Today, we have special guest. Nadia Eghbal, a writer and researcher, works for Substack, and has a new book out which we will be talking about today! We discuss Nadia’s book, what it’s all about, why she wrote it, and why Eric refers to it as the “Open Source Bible.” She also talks about the report she did called, “Roads and Bridges,” published by the Ford Foundation. Find out why she has been called the “Open Source Archaeologist.”
The link isn’t working for me. If you are experiencing the same issue here is the episode:
I just finished Working in Public, and listened to the podcast, and I wonder if there are other places where people in this network have been discussing this book.
I’m thinking about my experiences at SustainOSS events – the breadth of examples and ideas about how open source projects can develop creative means of coping with their dilemmas – and it seems like Nadia concluded her work on the topic by taking a hard right turn away from it all. I don’t really have personal experience as an OSS developer, and I respect the breadth of research that she was able to pull together, so I don’t necessarily trust my own instincts on this. But I do trust Sumana, who had more or less my same reaction. And I’m wondering what others in this community think…
I think I agree with you, Gregg. I am going to reread it with that perspective in mind. Would you be interested in talking about this on a call in a few weeks?
Yeah I’d be glad to discuss further. I’m eager to hear the perspectives of others in this community, because it seems to me that her conclusion was basically: ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Me too. Does anyone else have this take?
Especially since she had such a strong start and single-handedly brought quite an attention to the problem, I was also disappointed after reading the book. A missed opportunity 
So, I don’t have much positive to say about the book, but I’d love to join the call, at least to catch up with you two.
I liked the book. She gave names to things that people are struggling with in maintaining OSS software.
I don’t agree with all of her conclusions, but I do think we need a more sustainable way to nurture new contributors that go beyond a “Contributor Day” or Hacktoberfest.
I agree that the book describes some problems in ways that I found helpful. Though I’m not sure that diagnosis went much deeper than Roads and Bridges and other preceding work. Meanwhile, the willful choice to focus exclusively on the perspective of individuals – vs group decision-making and institutions – left me feeling that even the problems were incompletely diagnosed.
And her conclusion about the challenge of sustainably nurturing new contributors seemed to be… maybe don’t bother?? At several points, the text dismisses entire possibilities – of public investment, of software foundations, and of communities themselves – out of hand.
I’m wondering how much of this perspective others in this community with more experience in OSS development share: do you think prospects of “institutional design” and community development are not actually good fits for this purpose? That really the best path through the struggles of the Github era is just for Github to make its platform more rewarding for individual “star” developers?
I didn’t read Roads and Bridges. It’s on my list.
I found Nadia’s focus on outlining the challenges of nurturing new contributors to be refreshing. The way we onboard new contributors is opaque and problematic for all parties involved. New contributors aren’t mentored properly and aren’t clear about the invisible hierarchy that many of these projects have. Many contributors are overwhelmed with maintaining their projects and mentoring a slew of newbies.
I think a deeper look into public investment is wise. Expecting a new batch of senior engineers to periodically help out with a project is unrealistic. Open source communities have to become more strategic on how they interface with local, federal, and international governing bodies.
There are plenty of grants that open source projects are eligible for, but it’s up to these projects to find these grants and apply for them. Here’s a list of grants and funding programs that could potentially fund open source projects.
Note: This list includes primarily American grants, but many of these programs also accept international applications
One of the core claims (maybe THE core claim?) of Working in Public is that the notion of OSS sustainability-through-community is futile or even counterproductive, because most contributions are made by lone talented individuals – so the real sustainability question is how to promote the talents of these individuals (and insulate them from the burden of drag from user requests and unskilled volunteer contributions).
I’m currently listening to Silona Bonewald on the SustainOSS podcast – at around 23 min in, she calls this out as a myth – “a load of crap.” She does acknowledge that one could draw this conclusion just from looking at Github metrics – because those measurement systems are inherently biased to this individualization. Whereas she says there are few ways to give credit (or even see) other kinds of valuable contributions. She goes on to describe kinds of participation pathways and governance possibilities and incentive frameworks that, frankly, I expected to read about in Eghbal’s book.
So am I right that Eghbal’s and Sonewald’s claims are directly in conflict? And if so, which side of this disagreement do people in this community fall upon?