Open source does not imply open community

Source: Hacker News

Early Open‑Source Practices

Open source software has existed long before the invention of the (D)VCS.
The author likely hosted a bare‑bones HTML page or a plain‑text file describing the project. There was probably an FTP server somewhere with tarballs, and the author may have been reachable by email. If you were lucky, a mailing list existed for announcements and discussion, and perhaps an unofficial IRC channel under the software’s name.

This was and still is open source.

No formal “community”, no politics, no Code of Conduct, no pull requests or issues, no wiki, no core team.

Later, sites like SourceForge provided CVS/SVN hosting and mailing lists for essentially “free”, making it easier to build in the open. The rise of DVCS tools—most notably Git—led to a convergence on GitHub.

GitHub turned much of open source into an unpaid job for maintainers. Contributors now deal with tickets, meetings, roadmaps, office politics, deadlines, metrics, KPIs, stand‑ups, one‑on‑ones, Agile or Waterfall processes, and a constant stream of notifications, issues, and pull requests. A “community” often emerges that maintainers feel responsible for, even if they never signed up for it. This can lead to burnout and a loss of control over one’s own project.

It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way

Some projects are so large and complex that they require a team, but that is the exception, not the rule.

If you’re frustrated by the influx of new contributors and AI bots, consider returning to simpler practices:

• Turn off the issue tracker and pull‑request system, or deploy a bare Git server for releases.
• Work with a small, trusted group of collaborators, or go solo.
• Do not feel obligated to allow strangers into your space.
• Skip performative Code of Conducts or LLM policies if they don’t serve your project.

Open source does not need to be developed openly to be “open source”. Write code, build things you enjoy, and use any tools you prefer—whether that means committing at 2 am on Christmas Day or any other schedule that works for you. Avoid turning your project into a half‑tech incubator, half‑daycare for people lacking social skills.