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https://github.com/bzg/opensource-challenges

A list of resources to think about free software and open source challenges
https://github.com/bzg/opensource-challenges

burnout business-models maintenance opensource

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A list of resources to think about free software and open source challenges

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README 

        
#+title: Open source Challenges



A list of resources to think about free software and open source

current challenges.  A work in progress.  Contributions are welcome!



* Burn out and/or quitting open source



** Talks



- [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqcuzSwySR4][Open Source & Feelings 2015 - What Part of "... for Life" Don't You Understand?]] by Jacob Kaplan-Moss (2015)

- [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbeHBnWfXUc][Avoiding Burnout, and other essentials of Open Source Self-Care]] by Kathleen Danielson (2015)

- [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_4EX4dPppA][The Hard Parts of Open Source]] by Evan Czaplicki (and [[https://gist.github.com/evancz/b29d1ce4166a557d03474278b2b44514][citations]]) (2018)

- [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWfUaFNSPhM][Linus Torvalds addressing maintainer fatigue]] (2024)



** Blog posts, articles and tweets



- [[https://podcast.sustainoss.org/252][Nolan Lawson of PouchDB on what it feels like to be a maintainer]] (sustainoss.org, Oct. 2024)

- [[https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/9/22874949/developer-corrupts-open-source-libraries-projects-affected][Open source developer corrupts widely-used libraries, affecting tons of projects]] (theverge, Jan. 2022)

- [[https://github.com/actix/actix-web][actix-web post mortem]] (and the [[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22073908][HN discussion]] and [[https://words.steveklabnik.com/a-sad-day-for-rust][this blog]])

- [[http://antirez.com/news/129][The struggles of an open source maintainer]] by http://antirez.com

- [[https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=3736][The Linux Mint Blog - Monthly News – March 2019]] (and in [[https://betanews.com/2019/04/01/linux-mint-depressed/][betanews.com]])

- [[http://wgross.net/essays/give-away-your-code-but-never-your-time][Give Away Your Code, But Never Your Time]] by William Gross

- [[https://www.techrepublic.com/article/why-open-source-developers-are-burning-out-no-respect/][Why open source developers are burning out: No respect]]

- [[https://feaneron.com/2019/03/28/on-being-a-free-software-maintainer/][On Being a Free Software Maintainer]] by Georges Stavracas

- [[https://opensource.com/business/16/5/5-rules-avoiding-burnout][5 rules for avoiding burnout]] by Jen Krieger

- [[https://twitter.com/destroytoday/status/1180961725933338624][GitHub is really good at visualizing burnout]]



* Business models



- [[https://world.hey.com/dhh/automattic-is-doing-open-source-dirty-b95cf128][Automattic is doing open source dirty]] (October 2024)

- [[https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/20/wordpress-vs-wp-engine-drama-explained/][The WordPress vs. WP Engine drama, explained]] (October 2024)

- [[https://words.filippo.io/full-time-maintainer/][I’m Now a Full-Time Professional Open Source Maintainer]] (February 2023)

- [[https://github.com/anhtho-lago/awesome-opensource-company][Awesome Open Source Company]] (GitHub repository, started in May 2022)

- [[https://blog.tooljet.com/raising-vc-funding-for-open-source-project/][Why and how we raised VC funding for an open-source project]] (January 2022)

- [[https://supabase.com/blog/should-i-open-source-my-company][Should I Open Source my Company?]] (March 2022)

- [[https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2022/01/17/enforcing-the-pyramid-of-open-source/][Enforcing the pyramid of Open Source]] (January 2022)

- [[https://www.lunasec.io/docs/blog/how-to-build-an-open-source-business-in-2021-part-1/][How to build an Open Source Business in 2021 (Part 1)]] (November 2021)

- [[https://stackoverflow.blog/2021/01/07/open-source-has-a-funding-problem/][Open source has a funding problem]] (January 2021)

- [[https://corecursive.com/067-zig-with-andrew-kelley/][Full-Time Open Source With Andrew Kelley]] (August 2021)

- [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIL5fuAUPiA]["Should You Open Source Your Startup?" by Ben Awad]] (May 2021)

- [[https://writing.kemitchell.com/2021/05/24/The-Luck-of-Open-Source.html][The Luck of Open Source]] by Kyle E. Mitchell (May 2021)

- [[https://plausible.io/blog/open-source-funding][How to pay your rent with your open source project]] (June 2020)

- [[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23218943][Ask HN: Dear open source devs how do you sustain yourself]] (May, 2020)

- [[https://joemorrison.medium.com/death-of-an-open-source-business-model-62bc227a7e9b][Death of an Open Source Business Model]] (Dec. 2020) ([[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25359897][HN]])

- [[https://plausible.io/blog/open-source-licenses][Open source licensing and why we're changing Plausible to the AGPL license]] (Oct., 2020) ([[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24763734][HN]])

- [[https://techcrunch.com/2019/12/10/xscode-launches-subscription-platform-to-monetize-open-source-projects/][Xs:code launches subscription platform to monetize open-source projects]] (Dec. 2019)

- [[https://dri.es/balancing-makers-and-takers-to-scale-and-sustain-open-source][Balancing Makers and Takers to scale and sustain Open Source]] (Nov., 2019)

- [[https://blog.sentry.io/2019/11/06/relicensing-sentry][Re-Licensing Sentry]] (Nov. 2019)

- [[https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/30/lack-of-leadership-in-open-source-results-in-source-available-licenses/][Lack of leadership in open source results in source-available licenses]] (May 2019)

- [[https://lwn.net/Articles/783169/][Defining "sustainable" for an open-source project]] (Mar. 2019)

- [[https://blog.ludovic.org/xwiki/bin/view/Blog/FOSDEM2019%20and%20the%20challenge%20to%20finance%20Open%20Source][FOSDEM 2019 and the challenge to finance Open Source]] (2019)

- [[https://changelog.com/news/sustaining-foss-projects-by-democratizing-the-sponsorship-process-Zqr2][Sustaining FOSS projects by democratizing the sponsorship process]] by adamstac, (2019)

- [[https://nadiaeghbal.com/licenses][Making money with licenses]] (Nadia Eghbal, March 2019)

- [[https://stratechery.com/2019/aws-mongodb-and-the-economic-realities-of-open-source/][AWS, MongoDB, and the Economic Realities of Open Source]] (Ben Thompson, stratechery.com, January 2019)

- [[https://sfosc.org/business-models/][FLOSS business models]] (Sustainable Free and Open Source Community, 2018)

- [[http://dtrace.org/blogs/bmc/2018/12/14/open-source-confronts-its-midlife-crisis/][Open Source Confronts Its Midlife Crisis]] (Bryan Cantrill, December 2018)

- [[https://medium.com/@nayafia/an-alternate-ending-to-the-tragedy-of-the-commons-446b4e960887][An alternate ending to the tragedy of the commons]] (Nadia Eghbal, May 2018)

- [[http://dtrace.org/blogs/bmc/2018/12/16/a-eula-in-foss-clothing/][A EULA in FOSS clothing?]] (Bryan Cantrill, December 2018)

- [[https://www.linuxfoundation.org/open-source-management/2017/06/building-a-business-on-open-source/][Building a Business on Open Source]] (www.linuxfoundation.org, July 2017)

- [[https://www.slideshare.net/stephenrwalli/there-is-no-open-source-business-model-78575010][Open Source Business Models Redux]] (Stephen Walli, 2017)

- [[https://blog.sentry.io/2016/10/24/building-an-open-source-service.html][Building an Open Source Service]] (David Cramer, blog.sentry.io, October 2016)

- [[http://dtrace.org/blogs/bmc/2004/08/28/the-economics-of-software/][The Economics of Software]] (Bryan Cantrill, August 2004)

- [[https://www.nber.org/papers/w7600][The Simple Economics of Open Source]] (www.nber.org, Josh Lerner, Jean Tirole, 2000)

- [[https://www.pcworld.com/article/203923/microsoft_we_love_open_source.html][Microsoft: 'We Love Open Source']] (www.pcworld.com August 2010)



* Sustainability



** Posts and articles



- [[https://spectrum.ieee.org/open-source-crisis][Open-Source Software Is in Crisis]], ieee.org, 2024

- [[https://openpath.quest/2024/the-open-source-sustainability-crisis/][The Open Source Sustainability Crisis]], Chad Whitacre, 2024

- [[https://opensauced.pizza/blog/when-open-source-maintainers-leave][The Silent Crisis in Open Source: When Maintainers Walk Away]], BekahHW, 2024

- [[https://blog.vaxry.net/articles/2023-maintainingFoss][Maintaining FOSS Projects Sucks]], Vaxry, 2023

- [[https://speaking.unlockopen.com/rfBLQk/does-open-source-need-its-own-priority-of-constituencies][Does open source need its own Priority of Constituencies?]], Tobie Langel, 2021

- [[https://github.com/readme/david-nolen][Scaling open source by creating potential]], by David Nolen, Oct. 2020

- [[https://blog.domenic.me/hacktoberfest/][DigitalOcean's Hacktoberfest is Hurting Open Source]], by Domenic Denicola, Sept. 2020

- [[https://www.techrepublic.com/article/open-source-can-thrive-in-a-recession-says-drupal-creator-dries-buytaert/][Open source can thrive in a recession says Drupal creator Dries Buytaert]], Itw of Dries Buytaert, creator of Drupal, May 2020

- [[https://hackernoon.com/hows-that-open-source-governance-working-for-you-mphv32ng][How’s That Open Source Governance Working for You?]], Nathan Schneider, Apr. 2020

- [[https://don.goodman-wilson.com/posts/open-source-is-broken/][Open Source is Broken]] by Don Goodman-Wilson, Sept. 2019

- [[https://peekaboo-vision.blogspot.com/2020/01/dont-fund-software-that-doesnt-exist.html][Don't fund Software that doesn't exist]] by Andreas Mueller, Jan. 2020

- [[https://anarc.at/blog/2019-10-16-bus-factor/][Theory: average bus factor = 1]] by anarcat, Nov. 2019

- [[https://onezero.medium.com/the-internet-relies-on-people-working-for-free-a79104a68bcc][The Internet Relies on People Working for Free]] by Owen Williams, Sept. 2019

- [[https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/43zak3/the-internet-was-built-on-the-free-labor-of-open-source-developers-is-that-sustainable][The Internet Was Built on the Free Labor of Open Source Developers. Is That Sustainable?]] by Daniel Oberhaus, 2019

- [[https://lwn.net/Articles/783169/][Defining "sustainable" for an open-source project]] by Jake Edge, Mar. 2019

- [[https://github.blog/2019-01-17-lets-talk-about-open-source-sustainability/][Let’s talk about open source sustainability]] by Devon Zuegel, 2019

- https://dieworkwear.com/post/182126040434/how-we-lost-our-ability-to-mend

- [[https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02046-0][How to support open-source software and stay sane]] by Anna Nowogrodzki, 2019

- [[http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=8383][Load-Bearing Internet People]] by ESR, 2019

- [[https://staltz.com/software-below-the-poverty-line.html][Software below the poverty line]] by André Staltz, 2019

- [[https://www.wired.com/story/altruism-open-source-fuels-web-businesses-love-to-exploit-it/][Altruism Still Fuels the Web. Businesses Love to Exploit It]] by Zeynep Tufekci, 2019

- [[https://medium.com/sustainable-free-and-open-source-communities/we-need-sustainable-free-and-open-source-communities-edf92723d619][We need Sustainable Free and Open Source Communities]] by Adam Jacob, Dec. 2018

- [[https://nadiaeghbal.com/grant-programs][Decentralized funding? An analysis of three programs]] by Nadia Eghbal, 2018

- [[https://blog.tidelift.com/1m-to-pay-open-source-maintainers-on-tidelift][$1m to pay open source maintainers on Tidelift]] by Donald Fischer, 2018

- [[https://triplebyte.com/blog/creating-a-new-source-of-revenue-for-open-source-software][Creating a New Source of Revenue for Open Source Software]] by Guillaume Luccisano, 2018

- [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_q6nVeD_K4&feature=youtu.be&list=PLhYmIiHOMWoEgJEvgkmUe8D0agxy_T2vR][Heart of Clojure 2019 - Daniel Compton - Building Stable Foundations]]

- [[https://lars.ingebrigtsen.no/2016/07/28/the-end-of-gmane/][The End of Gmane?]] by Lars Ingebrigtsen, Jul. 2016



** Conferences, groups, initiatives



- https://sustainoss.org

- http://themaintainers.org

- https://maintainerati.org

- https://www.outreachy.org

- https://www.legacycode.rocks

- https://prototypefund.de

- https://www.piratecare.net/posts/call-for-papers/

- [[https://fundthecode.org][fundthecode.org: events to finance FLOSS projects]] 

- https://github.com/sponsors (and the [[https://github.blog/2019-06-12-faq-with-the-github-sponsors-team][FAQ]])

- https://www.maintainersanonymous.com/

- https://nadiaeghbal.com/microgrants

- [[https://www.coreinfrastructure.org/][Linux Foundation Core Infrastructure Project]]

- [[https://www.linuxfoundation.org/press-release/2019/03/the-linux-foundation-launches-new-communitybridge-platform-to-help-sustain-open-source-communities/][Help Sustain Open Source Communities]] by the Linux Foundation



** Generalist websites



- [[https://faiross.org][faiross.org]]

- [[https://oss.fund][oss.fund: Open Source Software Funding Platforms Registry]] (discussed on [[https://discourse.sustainoss.org/t/open-source-software-funding-platforms-registry/106][discourse.sustainoss.org]])

- [[https://sfosc.org][Sustainable Free and Open Source Communities]]

- [[http://unmaintained.tech][No Maintenance Intended]]



* Infrastructure



- Russell and Vinsel, "Making Maintainers: Engineering Education and the Ethics of Care" [[http://themaintainers.org/resources][preprint]].

- [[https://www.fordfoundation.org/about/library/reports-and-studies/roads-and-bridges-the-unseen-labor-behind-our-digital-infrastructure][Roads and Bridges: The Unseen Labor Behind Our Digital Infrastructure]] by Nadia Eghbal, 2016

- [[https://medium.com/s/story/exploiting-developer-infrastructure-is-insanely-easy-9849937e81d4][Exploiting Developer Infrastructure Is Ridiculously Easy]] by Jarrod Overson, 2018

- [[https://www.fordfoundation.org/ideas/equals-change-blog/posts/every-day-we-rely-on-digital-infrastructure-built-by-volunteers-what-happens-when-it-fails/][Every day, we rely on digital infrastructure built by volunteers. What happens when it fails?]]



* Ethics and motivation



- [[https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/blog/indigenous-wisdom-model-software-design-and-development/][Indigenous wisdom as a model for software design and development]], 2021

- [[https://raccoon.onyxbits.de/blog/bugreport-free-support/]["Open Source" Does Not Mean "Includes Free Support"]], 2020

- [[https://perens.com/2019/10/12/invasion-of-the-ethical-licenses/][Invasion of The Ethical Licenses]], 2020

- [[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/10/16/gitlab_employees_gagged/][Blood money is fine with us, says GitLab]], 2019

- [[https://hackernoon.com/6-myths-about-ethical-open-source-licenses-3bfbd042b1dc][6 myths about “ethical” open source licenses]], 2019

- [[https://hackernoon.com/why-we-need-an-open-source-licence-that-considers-the-misuse-of-our-code-8d19b65d425][Why we need an Open Source Licence that considers the misuse of our code]], 2019

- [[https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/8xbynx/major-open-source-project-revokes-access-to-companies-that-work-with-ice][Major Open Source Project Revokes Access to Companies That Work with ICE]] by Daniel Oberhaus, 2018

- [[https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.05741][Why We Engage in FLOSS: Answers from Core Developers]]

- [[http://veridicalsystems.com/blog/of-money-responsibility-and-pride/][Of Money, Responsibility, and Pride]] by Steve Marquess

- [[https://arxiv.org/abs/1904.09954][Why Software Projects need Heroes (Lessons Learned from 1100+ Projects)]]

- [[https://medium.com/open-collective/what-core-contributors-want-4e7327ac9180][What Core Contributors Want]] by Alanna Irving, 2019

- [[https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Why-don't-you-accept-donations%3F][Why don't you accept donations?]] by Raymond Hill, 2015

- https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon/issues/11129

- [[https://publiclab.org/notes/gauravano/03-29-2019/software-community-growth-through-first-timers-only-issues][Software Community Growth through "first-timers-only" issues]] by gauravano with warren, 2019 (also see [[https://www.firsttimersonly.com][firsttimersonly.com]])

- [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTdJgpxkrhU][Finding your tribe - choosing open source communities]]



* Related essays



- [[https://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2020/08/the_cult_of_the.html][The cult of the free must die]] by Peter-Paul Koch, August 2020 ([[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24141683][HN]])

- [[https://sizovs.net/2019/02/15/the-principal-developer][The Principal Developer]] by Eduards Sizovs, 2019 ([[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19192737][HN]])

- https://logicmag.io/failure/freedom-isnt-free/ by Wendy Liu, August 2018

- [[https://words.steveklabnik.com/the-culture-war-at-the-heart-of-open-source][The culture war at the heart of open source]] and [[https://words.steveklabnik.com/what-comes-after-open-source][What comes after open source?]], by Steve Klabnik, 2018

- [[https://the-composition.com/the-origins-of-opera-and-the-future-of-programming-bcdaf8fbe960][The Origins of Opera and the Future of Programming]] by Jessica Kerr, 2018

- [[https://ironholds.org/resources/papers/anarchist_hci.pdf]['Human-Computer Insurrection' (PDF)]]

- [[http://www.matthewbcrawford.com/new-page-1-1-2][Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work (The Penguin Press, 2009)]]

- https://media.libreplanet.org/u/libreplanet/m/right-to-repair-and-the-dmca/



* Miscellaneous



- [[https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Category:Peerfunding][Peerfunding (p2pfoundation.net)]]

- [[https://blog.opensource.org/the-osi-celebrates-maintainer-month/][The OSI celebrates maintainer month]], OSI, June 2021

- [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1t4zGJYUuY][(ninth RacketCon): Governing Rust]], by Aaron Turon, 2021

- [[https://github.com/Marak/faker.js/issues/1046][No more free work from Marak - Pay Me or Fork This #1046]], Nov 2020

- [[https://feross.org/funding-experiment-recap/][Recap of the `funding` experiment]] by Feross Aboukhadijeh, 2019

- [[https://blog.licensezero.com/2019/08/26/but-you-said.html][But You Said I Could]] by licensezero, 2019

- [[https://notesfrombelow.org/article/open-source-is-not-enough][Open Source is Not Enough]] by [[https://twitter.com/substack][James Halliday]], May 2018

- [[https://medium.com/open-source-communities/maintainer-vs-community-97edc28387ad][Maintainer vs. Community]], by Mikeal Rogers, 2017

- https://www.techrepublic.com/article/why-doesnt-anyone-weep-for-docker/

- https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/episode-24-chat-about-redis-labs-podcast-transcript

- https://armin.dev/blog/2019/08/supporting-browser-extension-developers/ (and [[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20587440][HN]])

- https://discourse.sustainoss.org/t/next-steps-for-the-working-group/23 (see [[https://erlend-sh.github.io/ossgrants/][ossgrants]])

- https://twitter.com/pradyunsg/status/1146454278174756864

- https://twitter.com/ceejbot/status/1135125056487485440

- https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/11/magazine/letter-of-recommendation-bug-fixes-git.html

- https://www.cockroachlabs.com/blog/oss-relicensing-cockroachdb/ (on [[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20097077][HN]] and [[https://www.theinformation.com/articles/cockroach-labs-stands-up-to-amazons-open-source-offensive?][theinformation.com]])

- https://increment.com/open-source/the-rise-of-few-maintainer-projects/

- https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/programming/GoIsGooglesLanguage

- Python request episode : on [[https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1125184022311854085][Twitter]], [[https://vorpus.org/blog/why-im-not-collaborating-with-kenneth-reitz/][vorpus.org]] and [[http://journal.kennethreitz.org/entry/conspiracy][journal.kennethreitz.org]]

- https://blog.ubuntu.com/2019/04/29/canonical-consolidates-open-infrastructure-support-and-security-offerings

- https://changelog.com/podcast/233 about Webpack

- https://www.legacycode.rocks/podcast-1/episode/1c0e0b87/hail-the-maintainers-with-andrew-russell

- https://aws.amazon.com/fr/blogs/opensource/keeping-open-source-open-open-distro-for-elasticsearch/

- https://waypoint.vice.com/en_us/article/8xypb5/the-dwarf-fortress-creators-werent-in-it-for-money-but-now-they-need-it

- [[https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/43zak3/the-internet-was-built-on-the-free-labor-of-open-source-developers-is-that-sustainable][Stepping stone history of FOSS assumptions, ethics, personalities & economics]]

- [[https://www.digitalocean.com/currents/october-2018/][A Seasonal Report on Developer Trends in the Cloud: Open Source Edition]]

- Strange Loop - A Stitch in Time - The future of OSS Sustainability September 12-14 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA

  

* French articles



See [[file:fr.org][this file]].