HN Books @HNBooksMonth

I will take this opportunity to mention Nadia Eghbal's book covering her work researching open source projects & communities. Super relevant:

https://www.amazon.com/Working-Public-Making-Maintenance-Sof...

I heard her on a podcast[1] talking about her book Work in Public[2] and loved it, is that the work and writing you're referencing?

If not, are there other pieces you'd recommend?

[1]: https://a16z.com/2020/08/01/working-in-public-communities-op... [2]: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0578675862/

⬐ di4na

Her first big piece on this was https://www.fordfoundation.org/work/learning/research-report... which i still find better than the book at making the point.

Wow, that sounds extremely useful! I haven't contributed to any FOSS projects in a meaningful way (yet), but I imagine that lots of potential contributors spend an inordinate amount of time trying to familiarize themselves with structure, conventions, and how everything fits together. Having all of that information in one, well-documented place could definitely help with getting up to speed/creating a mental model for the project faster.

On a semi-related front, I'm also interested in lowering the threshold for participation in FOSS projects, but I approached things from the lens of helping potential contributors better grok/intuit the social/organizational structure of a project. To that end, I made small badges that projects can add to their READMEs to indicate, to a rough approximation, what "type" of project they are[0]. The project types are described in a really interesting book called Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software[1] by Nadia Eghbal.

[0]: https://project-types.github.io/ [1]: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0578675862/

https://www.amazon.com/Working-Public-Making-Maintenance-Sof...

⬐ TaylorAlexander

Great! Ordered. Thank you!

⬐ submeta

Thank you for the book suggestion. It was recommended by Guido van Rossum recently: https://twitter.com/gvanrossum/status/1297043394712092672

⬐ philips

I am only about 30 pages into my copy. I think this book has a strong potential to move the discussion on how and why open source works forward and the analysis thus far reflects many of my personal anecdotes as an OSS developer beginning my career in the Kernel and moving to GitHub style projects.

So far I think this book does an excellent job:

- Summarizing why the popular analysis of “OSS developers feel overwhelmed because they need more maintainers helping”. Spoiler: it is unlikely that more maintainers or even money is really what most developers need.

- Why the values and interests of the GitHub generation of OSS development is different than the Linux Kernel or FSF eras that proceeded it.

- A brief introduction to the personalities and movements that have formed OSS development so far.

⬐ an_opabinia

> Spoiler: it is unlikely that more maintainers or even money is really what most developers need.

That's totally and utterly implausible. It seems so far off the mark that it couldn't be what the book says.

⬐ lifeisstillgood

>>> Spoiler: it is unlikely that more maintainers or even money is really what most developers need.

So what is it ? :-)

⬐ captain_price7

Fame, bragging rights, catching attention of potential recruiters....

⬐ exolymph

Nadia's website, the portal to her wonderful mind and work: https://nadiaeghbal.com/

⬐ ofou

The fact that is exactly 256 pages to read, makes it congruent to the source code.

⬐ koolba

Yes but are the page numbers zero origin?

⬐ m463

  for page in enumerate(pages,start=xiv):
    page.read()

⬐ biztos

There is a very interesting interview with the author on the A16Z podcast, I listened to it today and felt like I learned a few things:

https://a16z.com/2020/08/01/working-in-public-communities-op...

⬐ peterdemin

Isn’t it ironic to have this book on Amazon?

⬐ xwdv

Frankly if it wasn’t on Amazon I’d write it off as some self published indie dev trash. Instead I ordered a copy damn near instantly.

⬐ Kednicma

Surely you mean that if it were not on Amazon, then you would have written it off. The subjunctive mood is important when considering counterfactual possibilities.

⬐ Polylactic_acid

Thats very illogical since there is no acceptance criteria or review of books on Amazon.

⬐ disposedtrolley

I guess it's good for distribution. I live in Australia and I'm more inclined to purchase these books since I get free international shipping via Prime.

But being the _only_ distribution channel? Probably not the best!

⬐ cinntaile

It's not even available on the international Amazon websites. If you want the physical book, the only option seems to be to pay the extra shipping costs and import taxes to get it shipped from the US. Hopefully this is just temporary.

⬐ nogabebop23

This is still the case for many of the stripe press books I would like to purchase. Not available in Canada so looking at very expensive shipping and import duties.

⬐ disposedtrolley

Seems to be available on the Australian site (albeit shipped from the US). I usually just find something else to buy to reach the $49 free shipping threshold.

https://www.amazon.com.au/Working-Public-Making-Maintenance-...

⬐ LiJiansheng

It is highly recommended ！ As a non developer/engineer , Nadia has a very different view for open source. Just like her last paper "Roads and Bridges: The Unseen Labor Behind Our Digital Infrastructure"[0], "Working in Public" is great work again.

[0] https://www.fordfoundation.org/work/learning/research-report...

⬐ mifeng

Modern open source projects, like all organizations, need to have an underlying business model to be sustainable.

I'm with an open source crypto trading bot project (https://github.com/coinalpha/hummingbot). Our business model is to give away the tool for free and get paid by the exchanges and protocols that benefit from our users' collective trading activity. It's still early, but this model works; it allows us to staff a growing engineering team as well as 24/7 tech support for our users.

⬐ Polylactic_acid

Nice advert

⬐ feross

I read a pre-print of this book and I can't recommend it highly enough. Nadia has spent more time than almost anyone thinking about open source software and how it gets maintained. You couldn't hope for a better guide through the topic than the author of "Roads and Bridges: The Unseen Labor Behind Our Digital Infrastructure" [1], the report that changed the whole conversation on open source funding. On top of that, the quality and design of the book is top-notch. Stripe Press did an amazing job -- it's totally gorgeous.

[1] https://www.fordfoundation.org/work/learning/research-report...