How much time per month should an unpaid volunteer maintainer dedicate to an Open Source project?

[evan@cosocial.ca]

@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?

[tony@toot.hoyle.me.uk]

@evan How long is a piece of string? I've worked on stuff that I could poke once a month to see if anyone had any issues.. Big projects are sometimes run like commercial entities with multiple maintainers. And all points in between.

But they're not maintaining software in a state where it works for me.. it's not about me.. They're doing it because they want to, and I (and many others) happen to benefit from that.

[evan@cosocial.ca]

@larsmb @tony it's not my fault that you didn't think about the question very hard.

Is your software Open Source?

[larsmb@mastodon.online]

@evan Well, if that's the standard for what "should" means in the original question, then yes, exactly however much they feel like:

Here, “should” means the extent to which actions are good for the actor mentally and physically, [...]

That's all I expect from unpaid people who've made no commitment to me. Open Source is big on the "no warranty" part.

[joergi@chaos.social]

@dannycolin
yes - and no.

if you are the programmer of CURL where the complete internet relies on, or some similar project, you have a responsibility - but tbh, something like that should not be unpaid. so the problem is somewhere else tbh

@evan @preinheimer

[larsmb@mastodon.online]

@evan @tony I stopped reading at the ad hominem attack, have fun!

[evan@cosocial.ca]

@tony why do they want to? At least in part for it to be useful, for at least some developers, right?

[evan@cosocial.ca]

@joergi @dannycolin @preinheimer I know that `npm` has a feature where you can mark a package as deprecated or unmaintained. I think there are other systems for doing this.

[evan@cosocial.ca]

@malwareminigun the question is, how much is "very little"?

[malwareminigun@infosec.exchange]

@evan Unknowable. Depends entirely on what the specific thing is.

[ted@social.gould.cx]

@evan as much as they want, they're unpaid.

[terryhancock@realsocial.life]

@evan @preinheimer @joergi

The health of the project is really a separate question. If you don't trust it, that's YOUR problem.

Either you offer to pay them 💰 or you... ahem... fork off. 😅

Free software is the proverbial gift horse. You want to look at the teeth, you need to pony up the cash.

IMHO. 🤨

[fbartho@mastodon.social]

@evan SHOULD is a really heavy word, especially around “unpaid”.

I want it to be easy and possible for devs to maintain OSS.
I want it to be the norm & a cultural value that it happens.

Private companies should sponsor more OSS maintenance to make it easier and more possible for more people.

[txtx@mastodon.social]

@evan Zero to ~150 hours.

Beyond 150ish hours is of course possible, but I believe adequate sleep and rest should be had for obvious reasons.

[evan@cosocial.ca]

@ted so, what are the consequences of not putting any time into things?

Is getting paid the only reason people do things?

Why do developers make and maintain Open Source software, anyway?

Could they have different goals? How much time should they put into the project to achieve those different goals?

[evan@cosocial.ca]

@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?

[malte@radikal.social]

@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.

[evan@cosocial.ca]

@txtx you could go all the way to 744, or even a few more if you're willing to do some travel across timezones at the beginning and end of the month.

[ted@social.gould.cx]

@evan if they don't the project won't be as good, and that's okay, it's a hobby.

It's not the only reason people do things, by far, but it is the only way you can rely on someone to do something. Else, it's up to them.

Generally speaking I'd say if you want to have a great OSS project, you need to put time into it, but that may not be their goal. It may be to publish an idea, to learn a library or programming language, etc.

Maintenance is hard work.

[evan@cosocial.ca]

@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?