OSS maintainer manifesto, visual design rules and open source is not a community
21 May 2024Open source maintainer manifesto
This is a manifesto that one OSS maintainer has written in an attempt to head off questions like “Is this project still maintained?”. It’s obviously not suitable for every project but it’s a funny read with a basic stance of “I don’t owe you anything, but you’re welcome to hack on it yourself in a fork”.
Article: https://www.hezmatt.org/~mpalmer/blog/2024/05/14/is-this-project-still-maintained.html
Visual design rules
This is not a cheer from a visual design pep rally, it’s just a list of rules one can follow to make visuals attractive. This one has an example for each and I found a careful read-through enlightening. I’ve always been interested in visual design but have never felt particularly gifted at it. I’m a big fan of trying to offset that lack of artistic gift with well-studied skill.
Article: https://anthonyhobday.com/sideprojects/saferules/
Open source is neither community now democracy
This shares a similar vein as the above manifesto. The primary argument here is that open source is a tool for collaboration, not a policy for decision-making.
Article: https://world.hey.com/dhh/open-source-is-neither-a-community-nor-a-democracy-606abdab