How much time per month should an unpaid volunteer maintainer dedicate to an Open Source project?
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@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.
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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.
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@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.
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@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.
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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. 🤨
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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.
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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.
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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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@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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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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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.
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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 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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@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
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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 who's using the project? am i in a hurry to get it finished for some reason or is this a hobby project? do i have the tools in place or are their restraints on when i can get them and use them? am i doing this full-time or part-time? do i have other stuff going on?
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@evan I'm choosing "4 hours or less", not because the volunteer should work less but because they should be paid more (i.e. at all) 🙃
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@evan if I decide tomorrow to stop working on any OSS I’ve ever done as either a contributor or creator that’s…. Totally fine. I’ve never promised anything else.
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@evan what do you mean done? Anyone can be done whenever they want. The project has no obligation the maintainers have no obligation the community has no obligation. I’m sorry I don’t understand what you’re asking.
