How much time per month should an unpaid volunteer maintainer dedicate to an Open Source project?
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So that's a completely different question.
If you're *applying* to be a volunteer maintainer *on an existing project you do not own*, then obviously, there will be expectations set by the existing community, which will be different for every single project.
For reference: I write primarily OSS software, but I do it professionally. So, naturally, my employer sets the expectations for my contribution.
And this is where I differ:
"the question is a practical one for Open Source volunteers"
No, it is a practical one for established OSS projects, or those looking to take on volunteer maintainers.
The community sets the standard, not the individual.
The individual can choose to abide by the standards of the community or not, and there may or may not be consequences within the community.
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@shtrom so, if it's not because they owe somebody something, why do volunteer maintainers do the work in the first place? And if they do have a goal, how much time do they have to put in to reach it? Are there different amounts of time for different goals?
@evan I'd say so. Depends on the size of the goal and the importance to the contributor. Definitely not one-size-fits-all there (:
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Say I have a moment in my life when I have a bunch of free time and I create something cool and put it on github.
Say a bunch of people think this is awesome and add it as a dependency for their projects. Maybe a few bigcorps decide to use it.
Then say I get a different job, or have kids, or get sick, or just get bored or tired.
And now everyone is emailing me, "when are you gonna fix X?"
My response is either gonna be "tough luck" or "pay me".
@tess right, and at some point you are not maintaining the software.
It's not about whether people have a right to demand that you do the job. The question is about how much time the job takes.
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And this is where I differ:
"the question is a practical one for Open Source volunteers"
No, it is a practical one for established OSS projects, or those looking to take on volunteer maintainers.
The community sets the standard, not the individual.
The individual can choose to abide by the standards of the community or not, and there may or may not be consequences within the community.
@tess if you don't think the question has an answer, feel free to skip it.
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@tess right, and at some point you are not maintaining the software.
It's not about whether people have a right to demand that you do the job. The question is about how much time the job takes.
@evan okay so you are asking about when one should deem a project "unmaintained".
Depends entirely on the project.
Also while you are centering project volunteers, the judgment is one that necessarily must be made by downstream users, not by the alleged maintainers.
(Though it's fine and helpful to say "hey this project is now unmaintained, just FYI".)
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@evan as much as they want, that’s the whole point of volunteering
@mitchellh cool. So, can I have admin access to all your repos? I can't commit to any amount of time, but I still want to be a maintainer. I'm evanp on GitHub.
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no pressure. not every day's a winner 😎
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@aeva yeah nah it was from an instance of 4 users, none of which i knew, and only found cuz a friend of a friend boosted a post asking about "which open source chat apps do you use and have experience with"
the account hated my use of software enough to then make other posts about it complaining about like, me? indirectly?
the pettiness amuses me, so for me it was good
i just hope no one on my homeserver followed any of those 4 accounts
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@det it sounds like you didn't really lose anything from it at least
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@aeva well, i got my entire homeserver defederated from someone else's homeserver
...for using software they dislike
so that was something fun for me to laugh about for a bit
...but thats also not very traditionally "good", so
maybe not what youre looking for
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anything good happen today
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@molly0xfff thoughtful of them
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Current* conditions near Vermilion, OH:
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@molly0xfff It’s worth a shot.
