Open Source Must Be Fun (Or It Will Die)

I was on a call with a bunch of people involved in other prominent open source projects a few weeks ago. The organiser jokingly asked us to raise our hands if the previous six months had been better than what came before. I raised my hand. No one else did. Why? I’ve maintained Homebrew, the package manager for everywhere, for nearly 17 years. I’ve worked on it the vast majority of weeks in that time and I’ve never burned out. I’m having more fun than ever. The current narrative around open source is depressing. Apparently it’s “dying”. AI drive-by issues, pull requests and security reports are overwhelming maintainers. Rising security expectations (thanks Mythos) require maintainers to do even more work. Open source funding is hard to secure and insufficient. Some of this is happening, but I’m sure as hell not seeing it in Homebrew. Another Homebrew maintainer told me: I’m having more fun than ever before. 💎 The Scarcest Resource As I’ve written before, the scarcest resource in open…