Too much time on your hands

What if the main thing your FOSS project needed was that you work less on it? It has definitely been the case for me, and I think I am not the only one.

We regularly hear stories of heroic volunteer open source maintainers single-handedly sustaining critical cornerstones of our digital infrastructure. We often hear how those selfless workers have been in that position for decades, tirelessly fixing bugs after work in late night hacking sessions. Many of them are role models in our movement. They define what it is to be successful as a FOSS maintainer.

Without disputing the effort and skill that it takes to reach such a position, I want to explore a few reasons why your projects might actually be better off if your time was somewhat more scarce. Of course, situations vary, but I think this applies to a lot of projects, large and small.

It feels quite ironic for me to write such advice, since I routinely fail to follow it, but ridicule doesn’t kill, so let’s dive right in!

Making space for other contributors

Here I’m assuming that you are interested in having more contributors in your project, which is not necessarily a given.

There isn’t really a reason for someone to get involved in your project if you are consistently doing what needs to be done there. The speed at which you tackle issues might be too low to your taste, but from the outside of the project it probably still looks like you are managing pretty well.

When considering whether to tackle an issue yourself, it’s worth pondering whether it might be worth leaving it to others. If an issue isn’t critical, is relatable and is technically approachable for someone not too familiar with the project, then it’s likely a good candidate to be used as “contributor bait”. Make it clear that you support the issue being solved, that you don’t have capacity to work on it yourself and that you welcome contributions on it.

Onboarding contributors is work, of course. Reviewing someone’s contribution on that issue might take you more time than solving it yourself. It is rare that contributors stick around, but when they do, the “return on investment” of your time can be considerable. If you consider this a waste of your time, then it is going to be hard to build a community around your project.

By restricting the time you spend on a project that you care about, your own interest in onboarding other contributors might increase, helping you to focus your energy on that, instead of on tackling issues yourself.

Even if you have already onboarded other contributors, the fact that they have less time available for working on your common project can constitute a significant power imbalance. This is a known issue of do-ocracies, a governance style widespread in FOSS.

Adjusting priorities

One symptom that you might have too much time on your hands is when you develop the Not Invented Here syndrome. Say you decide to make your own localization system for your project, because clearly all the existing ones don’t match your standards. You’re not only investing time into that, but you are also increasing the maintenance load and making it harder for others to get acquainted with your project given that it uses non-standard tools.

Even if you don’t reinvent the wheel, being very particular about various aspects of your project that aren’t really critical (say, code formatting) is mostly about marking your own territory. Behind the facade of enforcing quality standards, you are primarily asserting your ownership of the project and demonstrating this power to other contributors. Is this nitpicking really a good use of your valuable time?

Mental and physical health

It sounds cliché, but even if you get a kick by working on those things, it’s probably healthy to have other hobbies too! I am neither a psychologist nor an occupational health expert, but it should be common sense, no? I feel it’s also easier to maintain an enthusiastic and friendly communication when not feeling too stretched. Intuitively, that should have quite some impact on your project too.

Personally, I notice that my productivity drops after prolongued work sessions. When I go offline for a week, I’m always surprised how little notifications I got when I come back and how well the internet has been able to cope without me. Including my FOSS projects.

Getting involved in more non-FOSS things is also a great way to inform your FOSS work by getting inspiration from other domains. By the way your local Aikido club is organized. By the chats with a random passer-by during an evening stroll. By the struggles with IT that you observe at the polling station during your local election. It’s hard to stay creative if you just evolve in the same online sphere full of likeminded people.

That’s all I can come up with for now, but maybe you have other ideas? Rotten tomatoes and pitchforks can be directed at this Mastodon post.