Working in Public

• a [[book]]
  • by [[nayafia]]
    • https://twitter.com/nayafia/status/1273304859387719680 pull
  • [[subtitle]] "the making and maintenance of [[open source]] software"
  • [[go]] https://www.amazon.com/Working-Public-Making-Maintenance-Software/dp/0578675862
  • [[club]] https://lu.ma/t2rcivwh

Notes

Introduction

• "until recently, information was good, and more information was better."
• there is a [[disconnect]] between how we think open source works and "what is actually happening on the ground today".
  • most succesful projects have very few core contributors; many have only one, the maintainer
  • "in more than 85% of the open source projects the researchers examined on [[github]], less than 5% of developers were responsible for over 95% of code and social interactions"
  • i.e. the [[1% rule]] or 90-9-1 rule applies to open source
• "over the last twenty years, open sourc einexplicably skewed from a collaborative to a solo endeavor"
  • "open source helps us understand why our online world didn't avolve the way that early scholars predicted"
  • "if creators, rather than communities, are poised to bcome the epicenters of our online social systems, we need a much better understanding of how they work"

Part 1: How people make

1. Github as a platform

• An aside: this chapter reads a bit like a [[github]] commercial and I'm not sure I like that.
• GNU and the [[free software]] movement are mentioned relatively in passing.
• But overall this chapter read as a dismissal of past movements; I have to admit I ended up with the feeling she was selling them short.
  • "[[Hackers]] are characterized by bravado, showmanship, misechievousness, and a deep mistrust of authority. Hacker culture still lives on today, in the way that beatniks, hippies, and Marxists still exist, but hackers don't capture the software cultural zeitgeist in the same way they used to."
• She follows [[steven levy]].
• She lists [[rms]], [[esr]], [[linux torvalds]] in the same paragraph. She dedicates two paragraphs to expanding on each.
  • Personally I don't think [[esr]] is on the same level as the other two, although I respect him. I think he probably would agree?
  • She mentions [[sex tips for geeks]], which I think just painted a blurred picture.

2. The structure of an open source project

3. Roles, incentives, and relationships

Part 2: How people maintain

4. The work required by software

5. Managing the costs of production

Conclusion

Credits

Notes

Working in public

A concept I guess, but mainly [[Nadia Eghbal]]'s book, on the topics of [[free software governance]] and [[Free software economics]].

Reviews

• Working in public

[https://1lib.us/dl/11775129/7c54b5 book]