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   Dana Fried (tess@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 12-Feb-2026 08:16:34 JST Dana Fried

   • Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸

   @evan zero

   They may spend as much as they like, of course, but they are under zero moral or ethical obligation.

   • Embed this notice
     Dana Fried (tess@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 12-Feb-2026 08:41:47 JST Dana Fried

     • Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸

     @evan I'm not entitled to anyone else's time or attention.

     If I felt a project was not sufficiently maintained for my use case I would simply not use it.

     What that threshold is has more to do with complexity, known bugs, etc.

     But if I download some code someone wrote and put online for free, the author has no obligation to me, nor do I think they should.

     If it mattered so much to me, I could offer to help - or fork the project.

   • Embed this notice
     Dana Fried (tess@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 12-Feb-2026 08:41:47 JST Dana Fried

     in reply to

     • Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸

     @evan if you're asking how much time you would have to spend to be able to *call yourself* a maintainer, the answer is probably "more than a random sample of your software's users".

   • Embed this notice
     Ben Pate 🤘🏻 (benpate@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 12-Feb-2026 08:47:44 JST Ben Pate 🤘🏻

     • Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸

     @evan @tess

     I wish I had a hard number on what I though it'd take "to be a maintainer"

     "It depends" *feels* like a cop out, but:

     - Is the code stable & well written?
     - Or is it spaghetti code that just mostly runs?
     - Is it a niche app? Or super-popular that everyone uses?
     - Or does Russia *really* want data off one of your servers?

     The curve could easily go from negligible (0-5 hrs/week) to being 60 hrs+ for months

     My work is 30-40hrs/week, but I'm still greenfield, not maintaining, sooo 🤷🏼♂️

   • Embed this notice
     Dana Fried (tess@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 12-Feb-2026 09:16:42 JST Dana Fried

     • Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸

     @evan I'm genuinely confused as to what the question is.

     Is it about taking credit as a maintainer?

     Is it about being counted among other maintainers who contribute more time?

     Is it about when to deem a project unmaintained?

     Is it about when to donate vs. volunteer vs. fork?

     Is it about something else?

     There is no craft. We are not union; we do not have a trade association or certification board. We're just people who write code and put it online.

     Nobody is obliged to work for free.

   • Embed this notice
     Dana Fried (tess@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 12-Feb-2026 09:21:47 JST Dana Fried

     in reply to

     • Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸

     @evan

     Say I have a moment in my life when I have a bunch of free time and I create something cool and put it on github.

     Say a bunch of people think this is awesome and add it as a dependency for their projects. Maybe a few bigcorps decide to use it.

     Then say I get a different job, or have kids, or get sick, or just get bored or tired.

     And now everyone is emailing me, "when are you gonna fix X?"

     My response is either gonna be "tough luck" or "pay me".

   • Embed this notice
     Dana Fried (tess@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 12-Feb-2026 09:27:23 JST Dana Fried

     in reply to

     • Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸

     @evan

     And this is where I differ:

     "the question is a practical one for Open Source volunteers"

     No, it is a practical one for established OSS projects, or those looking to take on volunteer maintainers.

     The community sets the standard, not the individual.

     The individual can choose to abide by the standards of the community or not, and there may or may not be consequences within the community.

   • Embed this notice
     Dana Fried (tess@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 12-Feb-2026 09:27:24 JST Dana Fried

     • Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸

     @evan

     So that's a completely different question.

     If you're *applying* to be a volunteer maintainer *on an existing project you do not own*, then obviously, there will be expectations set by the existing community, which will be different for every single project.

     For reference: I write primarily OSS software, but I do it professionally. So, naturally, my employer sets the expectations for my contribution.