It's that time of year again: the Tidelift State of Open Maintainers report is out, based on a detailed survey of several hundred open source maintainers. There's a *lot* of information here—63 pages of results and analysis, including comparisons again...
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It's that time of year again: the Tidelift State of Open Maintainers report is out, based on a detailed survey of several hundred open source maintainers. There's a *lot* of information here—63 pages of results and analysis, including comparisons against our past reports.
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To be honest, there's a lot that is troubling here. Maintainers continue to be burnt out and underappreciated. We've now had multiple years of White House summits, and an entire EU legislative process, on FOSS security. And yet the same number of maintainers are building software without being paid to do it: about 60% of them. In no other part of the global economy do we expect volunteers to solve our problems—but apparently that's what we're doing here, now.
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As with everything else, xz has passed and gone in a flash—everyone in the industry read an email saying "I'm burnt out and unpaid, here are the keys to the kingdom". And yet our survey data suggests that, if anyone is trying to solve the problem, maintainers aren't seeing the solutions yet—the results on burnout and payment have fluctuated a bit from past years, but basically within the margins of error.
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Like, this chart is just grim.
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I don't love the implications of this chart either, to be honest. I wish we lived in a society where maintainers could do this sort of thing without being paid. But maintainers are humans just like the rest of us, with the same constraints: family, friends, life.
So when you give them money, it gives them time and flexibility—which they use to improve their projects in many different ways.
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@luis_in_brief As much as I think this work is important and represents a near-term crisis that NEEDS addressing—maintainers are burning out, aging out, and maintenance still needs to happen—I think there's an even worse longer-term issue that this all gestures at: what about the *creation* / research side of the equation? The development of *new* open source powered the tech economy for decades, and even if we maintain what we've got, do we just not make any more?
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@glyph that’s a great point and honestly not one I’ve given much thought to; I’m probably as guilty as anyone of the “have itch, will scratch” fallacy for the sorts of stuff we work with.
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@luis_in_brief it's hard to focus on anything else when the itch is so very, very itchy. But long-term I think focusing entirely on paying maintainers is likely to be a self-limiting strategy. It's the upmarket death spiral (innovator's dilemma, chapter 4) but for volunteering. The bulk of the work is always going to be in maintenance, almost by definition, but the bulk of the *excitement* is in new development.
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Esther Payne :bisexual_flag:replied to Glyph last edited by
Well one model that should be replicated outside Europe is @nlnet and the @NGIZero coalition.
The Next Generation Internet cascade funding through NLNet has funded existing projects and Founders starting on new ones.
The Openness of NLnets application process has made funding accessible to many folks.
That very funding is under threat.
@librecast wouldn't have started with out it, not would other very interesting projects.
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Esther Payne :bisexual_flag:replied to Esther Payne :bisexual_flag: last edited by
I've written a few things about NGI and FOSS sustainability. Be warned they aren't short.
https://onepict.com/20231103-5years.html
https://onepict.com/20240813-ecosystem.html
https://onepict.com/20240409-sustain.html