Homebrew was the first open source project I’ve maintained where I’ve had to review and merge contributions from other users. Homebrew is also one of the most active community projects on GitHub with a consistently small team of maintainers (always under thirty in total, always under ten doing work every week). As a result I’ve had to figure out over the last twelve years how best to manage large numbers of contributions from users in pleasantly and efficiently for both maintainers and contributors.
How to manage casual contributors to open source projects
Try these strategies to better utilize contributions from your project's episodic volunteers.
Open Source Maintainers Owe You Nothing
This post is heavily inspired by my experience over the last ten years participating in the open source community and eight years as a maintainer of Homebrew (which I’ve maintained longer than anyone else at this point).
Open Source Maintainers Owe You Nothing
This post is heavily inspired by my experience over the last ten years participating in the open source community and eight years as a maintainer of Homebrew (which I’ve maintained longer than anyone else at this point).
How to become an amazing contributor (to an open source project)
It's a busy morning here in New York City. My email inbox is full of pleasant surprises. The first is a patch for one of my open source projects. A second will appear this afternoon. A third should come late at night—or maybe tomorrow–from a new contributor. Alongside my day job, I contribute and manage open source projects. The number of projects I work on has grown from a couple of small tools to well over a dozen in the last three years. Open source has become a great way to learn new technology, experiment with modern software development practices, and, of course, meet other like-minded engineers. I find that seeing great contributors send working and tested code provides a unique feeling of accomplishment, as powerful as having many satisfied users of my own applications or strong revenues posted by the employer that pays my bills.
Growing a contributor base in modern open source
In the Node.js project, new contributors account for ~50% of all contributors per month.
Creating and growing healthy community open source projects [PLoP 2020]
Abstract: This article presents a succinct and minimal handbook of best practices of how to create and grow community open source projects. We start with the assumption that the handbook’s user has…
Twelve tips for growing communities around your open source project | Ben Balter
Publishing code isn't enough. Twelve practical tips to attract users, welcome contributors, and grow a healthy open source community.
Keep Your Friends Close — Open Tech Strategies | Blog
One of the insider secrets of free and open source software (FOSS) is that most of the rules a project uses on a day-to-day basis are not found in the software’s license. There are contribution guidelines, which are enforced by the project only taking contributions that meet them. There are codes of conduct, which are a condition of community participation. There are endorsements, official membership, a voice in setting the project roadmap, and all kinds of other benefits that attach to varying types of community participation. In each case, entirely external to the license, there are official rules and unwritten norms that govern how participants gain the benefits of joining the civic life of a project.
What it feels like to be an open-source maintainer
Outside your door stands a line of a few hundred people. They are patiently waiting for you to answer their questions, complaints, pull requests, and feature requests. You want to help all of them,…
What it feels like to be an open-source maintainer
Outside your door stands a line of a few hundred people. They are patiently waiting for you to answer their questions, complaints, pull requests, and feature requests. You want to help all of them,…
Scaling Open Source communities
Successful Open Source projects must transition from pure volunteerism to include paid contributions, mirroring how public goods like roads evolved historically.
The Missing Middle of Open Source
Why serious, maintainer-driven projects struggle to sustain themselves—and what it will take to fix it.
Open-Source Contribution: The Ultimate Guide | Built In
How to get into open-source contribution according to these experts.
The Minimally-nice Open Source Software Maintainer
Being involved in open source software is rewarding, yeah? You start off contributing to your favorite project, and it feels so heartwarming when that project’s maintainers recognize your effort. Then a few years later you somehow end up responsible for that project, and maybe some satellite projects, and people are clamoring for your attention, and your inbox is never empty, and it’s exhausting and terrifying, and the skills necessary to cope with all the personalities involved are entirely different from the skills you used to get your foot in the door in the first place.