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"The Hard Parts of Open Source" by Evan Czaplicki

Strange Loop Conference · 50.2K views · 2018-10-11 · 47:16

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Overview

Evan Czaplicki, creator of Elm, discusses the hard parts of running an open source project: online community conflict, why its patterns arise, and a cultural history of open source. He offers ideas for more civil, productive communication.

On Hacker News

HN recommends it as an insightful look at the people side of open source maintenance, especially in Elm and maintainer-burnout threads.

Recommended by 8 HN people across 6 months · HN mentions 2018–2021

Topics

Software practice, open source & careersHacker culture & free software
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open sourceelmmaintainersonline communitiesstrange loop

What people said

spicyusername · 2021-02 · Strong recommendation

For those interested in hearing about Elm creator Evan Czaplicki's experiences with developing open source software and the complexities of internet social dynamics, there is an exceptional talk 'The Hard Parts of Open Source Software'. [VIDEO] Regardless of whether you agree with his approach to developing a programming language, it is a talk worth listening to. Very insightful.

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GolDDranks · 2018-10 · Strong recommendation

I enjoyed "The Hard Parts of Open Source" by Evan Czaplicki (the creator of the Elm programming language) a lot. [VIDEO] It's not a talk about technology, but it's a talk on people _in_ technology. As an open source enthusiast, I found the discussion very important, especially in context where we easily tend to be distracted by technical details.

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allenu · 2020-11 · Recommendation

There's a great Strange Loop talk by Evan Czaplicki (of Elm fame) where he alludes to the challenges of maintaining an open source project.[1] In it he describes how feedback often starts as an innocuous "Why don't you just...?" where the person making the request doesn't have the full understanding of the system as a whole and may see their request as a simple one-off that can be done quickly. To answer them fully, the open source maintainer has to respond with a long explanation of why their suggestion isn't an option. Or, maybe they don't respond and now the original poster doesn't feel the community is supporting them. This asymmetry can lead to poor communication in the community. I've been working on an app and was reading about the pros and cons of going freemium vs. pay up-front. I was surprised to read that people suggested the pay model is better for indie devs because with free, you'll have more users, but you'll also get worse feedback from the free users. Maybe there's a correlation between seeing something as free and feeling that the work behind it is trivial? [1] [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by Strange Loop Conference, played through YouTube.

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