobody wants the not-so-cool job of actually maintaining it over the long-term, writing documentation for it, supporting it, etc.

      This right here! You want to learn a new bit of software and get the attention of the dev team? While learning, write new user documentation. You will have the dev team's full and undivided attention! I know a lot of project leads that started by writing documentation for another project.

      My personal take on this is that if you need to read documentation in order to be able to use a piece of software, something is wrong with that piece of software, and it's not a lack of documentation. One of the reasons there are no "themes" in Mac OS X is that it means that the answer to the question of "how do I throw something away" is always the same. And if the application follows the style guidelines, then you can transfer your knowledge easily between applications.

      I blame Bob Wallace, and PC-Write.

      I remember listening to him speak at a UniForum conference, where he explained "shareware" as "I don't sell software; software is all 'up here'..." at which point he waved his hands on either side of his head; "No," he said, "I sell manuals".

      This explanation has always stuck with me as to the reason that PC-Write, if you wanted to be able to get the most out of it, you needed a printed manual. So you could either print your own -- but the printing costs at the time were high enough that you could buy a printed and bound copy from Bob for a lot cheaper, and without "using up" your printer.

      The software was difficult to use because being difficult to use sold manuals.

      A lot of software never outgrew that phase of its life, and is still, to this day, rather terrible to use.

      If your software needs a manual, or an online help system, or a wiki to make it useful: you're doing it wrong.

    8. Re:That's one of the biggest problems with OSS by John+Da'+Baddest · · Score: 1

      That's crap.

      I used to amuse myself by figuring out the finer points of a software configuration (or lack thereof, or whether there's a bug) by autodidactic reasoning. But these days, I just don't have the time to spend, aka waste, by screwing around. So I really appreciate well-organized docs, especially with good examples that get right to the point.

      Getting a project into operation may take a bunch of standard activities, as well as - lets say, 100 non-obvious actions. If well-organized docs provide a 2-minute solution per topic, the project could be online and ready for testing with a full day of work. Versus screwing around for a week of trails-and-errors, with the partially helpful Google Librarian at your service - how fun it is to find your same question posted several times over the years but still no useful answer.

      And even more so for software intended for an audience besides software specialists. I bet you also read Ikea furniture assembly instructions so you get the order right in the first place, without having to redo it several times - which probably fails anyway, because their wooden screw-holes can only take a few insertions before the cheap threading is wrecked.

    9. Re:That's one of the biggest problems with OSS by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      Try doing something even moderately sophisticated in either Photoshop or gimp, without a manual or prior knowledge. What the hell is a channel? A path? A layer?

      It's not necessarily a defect of the software. Some ideas and procedures are too inherently complicated to be handled by a newbie without a lot of difficulty.

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
  6. Very Accurate, Maintainers -vs- starters by jageryager · · Score: 0

    I have found this to be very true outside of Open Source as well.

    Some people thrive on pressure, deadlines, designing and building things that are hard to design and build, working in teams solving tough problems. Those people get bored when the SW project goes into maintenance mode. Others don't thrive with all that. They want to, or are at least willing to work at a different pace, with different kinds of challenges, reverse engineer other people's work, make bug fixes or incremental improvements under less stress and with less risk.

    Kevin

    --
    "They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety"-B.Franklin
    1. Re:Very Accurate, Maintainers -vs- starters by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 1

      It's not exactly a new notion either. Look up Belbin's team roles.

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
    2. Re:Very Accurate, Maintainers -vs- starters by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'd argue the maintainers operate under more stress with the most risk. The risks in starting something in OSS are minimal - throw shit and see if it sticks. Maintainers are burdened with branches, releases, legacy deployments and migrations, emergency patching, CUSTOMERS. The vast majority of programmers always overlook customers - we write software selfishly for ourselves. We don't test because meh. We don't design because whatever. We write something that looks interesting, get bored, and then hand it to the underling saying "that's my cool thing, make it not crash so much and sell it...otherwise you're fired". This is the structure of a lot of startup companies.

      It's a bit different for startups because they can't absorb too much risk. They have to carefully select and craft the shit they intend to fling, and then they have to yell and cheer as it flies through the air, then try to move the target around after it lands to claim that they hit it. It's a peculiar sport but it doesn't involve any software maintenance.

  7. Thanks to all you little people out there by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    (signed)
    The Star of the Show

  8. For Starters... by bobmajdakjr · · Score: 1

    the arrogance behind being a "starter" is staggering. i group it in the same category as the "entrepreneurs" who hold meetings at the startup incubators about how they successfully started 47 businesses and sold them off to get rich. basically they had an idea, tricked a bunch of saps to do it for them, sell both the product and the saps off, and then repeat. i find this one of the lowest forms of humanity. pick some shit you love and stick with it. stop screwing everyone around you so you can build more mansions for yourself. in the world of unpaid opensource, i get it. sometimes you have to step away because it is not going to pay the bills. but claiming to be a starter is just being nice to yourself while calling yourself a douchebag.

    1. Re:For Starters... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow. Talk about resentment. Without catalysts handling the logistics of organizing people around a market opportunity the entire economy would be stagnant. It's only exploitative if they use deceit to mislead investors. Since the definitions of "deceit" and "mislead" are relative, the only guidelines here are what is/isn't illegal.
      Everything else is "just... like... your opinion man!"

    2. Re:For Starters... by KGIII · · Score: 1

      What's wrong with being the starter and getting things in motion and then going on to a new and different thing? You explained that you didn't like it - you didn't tell us why and why it is a problem. It's a nice rant, and all, but it doesn't actually explain why you're ranting.

      I "started" something. In fact, I was on the cusp of something that turned out to be pretty huge, at least for a while. I then owned and worked at that company for more than 15 years before I sold it. Selling it was actually a little rough emotionally. The dollars made up for that emotional discomfort, by the way. Since then, I've gone on and done a few other things but, in most cases, that was just me financing someone else's dream in return for a stake in their business. I've invested in young and immature companies and not done anything other than that. It's actually more lucrative than working ever was and I don't even need the money.

      Am I a bad person for selling my business when I was offered an obscene amount of cash? Am I bad for jumping from idea to idea and helping people work on reaching their goals? Am I bad for enabling someone to work on their goals and risking my property to enable them to do so? Should they be forced to not try to reach their goals unless they're wealthy (read lucky) enough to be able to take off on their own and assume the many risks that go along with it?

      This is the point where I like to share that I bought some 2000 shares of Tesla when they were just about $24 each. I took the risk, I let the other people get it done, and someday - I'll capitalize on that investment. (I still own all the shares.) That makes me a bad person? How so? I even pay my taxes - every bit due. I don't even write off, down, or avoid all the taxes that I could legally avoid. It's too much work and I'm forgetful. But, I'm a bad person for helping others reach their goals - just because I may profit on it and just because I don't do and stick with the work myself?

      Tell me why I'm a monster please. I mean, yeah, I'm an asshole but I'm not an asshole for that. There are plenty of reasons to call me a jerk but I don't think that qualifies.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    3. Re:For Starters... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes and no.

      Some things definitely require a catalyst. But a lot of stuff is just blindingly obvious. And yet despite it being obvious, "the starters" will strut around and pretend like its quantum mechanics and then proceed to do it totally the wrong way, then expect someone else to fix it overnight. But they themselves will want all the credit.

      As a short example... One of my prior projects was fixing a totally dysfunctional system made by a dude who got paid about 5 times what I did. There was nothing non-obvious about it... And one of the core issues it had was that he was trying to fork millions of threads on a two processor system. Plus it crashed within seconds of starting up. I could go on, but it was truly one of the most pathetic pieces of code I've ever seen in my life.

      This "starter" was paid more for his "connections" and his "attitude" than anything else. Neither of which were actually stellar other than for passing himself off as a genius. In fact, from my experience, that's really all most "starters" do. They're good at passing themselves off but really need someone else to actually do the real work for them, because they just have no idea. To make matters worse, many of them don't even have good enough connections to find someone to do it. That's someone else's job too.

      I'm not saying they're all bad... But I'd 90% or so of the "starters" I've interacted with were obviously this bad, regardless of other factors.

      That said... I think arrogance is pretty much a requirement to be a "starter". Having been one myself, I simply had no desire to push my own projects that hard regardless of how good they were. Simply because to me... They were merely what needed to be done. I didn't see them as "earth shattering", so I didn't really promote any of them. I simply started them, took care of them, and so on... Without any fanfare or real need for attention, funding, etc...

      As for the prior poster... I think he's referring to what I brought up where they need other people but take all the credit. A lot of "starters" can't even get an initial concept right by themselves let alone a first draft of the product in a remotely workable state. Despite this many of them promote themselves as "A+++++++++++" programmers, architects, or whatever... And then promote the people beneath them as "Eh... C-" programmers, architects, etc...

      Like one "starter" I'm working with right now (he's pulling together the funding etc at the moment) advertises himself as a great "Database Architect" among other things. With a history of SQL, etc... Anyway... When I was talking to him, he was confused by the notion of Select, Insert, Update, tables, etc... So much for being a "Database Architect".

      I guess what I'm saying is that a lot of these guys are "glorified business people". Which... There is absolutely nothing wrong with. The issue is what they promote themselves as and other people as in order to maintain their delusions of grandeur.

      He's also probably referring to the other thing I brought up where a lot of these people just release broken stuff, but get paid for it anyway.

      And then there's the issue that a lot of the ones I've dealt with before spend all of the company money on cars and what not... But anyway... That's enough of that.

    4. Re:For Starters... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I prefer the terms "starters" and "finishers." There is a certain arrogance among starters that finishing a project is beneath them. That anyone can finish a project, but only a "starter" can start one. I find the opposite to be true. People who can bring a project to completion are a rare commodity.

      You're not a monster, but if you thought you're better than the people than the people that actually turned your idea into "something pretty huge" you'd be an arrogant prick.

    5. Re:For Starters... by KGIII · · Score: 1

      Nah, I'm the last person to think I'm better than someone for reasons such as those. I am, of course, better than some people but not because of reasons like those. I actually respect those people you call "finishers" more than most. However, I'm better than a mass murderer, a terrorist, and people like that. But no, I'm not better than the people whom I've helped, the people who have helped me, or the people who are just struggling to reach the end of the day. I dare say that I'm pretty well grounded. I've eaten Ramen noodles in my past. Those who can start and finish something? Those are pretty good people, probably. (They may turn out to be not good people if, you know, their goal was to start and complete a project of making a suit out of the skin of dead children, for example.)

      I'm pretty down to Earth and don't really think I'm better than most anyone. I dare say that I worked hard but I mostly got lucky. I was mostly in the right place at the right time, had great people to help me, and was able to take risks. I'm not that smart, I'm not that special, and I'm just as prone to making errors as anyone else. If I have one redeeming quality, or one trait that has enabled me to be where I am, it is that I've learned to shut the hell up and listen to people, to acknowledge that I don't have the answer, and to be smart enough to seek out and listen to the people who do have the answers. That skill has helped me far more than any other.

      At any rate, I'd type more but I'm kinda occupied at the moment. I'd like to hope I don't seem to be the type of person who is arrogant. I try to be a realist and appreciate the things I have and the people who helped me get here.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    6. Re:For Starters... by bobmajdakjr · · Score: 1

      comment #51211381 by anon is very well put that describes whatever was missing for your understanding. starters pollute the startup-funding meetings with their deceptions. it's pretty easy to tell even before the floor is theirs to talk - giving off that classic snake oil salesman vibe.

    7. Re:For Starters... by KGIII · · Score: 1

      That seems like it's a rather large brush to paint with. I'm not sure if it is worth the energy and time (time being my most precious asset) but I'll take a chance.

      Allow me, if you will, to give an example or three:

      I have a friend, near and dear to my heart, and he owns/operates a small franchise fast-food outlet in a small town called Farmington, Maine. He employs a few people, mostly cute college girls, to work at the counter making sandwiches. There is a manager and an assistant manager. The hourly rate for the employees is above average for that job description and in that particular location. There are even some added benefits but we needn't get into those for the purpose of this story.

      My friend was having financial issues and, unlike many, he realized that the best way to overcome those issues was to do the opposite of downsizing. He felt that expanding was a good idea and had sound numbers to demonstrate that building out his own place (as opposed to renting) would help and that this could be further funded by starting up a new franchise in a new location.

      He came to me and asked to borrow [redacted] which might seem like a shitton of money but it really isn't. I agreed to loan him that money in return for a percentage of his business and, contractually, he has the right to buy back that percentage but no obligation to do so. I have since helped him expand to multiple additional sites, made all of my money back, made extra money, and continue to profit as he's declined to buy back my percentage of his company.

      I have taken my company, long since sold, and built it from the ground up - with a grant and a loaned computer. I sold that company for [redacted] in 2007 and "retired" because I can spent like a drunken sailor for the rest of my life and still not have to worry about a damned thing. Yet, there's a pretty good chance that if you live in the United States that you've actually benefited, even if in some small way, from my work. (I modeled traffic of the vehicular and then pedestrian types and consulted on optimization, route planning, safety improvements, throughput improvements, etc.)

      I've taken ideas, given them to others, and then enabled them to achieve a measure of financial success in the days since - all while retaining a portion of the business or getting a flat-out return on my investment by way of interest on a loan. I've even convinced a friend to start his own computer repair business. They now have two offices, run a hosting company, and do managed IT services for a number of local businesses.

      Another example would be that there was this little company, a man with a dream, who needed some money so he had an IPO. I bought shares, 2000 of them, in this company when they were just about $24 each. Yes, that's a little bit of money but that company is called Tesla. I still own those shares. You can check their current valuation. I haven't looked for a month or two, it's not time for me to divest.

      What snake oil have I peddled? What immoral acts have I committed? What sins am I guilty of? Keep in mind, I don't even *need* this extra money. I have plenty.

      I'm going to redact some sums. They're immaterial and would probably only suit to cloud your judgment further. Suffice to say, they are goodly amounts. The kind of numbers that make business journals, local news, and get covered in applicable industry publications. I've shared those numbers and names before and it has resulted in some negative attention so I'll refrain from putting myself at risk though, I suppose, you could probably just check my posting history and figure a lot of it out. Trust me when I say it is immaterial and that I'm pretty sure that I'm neither a monster nor a snake oil peddler. If you need independent verification then several folks from Slashdot were with me on this past Saturday. I'm just your normal guy who got lucky because I was in the right place, at the right time, able to take some risks, and had great people to help me out.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  9. One thing I dont understand by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What I don't understand is why someone would work on Mozilla for free. The Mozilla execs are literally walking away with hundreds of millions of dollars on the back of people working for free. Mozilla is hardly open source either, they don't value your privacy and include closed source products in their browser and sell your data to the highest bidder.

    They would be better off supporting true open source projects.

    1. Re: One thing I dont understand by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Preachhhhhhhhhh.

      I think because a lot of them might be from the glory days of Mozilla. Who have a hard time letting go.

  10. More Rewards Needed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    People volunteer all the time. We find something we like and give time, money, and effort toward it. But we are most motivated by real rewards (money, stuff, fame, etc.) The open source community needs to find more ways to reward people for contributing. Fix a bug or update the documentation...get some points that you can redeem for real stuff. Otherwise, a lot of source will languish because no one wants to fix or update it.

  11. Only do the fun part by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 3, Interesting

    So why would anyone want to do the boring part of programming? Stay with the fun part, starting projects! Then, when it's 90% done, abandon it and let the next idiot take it over. I've known so many good ideas that were never finished, and the creator not only declines to continue, but angrily rejects the idea that she should be forced to finish what she started.

    I've seen this happen so many times, and the key idea here is novelty. Doing something new. It's the short attention span that demands a constant flow of shiny trinkets, each different from the last. It's bizarre seeing that a core idea of the engineering mindset, and programmers as a subset of that is (or was) damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead. Seeing an idea through to completion no matter what obstacles appear. In fact, overcoming those obstacles and finishing the project, whatever it might be, is (used to be) a great source of pleasure and pride.

    Indeed in this very thread I am seeing people who have no conception of finishing projects and are baffled that anyone might want to do anything but the fun part. That's the part that hurts - not that different perspectives exist, but that these diverse perspectives have no intellectual space to recognize that alternate ideas even exist, and regard those who think differently as weirdos. :(

    --
    Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    1. Re:Only do the fun part by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So why would anyone want to do the boring part of programming?

      To get a finished and stable product, which can be used. This makes even more sense if you are both user and programmer on the same project. Also some people seems obsessed with "I want to make a difference" and download statistics of "your software" is an indication that you made a difference to those people.

      There is one more thing to it: the definition of boring tasks differs between people. I often forward boring tasks to people who enjoy doing those things and I get interesting tasks they won't/can't do. You should praise that other people view tasks differently than you rather than assume they think just like you and wonder why they enjoy boring tasks.

    2. Re:Only do the fun part by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1, Troll

      /sarcasm Hey, that's why I have a *tons* of small GitHub projects. :-)

      On a more serious note the greatest skill a programmer can have is:

      *Ship* the dam thing!

      I agree maintaining an open source project is definitely not as "sexy" as writing brand spanking new code but a *balanced* programmer is a great programmer; one who cares about quality of everything, from code, to docs, to examples, to test cases, to bugs, to support, etc.

    3. Re:Only do the fun part by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

      Did you even read my comment? Sheesh.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    4. Re:Only do the fun part by DarkTempes · · Score: 1

      define: hobby
      an activity done regularly in one's leisure time for pleasure.

      I'm pretty sure that if you're a hobbyist programmer and you're not doing it for pleasure then you're doing it wrong. Or a masochist.

      And they're right to angrily reject the idea that they should be forced to finish it. Because it's a hobby.

      If anyone disagrees then they can have fun and fork it themselves and finish it. And maybe leave a note in thanks for the 90% that was written for them.
      Github makes this so easy that it amazes me that we managed to get anything done without it.

      In my experience most such projects are where the programmer is writing the code for themselves and "finished" is when it works well enough for their purposes.
      Moving on to the next project to make their life easier isn't just novelty but also practical.

      Note that I'm not saying there's anything wrong with having fun polishing and maintaining a project. All of our lives are much easier because of that mentality.
      But there's also nothing wrong with unfinished hobby projects.
      And, yes, my opinion is that anyone who feels entitled to anything from a hobby project is a weirdo.

    5. Re:Only do the fun part by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Being a Starter sounds a lot like fathering a child... Joy of orgasm and then high tail out the door.

    6. Re:Only do the fun part by drooling-dog · · Score: 1

      If you find yourself being the primary (or only) maintainer of a package, it really belongs to you, doesn't it? You can fork and rename it, continue maintaining only the new fork, and voila! It's yours.

    7. Re:Only do the fun part by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Aye, and it's getting worse. Project overruns are getting to a point now that we're not measuring our impact by customer satisfaction, product purchases or even software launches. The new goal is to get staffed. If you write some shit and manage to get staff then you've succeeded. Doesn't matter how shit it is. Everyone is racing to crank up the pace of shit, garbage bags and used condoms flowing out of the storm drain that is our own ego.

      Take solace in the notion that maybe the reason these programmers didn't finish their project is because they couldn't. They paint themselves into corners with debt. They slow down due to poor process. They can't remain agile enough to get things done in time. That happens because they fail to pay attention to their own workflows - they literally don't know what they're doing, and they failed to measure it. Now they have no hope of finishing and, being the intellectually dishonest dicks they are, they pass the mostly burnt torch to someone else hoping that:

      a) Maybe they'll succeed and my initial idea is proven correct - woohoo, fame, glory, etc.
      b) They'll fail miserably as I did and we can fire them for incompetence.

    8. Re:Only do the fun part by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Responding to comments is fun.

      Reading comments is boring.

    9. Re:Only do the fun part by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wee're better off without their "contributions". Starting and not finishing just creates fragmentation, which is detrimental to the community. If you're going to start, but not finish, then don't even get the community involved.

  12. That attitude would explain mozilla decisions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    depreacate all existing code only maintainers and plugin developers care about and replace it with less capabable, less Free copy of chrome.

    After all we're upstream starters, the maintainers just carry on maintaining,

    The idea that the maintainers might only ne interested in maintain.developing useful (to them) functionality see to escape them, and they don't develope with the maintainers in mind.

    Selfish and lazy is what I call that.

  13. thank you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    and thank you all who keep an open source project alive. God bless you.

  14. It's a bit like children... by ronabop · · Score: 1

    Some folks have a lot of fun making children.
    Other folks have a lot of fun raising children.

    There are a lot of software deadbeat dads. Good luck getting them to take care of what they've created.

    1. Re:It's a bit like children... by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 1

      Some folks have a lot of fun making children.
      Other folks have a lot of fun raising children.

      I'm pretty sure most people have fun making children and many people find satisfaction in raising children - fun for the latter is often just a rare bonus that varies with the age, mood, (etc) of the child and the current state of your relationship with said child.

      --
      It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
  15. Today There's a Third Option by Kunedog · · Score: 2

    Want to muscle your way into an OSS project, despite lacking the talent or skill (or willingness) to contribute anything other than drama, identity politics, and an insatiable urge control others (or remove them if they don't fall in line)? Force a Code of Conduct (which is often explicitly racist and/or sexist, dismissive of merit, and vague enough to be selectively enforced) down its throat! It even works on the largest projects!

    https://www.reddit.com/r/Kotak...
    https://www.reddit.com/r/Kotak...
    http://todogroup.org/opencodeo...

    https://www.reddit.com/r/Kotak...
    http://contributor-covenant.or...

    http://developers.slashdot.org...
    https://www.reddit.com/r/freeb...

    1. Re:Today There's a Third Option by Boronx · · Score: 1

      What's sad is that so many need these codes to remind them to act civil. If you're smart enough to contribute to FreeBSD, you should be smart enough to not act like an asshole.

      --
      Play Command HQ online
  16. I agree with Steve Jobs answer to that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I'm not sure this is accurate. If it were, why would anyone choose to be a maintainer, stuck fixing small bugs for years on end and having little to do with the movements forward?

    Craftsmanship.

    One of the things that really hurt Apple was after I left, John Sculley got a very serious disease. And that disease—I've seen other people get it, too—it's the disease of thinking that a having a great idea is really 90 percent of the work. And if you just tell people, 'here's this great idea,' then of course they can go off and make it happen. The problem with that is that there's a tremendous amount of craftsmanship between a having a great idea and having a great product.

  17. Re:Open sores = fags by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Try not to lose your reference member next life.

  18. This is true in business in general by Tony+Isaac · · Score: 1

    People who start new businesses are rarely good at maintaining and growing them once they have taken off. They are the people with the vision and foresight, not the ones with the ability to manage people and deal with politics.

    Any software project, open source or otherwise, could be seen as an enterprise. There are a few people who can both start and maintain a business, or a project, but not many.

  19. Have a look at this paper by Peter+(Professor)+Fo · · Score: 2

    I wrote this paper nine years ago. Go to http://vulpeculox.net/ob/index... and follow the link to The future of collaborative software development

    One of the key ideas is that a theatre company has all sorts of skills unrelated to acting or play-writing. A collaborative software project should be half a dozen people at a minimum. Once the group has 'done' one project it'll soon find something else to work on, whether extending the objectives, enhancing the deliverable or something completely different.

    I have a dozen FOSS contributions on my web site but I just don't want to get into the hassle of Git or licensing or selling or even promotion. I'm an inventor not a financier or sales executive!

  20. Maintainers make the software by mveloso · · Score: 2

    In real life, people who start projects aren't as import and you'd think.

    Who fixes the bugs and gets things to work? Maintainers.
    Who fixes the fucked up architecture? Maintainers.
    Who does the incremental improvements that make software better? Maintainers.
    Who cares that the software actually does what it's supposed to? Maintainers.

    The difference between starters and maintainers is the difference between a sperm donor and a dad. Without maintainers there would be no good software, because starters generally don't make good software - they make software that does one thing.

    As anyone who does this for a living knows, it's the execution that matters, not the ideas.

  21. Nice circlejerk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But maybe keep it to reddit.

  22. It's not divided that way. by tlambert · · Score: 1

    It's not divided that way.

    It's not "starters" vs. "maintainers", it's "Mr. Right Now" vs. "Mr. Right" (or Ms.).

    Your "Right Now" person gets you a prototype, and gets you to funding.
    Your "Right" person gets you to a million customers, because when you ship in volume, that shit can't break.

    It's all about "the reason you get the big bucks is because you do the un-fun stuff that means you own the 'It Works' bit". Someone has to own the "It Works" bit, and set that bit before you ship a steaming pile to a bunch of customers, and brick their devices, or crash their life's work.

    Ironically, there are a lot of advertising companies that never get to the point of someone getting to the point of owning, or setting, that bit, and they start a bunch of products, but they never get them past 90% complete, because it's uninteresting once you can see the goal line, and if you don't have to do it to remain employed, and there's no boss who can act as the 800 pound gorilla, because you can just walk to another group or project within the company with no consequences -- then it doesn't get done. Unless someone steps up, and then they are usually called out for kvetching, and no one likes to be around someone who expects you to step up, and own that bit.

    You can call the person who walks a "starter", but what you are really saying is that they can deliver prototypes, but they can't deliver products. Which is great, if the company can afford to employ those people because they are getting money from sources other than actually shipping new product. But it gets awfully tiring being in that environment, since you never really have an impact on the lives of a large number of people, if you work in groups that operate that way.

  23. Counterpoint: Pottering by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We don't berate the starter because what they do is destructive.

    You oughta re-think that claim...

  24. I'll second that by capsfan100 · · Score: 1

    Yes, to all who maintain open source projects, thank you, thank you, thank you. Especially the Mozilla team, I use Firefox and Thunderbird everyday.

  25. Maintainers are advanced users by GuB-42 · · Score: 1

    In my company, we sometimes use open source software as part of a deliverable.
    Sometimes we find bugs in parts that are that are important for our use, so we fix them, and try to work with the community to integrate the patch. We don't do this because we are generous, we do this because we don't want to maintain a fork. That others can benefit from our work is a happy side effect.
    This make us maintainers, probably like many others.

  26. Its not only about OSS ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But about any software project, there are "starters" and "maintainers". Difference is that in actual paying work, maintainers do get the salary which compensates for the mistakes that "starters" made.