How much time per month should an unpaid volunteer maintainer dedicate to an Open Source project?
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@evan I chose to interpret this question in an idealistic way, ie. as I'd like society to be. And as part of my premise would be some kind of guaranteed basic income, so everyone wouldn't have to sell their labor-power on a market and could choose their commitments in dialogue with a wider community. Given that, I picked 32 hours or more.
@malte for a single project?
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@evan zero
They may spend as much as they like, of course, but they are under zero moral or ethical obligation.
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@evan zero
They may spend as much as they like, of course, but they are under zero moral or ethical obligation.
@tess If they put in zero hours, the software is unmaintained. They are no longer maintainers in that case. The question is about maintainers.
If someone is *a maintainer*, *maintaining software*, how much time should they expect to put in?
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@evan I'm going to assume you mean the RFC 2119 definition of "should", in which case the poll is asking how much time is recommended for a maintainer to reserve in their schedule each month, and not how much time they are obligated to. I think reserving a day of slack in one's schedule to be able to spend 8 hours moving things along in the project as needed is probably a good idea, but different projects and different maintainers will have radically different needs and constraints.
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@tess If they put in zero hours, the software is unmaintained. They are no longer maintainers in that case. The question is about maintainers.
If someone is *a maintainer*, *maintaining software*, how much time should they expect to put in?
@evan I'm not entitled to anyone else's time or attention.
If I felt a project was not sufficiently maintained for my use case I would simply not use it.
What that threshold is has more to do with complexity, known bugs, etc.
But if I download some code someone wrote and put online for free, the author has no obligation to me, nor do I think they should.
If it mattered so much to me, I could offer to help - or fork the project.
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@evan I'm going to assume you mean the RFC 2119 definition of "should", in which case the poll is asking how much time is recommended for a maintainer to reserve in their schedule each month, and not how much time they are obligated to. I think reserving a day of slack in one's schedule to be able to spend 8 hours moving things along in the project as needed is probably a good idea, but different projects and different maintainers will have radically different needs and constraints.
@evan I say this, because the replies seem to indicate that many people are not assuming the RFC 2119 definition of "should", and are thus coming to a radically different interpretation of the poll question
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@tess If they put in zero hours, the software is unmaintained. They are no longer maintainers in that case. The question is about maintainers.
If someone is *a maintainer*, *maintaining software*, how much time should they expect to put in?
I wish I had a hard number on what I though it'd take "to be a maintainer"
"It depends" *feels* like a cop out, but:
- Is the code stable & well written?
- Or is it spaghetti code that just mostly runs?
- Is it a niche app? Or super-popular that everyone uses?
- Or does Russia *really* want data off one of your servers?The curve could easily go from negligible (0-5 hrs/week) to being 60 hrs+ for months
My work is 30-40hrs/week, but I'm still greenfield, not maintaining, sooo 🤷🏼♂️
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@TerryHancock @preinheimer @joergi so, does unmaintained software have maintainers?
And how about you switch the roles around? If you are deciding whether or not to become the maintainer of a piece of software, how much time should you plan to put into it?
https://chaos.social/@joergi/116054283810328140
@TerryHancock @preinheimerI think the problem is for most of the open-source projects, there is no big team.
or even there is a team of maintainers, but do they have the rights to push new releases without the owner? Trust is everything.To your question: it depends, how much you can offer? if you are single without kids or if you have a family. and that can switch. so, you aren't obliged to work on it. but the project owner is obliged to have a working team
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@evan I'm not entitled to anyone else's time or attention.
If I felt a project was not sufficiently maintained for my use case I would simply not use it.
What that threshold is has more to do with complexity, known bugs, etc.
But if I download some code someone wrote and put online for free, the author has no obligation to me, nor do I think they should.
If it mattered so much to me, I could offer to help - or fork the project.
-
@evan I'm not entitled to anyone else's time or attention.
If I felt a project was not sufficiently maintained for my use case I would simply not use it.
What that threshold is has more to do with complexity, known bugs, etc.
But if I download some code someone wrote and put online for free, the author has no obligation to me, nor do I think they should.
If it mattered so much to me, I could offer to help - or fork the project.
@evan if you're asking how much time you would have to spend to be able to *call yourself* a maintainer, the answer is probably "more than a random sample of your software's users".
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@fbartho so, how easy is easy as possible? Is there some nonzero effort?
Is recognizing the real requirements for maintaining Open Source software more respectful than just saying "any time, it doesn't matter," but not really meaning it?
@evan There are social expectations that people have for how to be careful and neighborly.
Encoding those as laws/rules is challenging & leads to HOAs and spite-houses & stumbles across individual norms and environmental factors.I maintain open-source; I /volunteer/ my time & energy as a service.
Corporations are amoral entities with large financial power. And tend to operate w/rules designed to discourage civic engagement & reward exploitative behavior. They should be forced to contribute.
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https://chaos.social/@joergi/116054283810328140
@TerryHancock @preinheimerI think the problem is for most of the open-source projects, there is no big team.
or even there is a team of maintainers, but do they have the rights to push new releases without the owner? Trust is everything.To your question: it depends, how much you can offer? if you are single without kids or if you have a family. and that can switch. so, you aren't obliged to work on it. but the project owner is obliged to have a working team
@evan
and I'm not talking about very small projects.
it also depends what the project is.
If you fail in it, what will happen with the people who uses your project?Will there life goes on without it?
"with great power comes great responsibility"....and you should have a team, a bus can hit you and the project (your legacy) is unmaintained forever.
So, I still stand with my first answer: as much as you want and as long as it's healthy.
+ GET A TEAM ;-) -
@evan I say this, because the replies seem to indicate that many people are not assuming the RFC 2119 definition of "should", and are thus coming to a radically different interpretation of the poll question
@aeva thank you so much for this answer! It really means a lot to me.
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@aeva thank you so much for this answer! It really means a lot to me.
@aeva I think there's an interesting part of your answer. There's a minimum amount of time just to deal with dependency changes, triage bugs and hopefully fix some. But doing that minimum is probably not sustainable -- it probably means you're losing interest in the project. Having a little more time for new features, refactors, and so on is probably better for the long term.
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@evan I'm going to assume you mean the RFC 2119 definition of "should", in which case the poll is asking how much time is recommended for a maintainer to reserve in their schedule each month, and not how much time they are obligated to. I think reserving a day of slack in one's schedule to be able to spend 8 hours moving things along in the project as needed is probably a good idea, but different projects and different maintainers will have radically different needs and constraints.
@aeva I don't think your interpretation of RFC 2119 SHOULD is correct. RFC 2119 SHOULD basically means "MUST, unless you have a really good reason."
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@evan if you're asking how much time you would have to spend to be able to *call yourself* a maintainer, the answer is probably "more than a random sample of your software's users".
@tess I'm actually asking a real question about the craft.
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@evan
and I'm not talking about very small projects.
it also depends what the project is.
If you fail in it, what will happen with the people who uses your project?Will there life goes on without it?
"with great power comes great responsibility"....and you should have a team, a bus can hit you and the project (your legacy) is unmaintained forever.
So, I still stand with my first answer: as much as you want and as long as it's healthy.
+ GET A TEAM ;-)@evan
and tbh: yes it drives me crazy, if I see that the main maintainer of a project I use is not releasing new software, even they promised it, and prefer working on their new project. It drives me nuts, but it's their right to do.Hopefully there will be a bigger team at one point, so the complete project is not relying on one person (who did a great job so far).
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I wish I had a hard number on what I though it'd take "to be a maintainer"
"It depends" *feels* like a cop out, but:
- Is the code stable & well written?
- Or is it spaghetti code that just mostly runs?
- Is it a niche app? Or super-popular that everyone uses?
- Or does Russia *really* want data off one of your servers?The curve could easily go from negligible (0-5 hrs/week) to being 60 hrs+ for months
My work is 30-40hrs/week, but I'm still greenfield, not maintaining, sooo 🤷🏼♂️
@benpate @tess it's probably fair to pick a minimum number, although @aeva rightly pointed out that your motivation is going to flag if you never make any progress whatsoever.
So, regular review of security reports, bug triage, dependency and platform updates, that kind of thing are probably the minimum for "this software is not unmaintained".
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@tony so, how much time do you think it takes for maintainers to keep software in a state where it still works for you?
The amount of time and expertise an Open Source project needs is not coupled to the amount of time an unpaid, volunteer maintainer should dedicate to it.
Conversely, an unpaid, volunteer maintainer has no obligation to dedicate any particular amount of time to an Open Source project.
Perhaps it takes more time to maintain a project to my satisfaction than any maintainer is willing to dedicate to it. If so, I'll be disappointed. I'm used to it.
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@aeva I don't think your interpretation of RFC 2119 SHOULD is correct. RFC 2119 SHOULD basically means "MUST, unless you have a really good reason."
@hober I think I would prefer to defer to the hypothetical maintainer as to whether or not they might have a really good reason to put aside volunteer work for a month
[a sock puppet with a little shirt that says "hypothetical maintainer" on it rises up from the bottom of the screen] child care! personal emergency! health crisis! fascist goons kidnapping your neighbors!
thank you hypothetical maintainer, that was very informative.
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