Just Keep Swimming: Don't drown in your open source project!
summary
Panelists diagnose maintainer burnout and give concrete fixes: carve one hour a day for OSS, say no to large unsolicited features, use issue templates and request reproducible steps, and close stale issues after basic triage. Companies can allocate paid time for upstream work; incubate org-specific code slowly and make it generic. Prioritize changelogs and documentation over a rigid roadmap, delegate or rotate maintainers, and accept that some projects need stepping back rather than perfect policing of the issue queue.
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chapters (11)
- 0:00Introduction to open source
- 3:54Juggling work and open source
- 7:29Balancing personal life and projects
- 13:59Turning company code into open source
- 18:12Launching and growing projects
- 21:00Handling issue queues effectively
- 26:19Maintainer responsibilities and boundaries
- 28:50Keeping open source fun
- 33:07Burnout prevention and self-care
- 37:00Roadmaps and project management
- 40:11Why continue open source work
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41mContributor Growth Strategies for OSS Projects
14mWhat can we do to make Open Source more sustainable?
36mThe Feedback Loop: Growing healthy open source projects
